As one of the most decorated track cyclists of all time, Sir Chris Hoy might not seem an obvious candidate to back the burgeoning electric bike movement. The common refrain, after all, is that e-bikes aren’t real bikes.
However, the six-time Olympic gold medalist has done exactly that, investing in a fledgling U.K. startup that has built a click-on contraption that makes it easier to convert a pushbike to electric, and back again, with minimal fuss.
Skarper, as the company is called, has raised £12.8 million ($16.3 million) since its inception in 2020, with Hoy contributing to an early seed tranche. While the click-on e-bike system was originally mooted for a 2023 launch, the first production run only started going out last week to a few hundred people, with the remaining pre-orders set for the coming months.
TechCrunch chatted with Hoy as he took receipt of the first official Skarper delivery (an investor’s perk, for sure), to get his take on why this could be the next big thing in the world of e-bikes — even if you do prefer pure pedal-power, as someone of Hoy’s stature surely does.
“I’m probably not the kind of person you’d imagine would be an e-bike advocate, but once I tried my first e-bike years ago, I got it,” Hoy told TechCrunch. “When you see that you’re still cycling, you’re still using your body, but you’re getting that ‘invisible hand’ pushing you along, you get it. And you realize that for certain situations, you’d much rather ride on a pedal-assist bike than on a non-pedal assist bike.”
The benefits of electric bikes are well-understood. A commuter might not want to arrive at the office sodden with sweat, making motorized support for those uphill climbs an appealing proposition. There’s also the reduced environmental impact with zero emissions compared to other motorized transport, while e-bikes can also circumvent heavy traffic with aplomb, cutting through lines of cars, winding through parks and other spaces typically out-of-bounds to motorized vehicles.
And some people simply can’t get out and about on a fully self-propelled bike, be that due to their age or a health condition.
But not everyone wants to buy a dedicated e-bike, especially if they already have a bike. And this is where Skarper enters the fray.
‘Too good to be true’
Shortly before retiring from competitive cycling in 2013, Hoy actually launched his own range of bikes in partnership with U.K. retailer Evans. With that project put on hiatus, Hoy says he was already having thoughts about e-bikes before Skarper came along.
“I’ve been a big fan of e-bikes, and I was thinking about doing my own range,” Hoy said. “But I saw this, and thought: Why would I want to build an e-bike when this is the solution that you need?”
It was during a mid-pandemic Zoom chat with Skarper CEO Eon Brown and COO Uri Meirovich that Hoy was first introduced to the concept. He was presented with the idea of attaching a unit to a bike’s rear disk brake to make it electric, with the added kicker that it could be promptly removed.
“I’ve been there since the beginning — back then I was given a picture, an idea, and it seemed almost too good to be true,” Hoy said. “I thought how on Earth is it going to work, how are they going to deal with the heat, the vibrations, and generate enough power to propel the bike?”
This was one of Hoy’s big questions at the start — how was this going to work from a physical and structural standpoint? A standard bicycle isn’t built the same as a motorbike. And most other e-bike conversion kits on the market involve messing around with cabling and wiring, while they are often front-wheel drives too, which completely alters the feel and balance of the bike.
Skarper is designed for disc-brake bikes with a 160mm disc rotor, though it’s possible to adapt other kinds of bikes for those with a little technical know-how. The kit consists of a DiskDrive rotor, replete with integrated gearbox, which replaces the bike’s existing disc brake rotor at the rear wheel. This also serves as the mounting system for a clip-on electric motor.
While anyone is able to fit the Skarper e-bike drive system themselves, the company has also partnered with an installer network to do the work for free.
While electric bike conversion kits have existed for some years, Skarper’s pitch is all about ease — not only is it click-on and click-off, but it also causes minimal disruption to the bike itself. Indeed, co-founder and COO Uri Meirovich stresses that Skarper isn’t about “changing” or “converting” a bike.
“We’re here to enhance it,” Meirovich told TechCrunch. “Traditional conversion kits change your bike permanently, often compromising its original design and ride quality by changing critical components such as the wheel of the bike, running wires all over, or adding a battery on the handlebars or elsewhere, compromising the bike’s balance and appearance.”
So in some ways, this is all about having two bikes in one. This means that someone with a beloved road-, mountain-, hybrid-, or gravel-bike doesn’t have to compromize the integrity of its original design and quality.
“Like all great ideas, it’s very simple when it’s already part of the bike — a disc brake, which already deals with huge forces, huge torque [rotational force], and huge amounts of heat,” Hoy continued. “So that’s a great starting point, to drive the back wheel using the structural rigidity and integrity of the frame. From an engineering perspective, I think it’s a beautiful solution.”
Once the Skarper unit is mounted, it can be removed in seconds, but it’s also possible to disable the e-bike functionality by turning it off, or through engaging “pause mode” by back-pedaling three times if the rider don’t need electric assistance for a while. This can also conserve battery.
The Skarper system takes 2.5 hours to fully-charge from empty, providing a range of up to 50km (31 miles) with a top speed of 25km/hour (15 miles/ hour).
Grand design
Skarper counts some 22 employees, including more than a dozen engineers spanning the industrial, mechanical, electronics, software and testing disciplines. Additionally, the company worked closely with Red Bull’s Advanced Technologies outfit, which is behind the Red Bull Formula One racing team.
However, Hoy himself was involved in the design process from the get-go.
“My input has been from a cyclist’s perspective — that’s my area of expertise, obviously” Hoy said. “It was all about how it rides and how it feels. Does Skarper affect the handling? What can we get away with in terms of size or weight or shape? I would be a kind of test pilot — I would take the unit away, and I was properly using it and testing, applying it in different scenarios and situations.”
However, there’s no escaping the price-point — at £1,500 ($1,900), Skarper is not cheap by any stretch. But it’s not pitched as a budget conduit for obtaining an e-bike, and it’s not meant as a device that will be used once in a blue moon
“Let’s say you have a £1,000 e-bike: the quality of the componentry, the brakes, the gears, the tires, the materials used on the frame-set, the saddle — everything about it is ‘budget’,” Hoy said. “It’s the cheapest they can make it to try and keep that price down. With Skarper, this is basically the highest quality motor you could get, and you’re attaching it to your pride and joy. And if you look at the number of times you’ll use it throughout a year, it will become very economically viable.”
There’s also the issue of security. An expensive standalone e-bike is an alluring proposition for thieves, and we’re even seeing startups spring up off the back of this trend, helping victims reclaim their stolen bikes. With Skarper, a user can of course attach it to their $5,000 road bike, but equally they can attach it to a heap of junk to give it a little extra pizzazz, and then remove it when they get to their destination.
“I envisage somebody with an old, tatty bike that they’ve had for years, or maybe they just bought on eBay — something that they’re happy to leave locked up outside their office,” Hoy said. “Nobody’s going to bother stealing it, or even look twice at it. But then, they can clip this onto it and convert it to a really high quality e-bike.”
For now, Skarper is only shipping to U.K. customers, however Meirovich confirmed that it will open orders to mainland Europe in mid-2025, with the U.S. to follow. Notably, the model that will eventually go on sale in the U.S. will have a greater top speed than that in the U.K and European Union (EU), as the U.S. has an upper speed-limit of 20mph for this kind of vehicle.
“Skarper has received well over 100 distribution requests from all over the world including big box retailers in the USA and key players in most European markets,” Meirovich said, adding that few modifications will be required to fulfil international orders. “There are minor changes that will be needed to adhere to EU and US regulations, and we are in the process of obtaining these certifications.”