Issue Six - Spring 2013 - Electric Bike Magazine

+ON TEST
The Falco’s distributors, Team
Hybrid, are initially offering the
kit as a rear wheel motor, wireless
handlebar display and a 2 kg, 8.8 Ah,
36 V battery in either bottle cage or
rear rack-mounted format. The kit will
be sold principally through dealers
and manufacturers, but private
buyers can also contact Team Hybrid,
as they now offer a ‘build it into your
bike’ service (just a very few bikes
may not be compatible, they note).
Prices for kits vary depending
on configuration, but around £1250
would be an approximate starting
point. Warranty is two years.
Bob from Team Hybrid visited us in
York with the first in their range of
complete bikes with the Falco system
already fitted. The £1995 Genesis
Core e120 is a hardtail MTB, as is the
£1750 Core e100 (with slightly lower
specification on the bike parts). The
e120 is a 250 W/15mph fully ‘bicycle’
legal machine. There are also a number
of higher powered versions available.
Our review bike was a ‘launch
special’, which for £2235 came
complete with handlebar-mounted
GoPro Hero 3 video camera. Currently
the bike starts at £1995, while the
GoPro, complete with SD card and
handlebar mount, can be added to
any Falco-equipped bike for £245 (it’s
usually £315). These cameras are very
robust and are popular for sharing
ride footage online.
So how did it go? The light wasn’t
promising on the day of Bob’s visit,
but I took him to a local woods,
where we managed to mess around
and get both bikes and electrics
extremely muddy.
The new kit is certainly vastly
more polished and finished than the
prototype version we tried before,
and the full torque sensing control
(matching your efforts and adding
to them) worked just as it should,
giving a very lively ‘cycling’ feel.
The display/control unit has been
somewhat simplified, with fewer
power and regenerative braking levels
to scroll through, and with a separate
button pad next to your hand to
adjust the assist level. All easy to use.
Overall I was very pleased with
the new Falco system: it was silent,
smooth and responded as well as any
torque sensing system I’ve tried. It had
been neatly fitted to the bike, too, and
didn’t falter even caked in wet gloop.
We didn’t have time to reach any
Falco e-motor kit:
Genesis
Core e120
Last issue we rode a pre-production version
of the Falco e-motor. It’s now good to offer an
early update: the system is in production, has
full torque-sensing drive mode, and is available
on complete bikes as well as in kit form for
existing bikes. So how did it perform in the
£2,395 Genesis Core e120 mountain bike?
14 Electric Bike Issue 6