You or your local shop can replace the BB bearings on a Powerplay, but likely can’t replace drive shaft bearings on a Bosch motor. They probably last longer and are more weather sealed than a standard BB, but they’re still a wearing part. If the “bottom bracket” bearings go out on any of the other e-bike systems, which are housed in the motor itself, it might be necessary to send the entire motor in for service. They do this via a unique system that feeds assistance via a driven pulley, rather than driving the crank spindle itself. Instead of a belt or gear-driven transfer gear, Rocky uses a short-pitch chain, which can be quieter, and more durable.įor simplicity, the Powerplay bikes use a regular bottom bracket and a much more standard crank than most other e-bikes do (it’s basically a crank with a DH-length spindle). Even in the full-power ‘Ludicrous’ mode, you can barely hear the thing. For example, they were turned off by the noise most e-bikes make, so they designed the motor to run at a much lower RPM range and have no planetary gears, resulting in an astonishingly quiet ride. Dyname 4.0 HardwareĮssentially, Rocky is aiming to produce e-bikes that are less complex, more field serviceable, and that handle naturally without distracting the rider from the experience of mountain biking. And, they’ve been able to do some really interesting and unique things that align with the company’s priorities, its size, and the development team’s desired ride characteristics. Rocky’s control over the motor has allowed its engineers and designers more control over the experience than they’d be able to have by going with the e-bike-in-a-box method that every other manufacture its size does. But, what the relatively small Rocky Mountain has accomplished by making its own power unit, might actually put them ahead of where the billion-dollar behemoth, Trek, is right now with its e-bike platform. Specialized does about $500 million in annual revenue, Rocky does around $40 million. Sure, Rocky’s display-even the new ‘Jumbotron’ one that’s integrated into the toptube sort of like the Specialized one-isn’t quite as flashy, but that’s just money talking. But that didn’t happen, so I’m doing it to myself.īeing that Rocky Mountain owns its own e-bike motor company, it gets to design the power units however it wants, making them more integrated to the overall mission and purpose of the bikes they’re going onto. You’d think that after hours of rambling on about how much more ahead of everyone else Specialized is, and how nobody beats them on total integration, someone would have corrected me and put me in my place. So, the fact that Dyname, the brand name of the motor on the Powerplay bikes, is a company founded and owned by Rocky Mountain, somehow skipped right by me. I wasn’t aware of this before, because when Rocky Mountain released its first round of Powerplay bikes four years ago, the media outlet I worked for didn’t cover e-bikes and I wan’t very in tune with what was happening with their development. It’s more custom and purpose-built than mostly everyone else, but, they still don’t make the motor.
#Rocky mountain power play software#
For instance, Specialized creates the software that runs the motor, they design the remote switch, the display, the app and entire user experience, and they source their own battery, too. Brose allows Specialized to essentially control the rest of the ecosystem, making the same motor behave very differently than it would on any other bike. In fact, the motor that’s in the third generation Specialized Levo is also in the Rotwild R.X750. Brose offers them a ton of customization and the two brands work closely with one another, but Specialized does not design the motors themselves. Specialized works with a company called Brose to supply power units for their e-bikes. I’ve mentioned on at least a couple of occasions about how Specialized has the most proprietary e-bike system around, but I didn’t realize at the time that I was totally lying-Rocky Mountain does. When it comes to making e-bikes, Rocky Mountain is doing things a bit differently than the rest of the industry.
0 kommentar(er)
