Fresh from the announcement that Skarper's ebike conversion kit is now available on Sonder’s gravel bike range, the British brand has announced five further partnerships, including one with Ribble.
Ribble will offer the Skarper kit online, either as a standalone product or ordered alongside any standard Ribble bike.
Skarper's kits enable you to turn a non-assisted bike into an electric bike using a patented design to drive your bike's rear wheel. The rotor stays on your bike, but the main unit clicks on and off in seconds, meaning it can be switched between bikes.
Ribble’s CEO, Sean Hastings, says: "We love the idea of Ribble riders being able to use their acoustic bike but have the flexibility of occasional electric assistance, without it being a permanent thing.
"The Skarper system complements our award-winning range of lightweight integrated ebikes, with the potential to bring a new lease of life to an existing bike and the benefit of being shareable across several bikes.”
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Six brands on board, with the promise of more to come
As well as Sonder and Ribble, British-made titanium and steel specialist Enigma has teamed up with Skarper.
Scottish rugged frame and bike builder Shand is even incorporating the chainstay mount as a braze-on on its frames, replacing the standard band-on mount.
Fellow Scottish brand Tiger is offering the Skarper kit on its range of affordable aluminium bikes, including the value-packed junior mountain bike range and the forthcoming Gravel model.
One of Skarper’s founders, Andrew Wallis, has his own bike brand: Black Series, and will also be offering Skarper options across all models, including the world’s lightest production road bike.
Wallis says Skarper is in discussion with more bike brands, and there will be a continued focus for Skarper to make further inroads into the OEM (original equipment) market.
Skarper has also joined forces with ZyroFisher, one of the UK's largest cycle distributors, expanding the potential network of bike shops to more than 3,000 across the UK and Europe.
Rim-brake option is coming
If you like the idea of Skarper’s 'click-on, take off' system but don’t have a disc-brake bike, Skarper has the answer coming soon.
A new rear hub designed for rim-brake wheels is in production, too. This enables the fitment of the Skarper disc (without disc braking surface) containing the Red Bull engineered planetary gearing. That makes the Skarper compatible with rim-brake bikes.
I like the idea of having a Skarper in conjunction with my disc-brake bike and getting a second setup (wheel and disc drive) to fit to one of my classic rim-brake road bikes, because a single Skarper unit can be used across multiple bikes.
