Are you tired of sleek framed bikes around the market and are looking for a real beast to drive around the neighborhood? The Moto Parilla Carbon, the SUV of an e-bike is something you would want to check out as the huge off-road tires, disk brakes, and rugged body present alongside pedals will be something totally out of the blue for many! The Carbon was developed jointly by British automaker Caterham and for a while things went well, but now the inventors have gone off on their own and aimed to raise crowdfunds through a Kickstarter campaign.
Veteran engineers Zeno Panarari and Designer Alessandro Tartarini did most of the work while the bike was under development in Caterham and the company itself was toying with the idea of selling the Carbon as part of its new line of e-bikes. After the company decided to scrap it, both the designers continued the design on their own and have since converted the blueprints into actual prototypes. The Moto Parilla name was adopted after the famous Italian builder whose amazing motorcycles from the 50s and 60s are still remembered by bike enthusiasts.
The Carbon has a dirt-bike resembling Carbon and Aluminium frame which is attached to the tough tire-shod tires with the help of a girder front fork and a rear swing arm. It has an eight-speed Shimano Nexus hub, 26x 4.8 in tires, and a basic LED display for showing battery status, speed, and distance. It also has front and back lights as well as stainless steel spokes. In many ways, it is more of a motorbike because of its appearance and build but the slim spokes, pedals, and handle manage to retain it as a hybrid of sorts.
Its top speed is Euro-compliant 15.5 mph and is driven by a 250-watt Shimano Steps motor, and the other model is a 500-watt 48 V mid-drive one that can zoom at 22 mph. The bike’s battery is a 12 Ah Lithium-ion battery and takes six to eight hours to charge. I hope that doesn’t include pedaling in between because I can’t imagine anybody pedaling this beast around. It is just too big.
The Kickstarter campaign for the bike was started on 8 May 2016 and had a goal of £100,000. The bike is available in three frame sizes and also the 250-watt and 500-watt versions separately. The price is £2300 for the 250-watt and £2500 for 500-watt one. You can also reserve one for 500 $ on the Kickstarter campaign.The bikes ships anywhere in the world but it doesn’t cover the VAT or any other import tax that each country laws direct.
So are you game?