The Koben - one very cool ride!

ARCHIVED: I met Neal Saiki, a former NASA engineer just about a Year ago. Neal designed bicycles for Santa Cruz Bicycles, and then went on to found Zero Motorcycles, an electric motorcycle company near Santa Cruz. He's since moved on to electric bicycles at a new startup, Karmic Bikes, bringing together key elements of his previous two ventures.

A really well designed electric bike

If you like riding bicycles, but dread climbing hills, or having to make your way back home after a long ride, you really must take a look at what Neal and the folks at Karmic have come up with. Whatever you thought you knew about electric bicycles—the typical heavy, high-priced, weird looking monstrosities—guess again. Their Koben is a sleek, beautiful "peddle assist" electric bicycle, designed from the ground up.

And by peddle assist, I mean you peddle and it assists. So the riding experience is that of any bicycle, but easy: hilly roads seem flatter, and long rides seem shorter. And by changing the degree of assist, you get to decide how flat and how short. Neal put me on one of his prototypes when I visited his shop on a long hilly country road in the Santa Cruz mountains, and it was just like riding, well, a bicycle, except the not insignificant uphill leg was just as enjoyable as the downhill. I didn't even break a sweat.

Read about electric bicycles, and what's so interesting about the Koben and Karmic's approach. As an old mechanic and engineer, I truly appreciate their design and the level of innovation in these machines. But the real beauty in what they've done is to create a bicycle for people who have always loved riding bicycles, who just want to enjoy the ride.