No-spoke, hubless eBike bags CES Innovation Award
North America’s consumer electronic show CES is these days a fairly reliable setting to see some new (or new-ish) electric bikes. The first edition, in New York City in 1967, seems unlikely to have dedicated a lot of space to bicycles or to the mobility sector.
The year, the huge Las Vegas Convention Center-set event picked out an electric bike for its 2024 Innovation Award Honourees – the KOMO Hubless eBike from Korea Mobility.
As you’d expect, there’s no hub or even spokes, with the design owing to as much to the hula hoop as the classic bicycle structure.
Aside from this quirk, the bicycle frame structure is worth noting, firmly dispensing with the ‘two triangles fitted together’ standard. Using the ‘fitting and bolting method’ conceived in the architectural structure space, this method has three times more strength than welding, we’re told, strengthening the durability of the frame. The hubless space has multi-purpose usage potential, including bag storage, helmet storage. And billboards.
The KOMO Hubless eBike sits alongside fellow honourees as a gaming keyboard from ASUS and the latest headphones from BOSE.
The ‘new-ish’ caveat points the fact that the KOMO Hubless was actually seen at Eurobike 2022 – albeit in a more rudimentary form.
Whether the hubless and spokeless concept has legs is up for debate, but that frame structure development could be something that has some potential.
