Charged Up! 2014 Electric Bike Mainstream Media Event Report [VIDEOS]

Journalists swarm to ride e-bikes at the Charged Up electric bike media event!

Yes, electric bikes are still relatively unknown to a majority of people in the US.

But hopefully that will change soon!

As a way to get the word out about e-bikes, Interbike (organizers of the largest bicycle trade show in the US) partnered with Outdoor Retailer to present e-bikes and other outdoor gear to a group of journalists from large mainstream media companies.

The Charge Up media event was held at the Crystal Springs Resort in Hamburg, NJ and the location was selected because it was a nice place to ride e-bikes while being close to New York City.  Some of the large media journalists were from NYC and others flew into the area.

The goal of the event was to introduce mainstream journalists to electric bikes and provide them with an experience to write about!

Here is a list of the mainstream journalist that were in attendance:

CNN, Vanity Fair, Men’s Fitness, Men’s Journal, Huffington Post, BusinessInsider, Gizmag, Details, Departures, The Source Magazine, Uptown Magazine, Elite Daily, InsideHook Online, Demotix, Lucky Magazine, The Awesomer, Technabob, Divas and Dorks.

And here is a list of the bike focused media: Bicycle Retailer, Bicycle Times, Electric Bike Action, Electric Bike Review, Electric Bike Report, Gear Junkie, Inside Outdoor.

Tim Blumenthal, from People for Bikes provided a compelling presentation on the current state of bicycle infrastructure in the US.  It was definitely inspiring to see what is happening across the US, but we still have a lot of work to do.

Tim Blumenthal from People for Bikes presents at the Charged Up electric bike event.

I highly recommend joining and supporting People for Bikes.  Support can be as easy as joining their email newsletter and sharing information about People for Bikes with your friends.  Donating money for better US bike infrastructure is also another way to show support for this organization. 

After the introductory speeches, we were turned loose on riding electric bikes from the following e-bike brands:

IZIP, Haibike, eFlow, Lapierre, ProdecoTech, BionX (OHM Cycles, Yuba, Xtracycle), M1, and Kalkhoff.

There were a lot of smiles as many of these journalists had never ridden an electric bike.  In fact, there were a few that had not ridden a bicycle in many years!

It seemed that everyone was having a good time trying all of the different types of e-bikes: e-commuters, e-beach cruisers, e-mountain bikes, e-cargo bikes, e-folding bikes, high speed e-bikes, etc.

During the event it was fun to chat with journalists who had different audiences.  A lot of the journalists thought that e-bikes will be of interest to their readers.

Okay, now let’s get into the bikes that were there.  Here is a collection of videos of the e-bikes that were at the event.

Rob Kaplan from Currie Tech shows off the IZIP E3 Path+ commuter style electric bike, the high speed IZIP E3 Dash, the mid drive IZIP E3 Peak, the compact IZIP E3 Twn:exp, and the cruiser style IZIP E3 Zuma electric bike.

Christina Puello from Haibike USA shows off the new Haibike Xduro AMT Pro full suspension electric mountain bike and the Haibike Xduro Trekking RX commuter/touring electric bike.  Both of these Haibike’s feature the new Bosch mid drive electric bike system.

Stephane Lapierre show off the Lapierre Overvolt FS 900 full suspension electric mountain bike and the Lapierre Overvolt HT 900 e-mountain bike. Both of these electric bikes feature the Bosch mid drive electric bike system.

Robert Provost from ProdecoTech shows off the new ProdecoTech Scorpion electric bike and the new ProdecoTech Oasis beach crusier style e-bike.

Alex Coulombe from BionX shows off their new electric bike system on the new OHM XU 700 e-bike.

Steve Bode from Yuba Bicycles shows off the Yuba elMundo cargo bike with the BionX electric bike system.

Robert Wittmann, CEO of M1 Sport Technik, shows off their carbon fiber electric bikes; the M1 Erzburg , the M1 Secede, and the M1 Sedan. These bikes are being distributed in the US by Pete’s Electric Bikes (no relation to me!)

In addition to electric bikes there were also a number of outdoor focused gadgets on display at the event.

Solar charging solutions for electronics (smartphones, tablets, computers, GPS, etc.) is a growing industry as more of us want to charge while we are camping and/or traveling.  Goal Zero and others were displaying their portable solar charging solutions.  Some talked about the possibility of developing solar charging solutions for e-bikes at some point…….. 🙂

Overall the Charged Up event provided journalists with a great way to sample a wide variety of e-bikes and get to know some of the brands in the industry.

Keep your eye out for e-bike articles from the publications list above.

And please remember to tell your family and friends about e-bikes.

Let’s get more people on bikes!

-Pete

P.S. Don’t forget to join the Electric Bike Report community for updates from the electric bike world, plus ebike riding and maintenance tips!