Muga Launch Webinar
Um, okay. Well, welcome everyone. Um, my name is Brett Thurber and I am um from the New Wheel Bike Shop in San Francisco and um I am joined today um by Garen Becker. Hello. And Nadine Stein. Garen, um will you introduce yourself to start? Sure. Yeah, my name is Garen Becker. I’m coming to you from the the great Northwest here in Washington State and I um am part of the North American marketing team for and Nadine. She’s on mute though. Oh, let me try to get you off mute. Ask to unmute. There we go. Can you hear me now? Yes. Hi, my name is Naen. I am the national sales manager for Bay USA. Um, which means I get to work with our esteemed reps that travel and see all the shops and and help Brett answer all the questions he needs to answer. So, and I get to work alongside Garen. Thank you both for joining. Um, I’m learning Zoom a little bit. So, we’re going to do this a little funny. I would love to have Nadine and Garen on the screen with me with the slideshow, but I’m going to do the slideshow and then I’m gonna break back out so that we can see all of us um and talk about what we’re seeing. But today we’re here to um present the brand new um Orbea Muga. Um so without further ado, I’m going to share my my slideshow here. Um perfect. I’ll let you I’ll just I’ll just say hey next slide when you’re ready. Yeah. Perfect. So I’m going to we’re going to talk about the Muga and I’ve got Garen here and Nadine to help give us the context not just about the bike. Hopefully we can talk about the bike for sure and there’s so much to talk about on this bike. Um it’s one of the most exciting bikes um of the year. Um but also I think to really understand the bike you need to understand more about Orbea the company. Um, and we’ve touched a little bit about um, Orba on Orba previously when we did the video on the Orba uh, Denna, which is the um, the gravel super lightweight gravel bike uh, that Orba released um, earlier, but I think there’s more to talk about. Um, and so we hopefully can get into that as well. Uh so and do you want questions to come in line from from our from our guests or do you want to just talk at the end? Yeah, I mean feel free to to the chat is open or should be open. Um so um I’ll keep an eye on that and so feel free to um to put questions in there um and then we can all we can open it up for questions um at the end as well. Perfect. All right. So yeah, I’ll lead and of course anyone just jump in when you when you need Brett and Nadine. Um but yeah, thanks again for coming. Um pretty cool to I love these webinars. That’s a I’m a big fan. Um the Muga probably um one of the only urban bikes that I I that I’ve ever been truly really really excited about. Uh it’s a very interesting concept. when Arba showed this to to us back in I guess it had been January this year. Um I was like what is this thing? Um but since then uh and after writing a lot more of these this urban sector and especially the Muga I don’t think um it’s one that I it’s one that I would I would probably pick over any other. So, um, the Muga is the full suspension urban, do it all, come what may, um, bike. It’s, so it’s it’s ebike. It has cargo capacity. It has the ability to carry what you need with you, but it also has the ability to take your, um, to take whatever route you choose because it’s got some front and rear suspension that takes the edge off of of any sort of more rugged terrain. Let’s move to the next slide there, Brett. Yeah. And you’ll have to excuse me. I’m going to be switching between the the um the view here and uh and us and video of us talking. That’s fine. Uh so this is basically a contents page what the bike’s all about. So go anywhere handling. That’s what I meant by this sort of come what may bike. Go anywhere assistance. We’ll go through the the the power that the bike has and why we chose that. Uh smart by design. some of the features and and and benefits of of the Muga and what it’s offered with uh and a bit about the safety and in the end we’ll circle back with what what build kits are available um and what the differences between them are and also um what colors. So let’s just keep moving. Next slide. We’ve got um go anywhere handling. Here’s our kind of title page by what we mean by that. So, the obvious bit about the go anywhere handling is that there’s 115 mm of rear suspension travel and 120 mm front. So, um that’s unique to to Duga as far as any town urban sector bike we’ve ever created. There’s a few other bikes on the market that are offering this, but this is a really unique thing because it’s um well, it’s it’s a it’s kind of a mix between an all-around trail bike and an all-around urban bike. So, if you live in a town like me where there’s um there’s of course pavement, but there’s interspersed u bike paths and and trails and fire roads and railroad tracks and everything else you might encounter on on your way across town if you know where if you know where they are. Um a bike like this really opens up a lot of different ways to get through your city. Um I’m a big fan of of not riding with cars when I when I can. Um, and a bike like this makes it so you can you can pick those more obscure tracks and uh and trails and just connect them all and you can get where you want to go without um dealing with people vehicles. I’ll just one thing it’s so I personally own two full suspension bikes. Uh, our cargo bike is a full suspension bike and and my uh independent rider is a full suspension bike. And I I’m a such a believer in full suspension for urban riding. Um like there’s the the most obvious thing is how uh comfortable it is from an urban perspective on on trails. It’s all it’s like handling and control, but the comfort side of it is huge. And then and then um the second thing is um is safety. when you know when you’re bouncing around on the street, you’re you just keep your tires on the road at all times. You remain you you you the bike is connected to the road regardless of what you’re going over. So comfort and safety from an urban perspective is so important. I agree. people would say, I remember back when, you know, when when ebikes first became a thing for mountain biking, um there was bikes that, you know, people would bring out um people would would would kind of go smaller and go lighter and we would always go the the epiphany that everyone had was that there’s so much speed available with an ebike that the more suspension, the more control. So you can if you’re with these bikes that go 28 miles per hour on the road, you can get flying pretty quickly. And if you can keep your tires on the ground, you’re going to you’re going to retain better control. And I mean, I’ve been I’ve been pretty surprised at what how how rough an impact can be or how how abrupt like a little curb lip or something can be at 28 miles per hour when you’re just sitting on your bike. And the bike like this, it kind of wipes all that away, which I really like. But let’s hit the next slide. And I think in addition to the suspension, there’s there’s a couple key bits here um that really make the Muga that this is what really got me excited about riding it. Um and one of the things is is the mullet setup. And in the mountain bike world, we call this a mullet 29in front wheel and a smaller 275 inch wheel in the back. Uh it it it’s its benefits are are pretty widespread for like higher aggressive mountain bike use. But one thing I didn’t really consider um on a bike like this is that if you want uh stability and a nimble feeling bike, the formula is uh is pretty straightforward to get it with a bike like the Muga. And we’ll talk about that in the next slide. So when you have um you’ve got active geometry, this is kind of a title slide for the next kind of more indepth uh feature about geo. But if you look at some numbers here, like so Muga is not a one-sizefits-all bike. It’s four sizes um to make sure you make sure you’re getting um the right size bike for you and make sure that every rider has the same experience on the bike across the size range, right? So, like some of these onesize bikes are are great for maybe a a lower cost um or maybe a a bit a bit different use case, but um with a bike like this, you want to make sure it fits you. And we want to make sure that everyone, whether they’re a very small 5’4 or a very large 63, can have the same consistent experience on the bike throughout the size range. The thing though here is like as as a mountain biker, I insisted on putting this slide in because there are these are things that if you’re a mountain biker, you kind of pour over. These are the things you look at before you before you make a purchase. Uh I’d say namely head tube angle. So head tube angle down here, that’s column number eight, 66 12 degrees. That’s um that’s a pretty modern mountain bike number for like an all-around trail bike, especially like a short travel 29in wheel trail bike that you would ride on on some pretty aggressive trails. That’s a That’s a pretty normal head tube angle. Seat tube angles 76 across the board. What 70 what that seat tube angle does is make it so your your instead of a very slack seat tube angle will put your rider weight over the very back wheel and you would have less control because your weight would be biased towards the rear. You wouldn’t have that traction on the front. The seat steep seat tube angle makes you upright and over the bikes. This in between the wheels position is what we’re going for here. And I think the the biggest geometry thing that I that I was kind of blown away by like I rode this bike first before I looked at the geometry chart and I was like what is up with that bike is so long. It’s the chain stay. The chain stay is a measurement from the center of the bottom bracket to the center of the rear axle. And 466.5 if you see number five here that’s very very lengthy. What you’re getting there is a is a super stable um bike. It gives you this in between the wheels feel that like it would be very difficult to go over the handlebars in this bike and it really holds its lines nicely and it really um it really makes for a a very confident I guess ride is what I’d say. Like way more confident than any urban ebike I’ve ever ridden. Garen, um question on sizing. What do you have a sense of what the small like what the size range is uh as far as like uh human size like height? Yeah, like roundabout what what would be the sort of smallest? I can find that right now. I don’t have it off the top of my head, but um we have a a tool for that on this on the website here and I’m pulling it up now. We will talk about demo because we do have um we’ll talk about this, but we do have mediums in stock and we’ve we’ve tested in the medium. My wife Karen is 5t tall um and she can ride the medium and as far as a demo goes. So the standover is actually really good um from what I can see. So I think the small would be definitely should fit someone 5t tall. Bicycle size guide. So yeah, we are uh let’s switch over to inches. Here we go. um centimeters, inches, six 60.2 in that’s 5T on the very smallest end. 81.1 in let me do my quick math here. But 81 in 81 / 12 uh 67 is what they’re saying. Like 6 and 3/4 of a foot, which is I think pretty lengthy uh for this bike. But as we’ll get to in a minute, there’s some tech on the bike that makes it so you can really adjust um adjust the the bike, whatever size you get to your to fit you even better. But I think the the big takeaway here when anyone rides this bike is is that how long it is and how stable that makes you feel. Uh we can move to the next slide if you’re ready. The next slide is about this cockpit. So what I didn’t put in here um is a a graphic on on just what this is. Uh this patented adjustable plate is available on Muga on Keman and uh some DM. And what this is is like it’s a modular ora specific setup that incorporates uh your stem, your handlebar, your phone mount, and your light allin one. So uh this bike is going to ship with integrated lighting. As you can see, that’s this sort of this little white band under the black stem but above the frame. That is a light. Um, you can see here I don’t have Yeah, you’re circling. Thank you. Y now if you made that circle even smaller, you would see that there’s sort of an extender in place here. And yes, that thing that thing can come out, which would mean your handlebars would be closer to you if you choose. If you’re really tall, you’d want that further out. Uh the the clamp on the end of it can also be flipped to make your handlebars lower or higher. So you can have a long and low, a long and high, a short and low, and a short and high setup, which makes it pretty pretty modular. Of course, there’s a phone mount and stuff on there as well. The other the other cool thing, um, there is a a sweep back bar option. Um, and this this handlebar, what you’ll see is the light is actually integrated into the handlebar. It’s made by Supernova. Um, but it’s super slick and it looks small like it’s not going to not going to give you all that much light, but since it is a supernova light, it’s the looks are deceiving. Like it is extremely powerful and um it has a high beam as well. So it’s it’s not just a single it’s not a a single beam pattern. You have a high beam and low beam. Yeah. So, what we’re not seeing here is that on the front of the bar there’s that integrated supernova light. But then this one, this band that we see above the frame, below the stem, that’s like a a 270 degree visibility light. So, anyone from any angle where depending no matter where your handlebars are pointing is going to see that bike there. And then in addition to that, it’s got the spotlight at the front. Of course, there’s a there’s a rear light as well. Um, yeah. So, we’re now we’re on to assistance. So, um in back in January, we didn’t know this bike was was coming to the States. We we kind of like, you know, Orba had made it. They presented it to us and we all loved it. But the motor that that was on it was set for Europe and in Europe they’re unlucky in the sense that they are they’re relegated to 20 miles per hour and we get to go 28. So, but because we we can go 28. Um, our move here in this in this in this country was like, well, you know, that bike’s awesome, but if we can’t get it in 28, no one’s going to buy it because there’s a lot of there’s a lot of 28 mile power ebikes out there. And we knew, especially with the full suspension, like this unless it’s 28, it’s it’s not something that’s going to move uh in great numbers here in this country. And so we took that back to the product team and they said, “All right, good point.” So, next slide. Um, we’ve got the new Bosch performance speed motor. So this is um this is the same drive unit in um physicality as the the the sort of renowned the BDU38 Bosch drive unit 38. That’s the latest greatest mountain bike performance CX line drive unit that they have. Uh but this one is uh tuned for um urban use. So it’s um 90 newton meters of torque out of the box. You can upgrade that even further if you’d like with Bosch’s firmware updates. And it’s um very tried and true. It’s got metal gears in it and it’s very durable and it’s very versatile and it allows the bike to go 28 miles per hour with um ease. So add so this motor I it’s unique that we’re going to start seeing some of these motors on urban bikes soon but I think this is probably one of the first bikes. There’s a few recent mers that have it that have this this drive system and the the torque the 100 new meters of torque is a is a big deal. It really flies. It’s it’s super fun. Um especially in the highest assist levels and and it is tunable. But even I would say even more than that like they have I talked to Bosch about this motor um when I went to Eurobike and and why we couldn’t have higher torque on previous generation motors and they said basically the inside of this new this latest fifth generation Bosch engine is is different and you can feel it when you ride it and you can also and one of the most noticeable things that you notice is the the silence of it. So, even though it’s metal gears, it’s extremely quiet. Um, so everything and it it’s even I mean, who would have thought that Bosch could be smoother assist than previous generations, but you feel it on this bike. Yeah. You know, I came from uh when I first rode Bosch, the first time I really rode the Bosch stuff was I guess in 24. I rode it on an old Trek supercomputer or something like that. It was like a big red urban bike that we had at my last job and we all we all loved it. But when I started riding the the latest grade, this performance CX, the thing that really blew me away was was um not so much the torque, although that was a major major improvement, but the sensitivity. So, there’s modes on this bike that are um when it senses the power that you’re applying, it has a way of delivering that power um so smoothly, like exactly what I’m looking for. So, from a of an off-road perspective, like if you’re looking at this this picture that we had up on the screen here, like this person’s riding the bike through some a bunch of loose rocks and it’s bumpy. um with if you have a full boost setup um from another company, you’re probably going to be spinning your tires a lot. Uh and the Bosch, especially in these these certain tuning modes that they have, it’s like eouring or EMTB Plus, it just takes what you’re putting in and gives you exactly what you need so intuitively. So when you’re climbing something tech, you don’t lose traction. You’re just your wheels on the ground the whole time. And it’s um it’s night and day from from what I was used to. Um, next slide. We talk about batteries here. So, this bike has um well, we have two options. So, in in North America, we’re offering two build kits and uh the lower-end build kit comes with the 600watth battery and the um the higherend kit comes with the 750. Um these are both using our security secure battery system which is not removable. it. Um, if you want to pull the drive unit, it’s removable, but it’s not something you’re going to take out on the day-to-day basis. Uh, there’s no there’s no keys, there’s no springs, there’s no latches, there’s no moving parts. The battery is slid into the down tube of the bicycle and is bolted in there and then it’s connected to your drive unit. So, that’s why when you look at this bike, it doesn’t look like it has um, well, a bolt-on battery. It looks like it has smooth, beautiful lines, um, polished welds. It all looks it looks a lot like carbon fiber. Um, and the reason we can do that is we’ve got the battery in the down tube and we not we’re not worried about it it coming out. We want it to stay there. If you want more power, more w more range rather. Uh Bosch has the Power More 250 which with the 750 battery would get you um get you up to 1000 watt hours, wouldn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so 650, 600 battery you’d be getting to 850 and 750 battery you’d be getting to a,000. The range extender is essentially an external battery pack that you can add or remove whenever you want. It goes into your water bottle cage. So, it bolts onto the down tube of the bike where a water bottle might bolt to, plugs into the drive unit where a charger would go in, and it adds that extra battery power. The other thing about this secure battery system, I mean, we ask people, there’s there are people who need uh need to be be able to remove a battery for one reason or another, like apartment dwellers maybe, but it’s not as often as you think. And most of customers don’t actually ever remove the battery um in our experience. And the benefit of it is that the frame is by not having to break the frame, the frame is a lot lighter weight. So the weight benefit of not having a removable battery is huge. Um the aesthetics and the weight. So um yeah, I think that’s an important important point as well. Yeah. What you have to do the thing about removable batteries like and coming from the mountain bike side like you it’s a it’s kind of it was a cool thought. I think early on with mountain bikes, we all thought that we were going to be swapping batteries and doing these huge days and like carrying an extra battery in our backpack and it was going to be this you had to have a swappable battery. Um, a no one does that because the batteries get you high enough and long enough to where once you’re done with one that your normal bike rider is pretty much done with riding. Um, and then there’s range extenders on top of that. So, you can always extend your range with that. But the the other part about those removable batteries is that you if you want to have a battery in your down tube and you want to have it be able to come out, you have to overbuild your down tube massively. And so your down tube becomes a lot bigger in size. Uh you have to, you know, think of a tube structure as one of the most strongest structurally strongest um you know uh configurations in the world is a tube. But when you take a big hole in it, it it needs to be bolstered and thudress. So then that’s why we have these huge looking down tubes on these bikes because we’re factoring for um factoring for that big hole in it where the batter is going to go. Add a couple of instances where the batteries fall out and pretty pretty soon you uh you just want to have your battery secured in your down tube with no hole in there. Just have it have it in there. Next slide. We got uh display. Okay, so this fun the wording on this is a little odd because it says the clear and simple Bosch display shows assistance levels. That is not the Bosch display. That that is someone’s phone that’s tied into the to the Bosch bike, which is something you can do on the Bosch uh flow app. It’s hiding the display, which is is a pretty tidy little display behind there. So, it it goes next to the stem. I’d say that the screen is about an inch and a half or an inch and a quarter wide and 3/4 tall. And it shows you everything you need to know in color. It shows you what what mode you’re in, what assist level, what how much battery you have left, how far you’ve gone, how fast you’re going. Pretty much anything you want to do, it shows it on that little display. If you would rather have your phone showing that information, you could take that display off, sync your phone every time you rent your bike, and do that that way. The wonderful thing about the phone is you have nav. And nav on it, like exploring a new town with an ebike and having a with a phone on your handlebar is just the best. It’s such a good way to get around. One thing that’s cool that I’ll add, oh well, a couple things. One is uh all the Orbeea bikes have an SP connect um mounting point on the stem. So, you’re not using in this instance, you don’t use Bosch’s phone mount. You use the SP Connect. Um and so, that’s a universal mount that you can get cases for. And we also we sell those. We also sell the stickers that you can just stick on your existing case. Um, and uh, the nice thing about the Bosch smartphone mount is it has a a charging builtin, but the cool thing that Orbe has done is they built the USBC port into the stem. So, right, um, I’ll annotate here. Right here is a charge port and you can plug you just basically plug your your battery in. Um, and that is easy and simple. And I think that whole concept of having a really minimalist display, which is what you kind of want for most of like my everyday commuting, I’m not looking at a display. I want it to be slick and out of the way and not going to break. Um, and then, you know, on the, you know, when you’re going on an adventure, uh, you just click your phone in there and then it is your display. And even if you don’t use the navigation, you can your phone can be your best display ever. Um, with the Bosch app, it works great. But but it is, as you can see here, really nice for for mapping. Yeah. Yeah. One thing I I I you know, in in the mountain bike world, um, you know, I don’t put a phone on my one of my handlebars because it’s just it’s big. It’s going to fall off. It’s it’s just kind of it’s a thing. But I can’t tell you how often I’m pulling out my phone to look at a map, Trail Forks, and trying to route myself. And so, yeah, on the urban side, it is just so nice to have that plugged in and set set your route and just go for a cruise and not have to worry about mapping. Yeah, it’s great. Uh, so moving on. Oh, yeah. Quick fix. So, this is about reliability and sort of instead of it says reliability here, I think it is more usability. All the features you can get on this bike. Um, it uses the mix system. So, there’s a ton of um, accessories available that snap right onto the rack that’s on this bike already. The rack is cool. It’s built into the fender and the fender is steel. So, the fender is actually a structural item. It has a support going up from the um, from the front and the rack is sort of can levered there with with with uh, just that one support and it it holds it all really nicely. Uh my favorite piece of equipment that you can get for this is the Ortle bags. They’re waterproof and they are durable and they are super use user friendly and I just love them. Uh the rear rear cargo would be suspended. So it’s on the rear wheel which mean it would be um it would be hitting the bumps just like the just like the wheel would where the front cargo that basket there is mounted on the frame itself. So everything in that basket is getting the same smooth ride that that you are being suspended which is pretty cool. Rack is um will fit a child seat. So we have MIK child seats um from Tuli. Yep. And those will click right in. though it’s not what the bike is, you know, it’s not the primary idea probably when they designed this bike, but it is a nice thing that, you know, if up to probably five, six, you can have it uh under 60 lbs, you can have a child in the child’s seat on this bike. Um, and the and the Ortly bags, we stock the um you the ones that work the great with this with all of Orbea’s systems is the QL3 mounting system. and we stock a selection bags and we can also special order more. But basically most of Ortle’s bags come in either QL2 or QL3 and the QL3 fit perfect on on the system that’s built into this bike. Yeah. Um slide one of my favorites for we haven’t really talked about this because it’s an urban bike. You know, it’s uh it’s it is pretty rare to see a full suspension urban bike, especially one with the shock obscured like this. Um it’s essentially a link driven single pivot. So, you got a single pivot here above the drive unit. Uh when you hit a bump with the axle, the this this the chain stay comes up and pu pushing the seat stay and the seat stay pushes this link which then pushes the shock through its travel. So, very basic, very easy to set up, very easy to maintain. Um, the shock is of course an air shock. So, you’re adjusting that to get um sag. So, you’re looking for 20% 25% sag on this bike just just to take that that initial edge of those bumps off. And then it’s got a that little blue knob there on the shock is a lockout. So, if you really wanted the bike to be firmed up, if you didn’t want that cush cushy, excuse me, that cushy plush feel, you can flip that little lock out and it’ll it’ll it’ll firm that shock up. Um, you would use that. I mean, I I I wouldn’t use that personally, but I could see someone using that if you’re going up one of those huge steep hills in San Francisco or something maybe where like the hill is just ridiculously steep, there’s no bumps on it, and you don’t want the bike moving at all. Um, maybe you would use that, but it being an ebike, I I would just I would just set it and forget it. Well, it is a good point though, I think, in that I think the nice thing about all the Orba bikes and and all the bikes that we carry really, but like there are they’re bikes first and foremost and you can ride them without power, especially the lightweight ones like these, like you can ride this with low power or even no power and it’s just and now with the latest drive systems, I mean, it’s you, you know, there’s no drag from the motor. So it’s like it’s a little heavier than a normal bike, but probably the same as a bike I don’t know 40 years ago. Yeah. It’s not big difference. So So that’s where like locking like all of this standard bike componentry where you can lock out suspension and stuff like that does make more of a difference because if you’re looking for a little bit more of an active experience on the bike and you want to put some more energy in, you can totally do that. And then you lock out this like the suspension when you don’t need it. Like I did a really long ride once on my other full suspension, my recent Muller full suspension uh bike in down in Catalina and I did it so long that the ride was so long and I used too much power getting there. So I basically had no power coming back. So I had to ride like basically no power the whole way back and that’s locking the suspension was very handy at that point. Yeah, that’s steep. That’s steep terrain, too. Um yeah, light and tough alloy. I thought it was carbon when we first I often think of this with orbos because of the smooth welds like they they go in the in the aluminum factories they take great pains and at considerable costs to smooth the welds. So this is welding a frame together and then grinding and filing and polishing that weld down. So it so we have smooth radiuses and all these junctions and um it’s just a really beautiful bike. It looks it looks seamless which is nice. And then of course you’re seeing it’s a see-through view there with all the all the cable routing and all the things that you would, you know, you would need. Battery in the down tube. Um, cables are coming down. You’re not seeing these here, but cables are coming down through this through this uh through the handlebar, through the stem, down into the down tube to the motor. Cables are coming down through here and up the seat tube to the uh dropper post. And cables are going backwards to the derailer and the brakes. And it’s all concealed. There’s not there’s not an exposed cable in the bike. It’s all out of sight, out of mind. Um, no maintenance and just, you know, it’s just it’s it’s it’s there. It’s a very utilitarian, smooth smooth look. Um, next slide, we got safety built in. This is about um just the bits and bobs of the bike that make it a bit more safe to ride. I think the the overarching topic here though is is that it’s long and it’s low and it’s soft and it’s um it’s powerful and it and it I cannot express that this is a bike that you probably need to ride to understand um because I didn’t understand it until I rode it. But it feels like a very safe and comfortable confident bike. I think it’s just the how long it is and how much wheel is out in front of you and how just upright. It’s just it’s a really robust feeling bike. Um um we’ll move on to Go ahead. Oh Nine, you want to add that? Oh, you you say it. We haven’t heard from you enough. I think she’s on. There she goes. Oh, I finally managed to unmute myself. I was trying to and I was like trying and I was waving and I was like everybody’s really engrossed cuz Garen has that really serene, calm, confident presentation voice that he uses from years of webinar and podcast experience. But basically the thing to know about our aluminium frames, and I do pronounce it that way because that’s how it’s spelled where I come from. Um it’s not a different product, are hydroformed and our aluminium factory, our bikes are made in Portugal. So they are Europeanmade and then they are painted and assembled in our factory in Mayabia in Spain. And I always like to add that because it’s important information. It explains why our welds don’t look like welds and why our aluminium frames look like carbon frames. And it is that hydroforming process and why paint so good too. Correct. Yes. They’re all hand painted. Anything full suspension is hand painted in our factory. It’s not even machine painted. There is actually a person on the other end of that spray gun. Yeah. Yeah, that’s great. Thank you. Um, one thing I want to add on the safety front since we’re talking about it is they call out here is is theft protection. So, Orbee on a lot of their bikes has the the um air tag mounts that you can that are built in. But on the Bosch Bosch Bosch’s Connect module is really good. Um it’s their basically a GPS unit um that has its own power. So even if the battery runs out of power there it’s still signaling um if it’s if it’s lost. Um and it’s design this bike is designed to fit that that connect module. Um so you can you can add that that’s an option. It’s a little unit that we install. You get a year subscription with Bosch and then after that I think it’s like 30 bucks a year. Um, but the whole the way it works is just is is the best uh anti- theft sort of integration that I that we’ve come across yet where you pair it with your phone. If you walk away, the bike locks, if the bike gets moved, you get an alert, you can see where your bike is, you can track it, you can send the coordinates, it has an alarm built in, so it’s making a lot of noise. So, it’s it’s just this extra level of peace of mind cuz that’s how it should be. You shouldn’t have to think about any of this security stuff. You should just be able to park it like you park a car and walk away and feel good. And that’s possible now. Yeah, that’s cool. Uh lighting. We talked about this a little bit, but um we have this is sort of that illustration of that that 270°ree visibility on the front light uh built-in tail light on the fender. They come on automatically. You can adjust all of this stuff and you can make it not come on or come on how you like it. But one of the things that maybe maybe me being a little newer to these like newer uh premium urban bikes is that God, it’s nice not to have to charge a battery and like take a light with me and put it on the handlebar of the bicycle and then make sure that my one of my little blinkies didn’t get stolen when I was out front of the record store or whatever. It’s just so nice that it’s integrated um and it’s always there so you always have that safety aspect. Uh, moving down, we’ve got components you can count on. So, yeah, these are um, you know, Orbea is a big gigantic bike company. One of the things we do uh, best and we’re really really known for is mountain bikes. And you’re seeing that carry over into this urban side. Um, that’s a a Fox all fork. That’s a brand name like aftermarket fork that people put on mountain bikes. The tires are are Schwabby Johnny Watts long range. They’re like they’re big, they’re wide, they have very aggressive casing, and they have reflective sidewalls and they’re just, you know, they’re just confident. They go fast on the road. You’re not getting you’re not they’re not a big slow soft tire, but they’re just they’re very wide and they’re very confidence inspiring. Long time Garren, too. I have those bike those on my bike on urban and it’s I think where I’m at like 4,500 miles and they still haven’t. Damn. Yeah. I don’t that’s for sure. Uh oh, and actually there’s the there’s a good little image there in the corner, upper right hand corner of the display that comes on these. That’s the sort of discrete little Bosch display that you can use if you don’t want to pair your phone every time you ride. Um, but yeah, big disc brakes, like big even the feel, like if you when you ride this, like again, I keep referring to mountain bikes because that’s sort of really what I know. But the levers on this are like it feels almost like heavy duty like motorcycles, you know, big long levers. Um, there’s no missing those things. There’s not they’re not short. They’re not trying to be lightweight. They’re big. They’re strong. And they have big rotors and the bike can just stop on a dime. Um, moving on, we got some um, lock options. These are, you know, the the Botch Flow app and the tracker are the main things. Um, the Muga has two mounts. One you see here being illustrated with the down tube. There’s also one, you can see it in this picture on the underside of the top tube. And you can mount whatever you want on on those water bottles, any number of accessories that are that are out there. Um, but yeah, I mean, if it were me, I’d probably I’d probably have to get that tracker. Um, because then you can just, you know, you can walk away. It it automatically just decouples your bike from your phone, meaning it can’t be turned on. So, if you have it like just sitting in front of a coffee shop, you’re really you’re really not worried about it. And if it goes somewhere, you can track it. All right. Uh, moving on. Models. Two models. a pretty basic um a pretty basic offering actually, which is which is cool. Um the Muga 20 is the nicer one. The higher the number, the more premium the product. Uh bigger battery. So, the biggest thing with the Muga 20 is it’s got the 750Wh battery. Uh the Muga 30 has the 600 watt hour battery. Uh it’s a bit nicer aftermarket part. So, the fork’s nicer. Um a really big one is that it has the Shimano Q’s DI2 electronic gears. This is really sweet. So, the derailer talks wirelessly to the shifter. Um, instead of it being a cable, like a mechanical cable sliding through a housing, um, actuated by a shifter, it’s electronic, so you’re sending a signal from the shifter back there. What that two things on that though, one, it’s powered by the bike, so you don’t have to charge a separate battery. That’s one of the downfalls of having these these new fangled wireless drivetrain systems we have on on the high-end mountain bikes is a lot of them have, you know, another battery to charge. And it’s just like, God, you you know, if you’re not careful, you have a battery on your seat post and a battery on your rear derailer and sometimes you have a battery on your shock and now you got three batteries for a bike that doesn’t even have a motor. Um, this bike has one battery that charges everything on the bike. The other really cool thing about the DI2 is that you can put auto shift on it. So, you can configure this to talk to the motor and depending on your cadence or the power that you’re putting down or depending on the the assist mode that you’re using, it’ll just shift for you. Brett was using it last time we rode together in Bowler and um I don’t have experience with it. Brett, what’s it like? I’ll tell you a little story here which is when I went to Eurobike I met with the product manager or the the lead product guy at Bosch and I was telling them you know the biggest issue still is just drive is the drivetrain how the bike operates and we have a lot of riders who are on their demo you know we want to make sure they have an amazing first experience no questions asked like this was amazing but shifting is one of those things that you do when you when you own the bike for a while you learn how to do it um but it. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could just put people on bikes and they could just it it automatically got them to the right gear no matter what? And he said my opinion like the best auto shifting system out there now is this is what we’ve worked with with Shimano on the D2. He said, “You should go out to the show and ride it.” And so I did and I was blown away, but it wasn’t San Francisco Hills. So I’m like, “How is this going to work?” Well, so then I tried it in Colorado and I was like, “Oh my god, this is this is it.” Like it’s you you just literally get on the bike, set an assist level, and start. And the bike automatically gets you to the right cadence. It’s there’s no it’s not jarring. A derailure actually is one of the best uh versions of auto shift because there’s no clutch inside, so you can shift it can shift under a little bit of load and it doesn’t cause any problems. Um, and then and it’s it’s like seamless. And then as you’re coasting and you go down in speed, you can hear the motor moving to shift you to a lower gear. So when you start up again, you’ve got so it’s it’s doing things even when you’re not when you’re just coasting. But then when I brought this, I we just got our demo bike all built up in San Francisco and I rode it around the hills in Bernal, which is notoriously steep and really, you know, you get out the store and you’re going up a steep hill and it’s just as perfect. So, it is from a test riding perspective, it’s game changer. I think a lot of riders will end up using it for their daily riding. Like you like I I I’m not one to use auto shift typically, but I would use this. Yeah, that’s a good point. And some people may not may not know that it’s uh with these typical drive systems like with a derailer, you have to be pedaling to shift. So the the the the hurdle for an auto shift is that you can’t do an auto shift really on a on a on a muscle bike without an ebike because every you it would only you’d be waiting to shift for every time you pedal and then when you pedal that’s when kind of like you would want the shifting to be done before you really needed it. So, say you like you’re cruising, cruising, cruising, and all of a sudden your your speed just shuts down because you’re you’re still coasting, but like the bike knows that you’re going up a big hill. Now, with the ebike drive systems and Shimano talking to Bosch, Bosch can can can pedal for you. Your feet aren’t moving, but the motor’s moving. So, it’s p and it’s it’s it’s able to shift the bike through its through its gears to get ready for you to lay on the throttle when you start pedaling. It’s pretty incredible. Really cool. And I think it’s I think the cool thing about this bike in general is just like it’s like the best of both worlds. Like it’s it’s an incredible like capable full suspension bike. Um that can that’s like the best regular bike you’ve ever ridden. Even if it’s not even a even not taking away the the ebike side, like it’s light, it’s easy to pedal, you can use it as an active and a fitness bike because it’s not it’s not heavy. It’s super light and nimble, but then it’s like this ultimate, you know, vehicle bike that that you can get on, you can get your, you know, someone who hasn’t ridden a bike in 20 years and they can get on there and be confident and comfortable and climb any hill um without even know need to know how to shift. So, it’s it’s pretty crazy. Yeah. Uh, and so Muga 30,000 bucks cheaper, smaller battery, um, a Sun Moby fork and mech and mechanical derailer. So, same Shimano stuff um, actuated by a cable running through a housing going back there with a shifter. Um, both really incredible bikes and and the one thing that that stuck out to me here is that, you know, it’s what whichever one you choose, it’s the same frame, the same wheels, uh, the same rear shock, the same cranks, the same brakes. Most of the stuff here is the same same dropper post, um, same tires. It’s just that the the Muga 20 just gets a little bit upgraded with a bit more range, uh, and a bit better fork. And I think the biggest one there is that that Q’s Di2. Then, and a quick chat on range, like 600watth battery versus 750. Uh, this is, you know, this is always a topic on ebikes. Um, a 600 watt hour battery is what I have in my mountain ebike that I that I sometimes ride here. And I can do 5,000 feet of climbing like without really by the end of the day the batteries on it last say 20%. But 5,000 ft without without any anxiety, you know, and for that on a Muga would be like to try to get 5,000 ft in a day in San Francisco City would be pretty impressive. you could probably do it, but there’s there’s a lot of range in that 600 watt hour battery. Of course, a bit more in the 750. I think when it comes to urban bikes, the beauty of the longer range isn’t necessarily that you’re going for this huge ride. It’s that you may need to charge the bike with just a little bit less frequency. So, like, you know, if you wake up in the morning and you’re just going down to to work, but your bike has 20%, you can go, “Ah, you know, I think I can get there.” um and your bike you you can you don’t have to fully maybe charge it every single time. Whereas with the smaller batteries you got to think about that a little harder. You can one thing to note is you can upgrade the if you wanted to the 30 um you could upgrade the battery. We can order it with an up this the bigger battery. So you don’t have to go up to the 20 to get the bigger battery. I will say with 28 mile with a 28 mile per hour bike um you it costs two 265 to upgrade to the 750 watt hour battery. So um and with the with the um um 28 hour bike you use power more. So, all I can say, my my current uh full suspension bike is 625 watt hour Bosch battery and it’s fine for around the city, but when you ride, you know, if you want to go on longer rides, I at speed with power, you’re more power, you’re going to you’re going to like the 750 watt hour. Um, the other thing I will just say is if you can if you can swing it, the Muga 20 is totally worth it. And there I they’ve Orba’s price point on these bikes is incredible. Like it’s really a lot of bike for the money. Um on both both the 20 and the 30. Yeah. I mean some of the prices out there on some of the competitor stuff I’m I don’t need to go into it, but I was I was like whoa. Okay. Um twice as much. The uh one other thing I’ll just say is the Q’s drivetrain. Last thing on spec is it’s a Shimano drivetrain that’s designed for ebikes and it is um it we’ve seen it on bikes now starting maybe 3 years ago. Um and it is like gamecher for for ebikes because it basically has the benefits of a lightweight system. Um but the drawback of a chain used to be that it didn’t last very long. So you’d have to replace the chain on an ebike pretty often because of the way that shifting happened, it just stressed the chain. And if you weren’t even if you were really good about it and lubricated, it would it would not last all that long. With Q’s, Shimano specifically designed it to last two to three times longer than a standard chain. And it and it’s true. It does. And that’s so that means you don’t have to replace your chains as often. The only thing you have to do like a drivetrain, like to keep it really running nicely, is just lubricate it every once in a while or bring it into the shop. We can do that. Yeah. All right. So, moving on to colors. We’re almost through. So, this color that you see there is Whoops. I got it. That is um This is the uh blue stone blue stone diamond black or you’ve got a sorry, ivory white and black gloss. And then finally, you’ve got uh metallic rust, something a little more darker, a little more low-key. And uh our demo bikes are all this this color here. Cool. Right. Who do you think the um Can you guys hear that stomping? Do you hear that in my mic? Okay, good. Yeah. Utter pandemonium upstairs. I don’t know what’s going on. I know there’s a 5-year-old and a three-year-old up there, but um who do you think the customers uh for this thing is? like what’s your what’s your um what’s your sort of a you know your what do you think your typical muga rider is? Well, I am a big believer in this bike for a lot of reasons. Like when I tried it, I like I went to I didn’t get to try it when I went to Spain, but I saw it and I saw the spec and I unders and I know full suspension bikes because I ride one and I know how, you know, in an ideal world, most people I think would benefit from full suspension. There’s drawbacks sometimes in terms of weight. This one doesn’t have that many that those drawbacks in the same way. I think um what it’s going to end up being and it already is going this way because we’ve now had this bike on the floor. We we put it on the floor, built up the demo bikes on last Thursday and um we and my suspicion was what was going to happen is people were going to try like they were going to test ride all these different other bikes and we have bikes, you know, starting at 1,700 bucks and then going up and a lot of the bikes that we sell for urban commuting is between three and $4,000 and people really like that. And what I suspected was going to happen is people then would, you know, we we we want people to have fun test riding things. That’s what it’s all about. Just try things. You don’t want to hem yourself in. You want to try what’s out there. And we people were going to go and try the Muga and they were going to be like, “That is a meaningful upgrade.” And it it’s not a huge jump. It is a jump. It’s a premium bike, but it’s not if if you’re using it regularly. and it’s right in line with what a lot what you would spend with like a nice mountain bike and things like this. And I thought, you know what, the plot a lot of people are going to totally they’re going to see the value. They’re going to try it. They’re going to love it. They’re going to they’re buy it. And sure enough, we got the bike out on Thursday. I don’t think I’ve told you this story yet. So, the bike was built up in Marin on Thursday. The first test rider rode it and bought it. Wow. They built the bike up same day in San Francisco. first test writer who wrote it bought it. Wow. So, we’ve sold in the last Well, now it’s you know, it rained a couple days or but over the weekend from Thursday to Sunday, we sold four bikes. It had a Yeah. four bikes and four sales. Nadine. Yeah. I’m telling you like this is like a huge if you want to come back on video you’re welcome to Nadine because I think this is a you know testament to this I don’t know why um it it won’t let me back on video. Well here I can I can ugly ducking for the day. Let me let me help. Uh okay try it now. It could have been the chaos in the background with my dogs. There we go. Yeah, I moved so that they couldn’t create the chaos they were creating before. But yeah, I mean, I think this bike kind of took us all a little bit by surprise. And if I’m a if I’m 100% honest, it was me that made the decision initially not to bring this bike into the US because I had kind of had a look at, to be 100% honest, I’d looked at the Trek Powerfly FS, which is their full suspension, fully equipped, full suspension bike. I’d looked at the Specialized Tero, which I believe is their fully equipped, specialized version, similar bike. And the shops weren’t really doing super well with them. And I kind of thought it was going to be very similar to those and we were just going to do our own version of the same bike. Um, but I was wrong. They weren’t doing super well, right? No. And and and I I thought this bike would kind of fall into that same space and I didn’t want to bring something in that was going to sit on shop floors and dealers were not going to have much success with. But I was wrong. I hadn’t ridden it. I hadn’t physically seen the bike. I hadn’t like truly tried it. And you know, we as a brand have adopted this slogan pretty recently in in our urban mobility program. Try it to decide because what we’ve learned is when people ride these bikes and they put them side by side and you get on to an Orbe and you go and you take it for a ride, you come back and you go, “Oh, I didn’t realize I needed this bike, but I need this bike in my life.” And so, you know, that’s what’s happened to all of us with it. And then having a 28 mph option for the US market specifically, you know, with the commuting and the the lifestyle and people who choosing to use them, uh, it kind of hits a couple of check marks. It doesn’t have a super upright posture and it doesn’t have a super low step over feature, but the weight compensates for it. So, you can actually lean the bike quite far over cuz it’s light. Put your leg over and then straighten the bike up to give you that extra standover. You know, the one thing that Orbea does is they design a really good bike. They put in a lot of cool technology and then they go, “Oh, how can we make this lighter and more fun?” Uh, our build quality is definitely ride rider centric and ride quality focused. And I think those are two important terms that explain the philosophy behind what we build. you know, and John Ander, our product development manager in this in this segment is really passionate about what he does and and it shows. Yeah, totally. You can totally tell like point of view. Yes, definitely. It it shows. Um, I guess I’m curious to know the people that we have here. Bob, Kathy, Al, Mark, what made you guys all interested in this particular chat about Muga? I’d love to hear if possible. Yeah, let me see. Make that happen, Brett. Yeah, I can make that happen. Um, and you don’t have to see one moment. Unmute themselves. Yeah, you can unmute yourself now if you want. No pressure. No pressure. Yeah, no pressure. But I mean, it’s always intriguing for us as a as a as a bicycle manufacturer and a designer manufacturer to understand, you know, what intrigues the the consumer with regard to this product. So, yeah, we’d love to hear your point of view and and truly, no pressure. So, yeah, I’m not a I’m not a a consumer. I’m I work for another ebike brand. Um, so it was basically just competitive analysis, but beautiful, beautiful bike, great presentation. Um, yeah, it’s uh, the auto shifting is what’s most intriguing to me. Bob, what brand do you work for? I work for Gazelle. Okay. Come on, Bob. Come on, dude. Do I know you? Yeah. Yeah. It’s Bobby Napoli. I don’t know why I’m Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, he was at um, we were hanging out last at New Wheel at one of those. Yeah. But yeah, the bike bike bike looks uh looks awesome. I mean, the spec and the build. Uh yeah, it’s it’s I think it’s kind of a a category killer. It does everything. Yeah, I was actually like I like I said, I was I was caught off guard by how cool it was. I I think the customer is like I think it’s going to take some development. Um I think people are going to have to ride it to to figure out what exactly what it’s all about. But when I think of like mountain towns and people who live in places like um um you use a a bad example is like Aspen or whatever, but people who I think of Jackson Hole. That’s what I Jackson, Wyoming. Like for me, this is a perfect bike for that part of the world cuz it’s going to be able to put a studded snow tire on it in the winter. It has the clearance. It has the capability. It has the range. It’s a super fun bike to ride, right? And then they have pretty good uh ebike rebates in that town that would would make that people with with um with mixed surfaces and access to wild places like I mean it would be incredible like in the city but like think of San Francisco you zip across the bridge and you’re in the headlands and you know endless fire roading and but getting there and back is so easy on a bike like this whereas like it’s pretty rough on a pedal bike to ride up in there and you got to be committed to ride up in there. And then on a a more traditional urban ebike, uh once you’re fine getting across the bridge, but once you get in that zone, you’re going to be like, well, this is kind of aggressive now that I’m on this skinny, tired, um unsuspended bike. It’s pretty sketchy to ride in that terrain. So, like I just think of like here in Bellingham where I live, it’s like endless outros to go and like I mean, I don’t know, go fishing or whatever. just jump on the bike and go not worry about where you’re going so much. Yeah, it’s a fun bike. It is all about test riding. Like so that’s that’s the thing is like that’s why we’ve had success so far because I mean I think that’s in general where where this bike comes in. Like if you look a lot of these bikes you like a normal customer looks at it and they just see a price tag and they say, “Oh, it looks cool.” But it’s easy to write things off when you just look at it in like a cool looking Well, it’s easy to write it off. doesn’t look that cool and it’s and it’s it’s expensive. Uh but if it’s if it looks cool and it’s just a price tag, you don’t get it really. So I think why we’ve had success so far is like people have come the people who came in, they did not come in to buy that bike. That’s the crazy thing. like and the the anecdote I got from the the woman uh up in Marin who bought it is she just came in and it was her it was the first bike she tried and when she rode it she’s like yeah this is obviously the bright bike it wasn’t even there was no like so it was just obvious so I I and that was my experience with it too it’s like it is once you ride it you’re like oh yeah as long as you got the budget for it like and if you don’t have the budget that’s fine we have bikes that are all over like it’s it’s fine you know it’s like it is a premium bike, but um but it is an access I would say it’s an accessible premium bike if you you know if you want a bike for fun but also um if you can the value is there if you’re using it regularly that’s for sure. Yeah. And I think, you know, if you if you generally like to have a more performanceoriented bike as your analog bike or the bike that you ride for fun, to then have this bike be your your utility bike, it just feels right. Right. You still have all the things you love about riding, but then you have the motor and the and the range and the all the features that make it ridable day or night, cross terrains, for work. And it makes sure you know we have some guys who work near where I live in at Lockheed Martin. Uh and there is single track you could take to go over there or there is a paved trail and it would just make the single track more of your morning commute to work and your ride home. And we all love the endorphins we get from having fun in the dirt. Yeah. Yeah. I got to be honest, when I first saw it, I didn’t even realize that it was full suspension. So, I think that’s a that’s a testament to your design team on how well they did that. Um, and then you you hear the travel on the front and the rear. Yeah, it’s a it’s a it’s a pretty impressive looking bike. No doubt. That was watching Garren wheelie it down the main road in Gun Barrel when he came over and rode it for the first time, which just made me feel really inadequate because I can’t wheelie anything and he can do it on anything clearly. So, well, it’s an ebike, you know. Yeah, I can almost eat wheel yet on anybody. Almost. Um, well, cool. Well, um, I guess that pretty much covers it. We didn’t really dive in. I We talked a little bit about Orbeea. Um, we’ve talked about it before, but I think it’s important to note, as Nadine did, that this bike is made in Spain. It’s the frame made in Portugal. The the It’s painted and assembled in Spain. It’s painted in the factory. Yeah. Yeah. It’s painted and assembled in Spain and then it’s blown to dealers um as they’re ready. Right. As soon as they come off the assembly line, it gets packed up and then it catches a plane and it lands with you after customs clearance, which is a little bit of a a challenge at the moment with the tariffs and maybe causing some undue delays, but in general, it’s pretty quick from the production line to you. And of course, we make each bike to order, so you know, we don’t have a bunch of these sitting in a warehouse somewhere. And we have the good news is we have a number of these bikes on their way and some already here um and more coming. And as we see as folks come in and ride, we will we will meet the demand with more bikes. Yes. Let’s hope. Yeah. I mean hopefully they don’t just come in and buy all your stock before anyone else can try them. Everyone so far we keep our demo bikes now. Yeah. Yeah. You got to keep your demo bikes because otherwise you can’t Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. No. We have We We didn’t sell the ones that we when I said people bought it, they bought they put your inventory model. So you had your four demos, you did your four test rides, and then you sold your four inventory right. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Well, thank you so much um for this and um yeah, thanks for everyone who watched now and in the future. Um and uh we will, you know, we can send an email. Um you can do a comment on the YouTube. Um and uh we’ll yeah, we’ll see you down the road.
Listen in as Brett Thurber from The New Wheel talks about the brand new Orbea Muga with Garen Becker and Nadine Stein of Orbea.
