BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
New Motion Labs is on a mission to revolutionise drivetrain technology. BikeBiz catches up with founder Marcel Fowler.
This piece first appeared in the November edition of BikeBiz magazine – get your free subscription here
Can you give us a little background on New Motion Labs?
Our mission is simple, to bring sustainability to cycling through fundamental technology innovation.
The company started with founder Marcel Fowler, stuck in the middle of the Swiss alps in 2015 with a bicycle and a broken chain asking the question, why is cycling gearing so complicated, heavy and unreliable. He found that 60% of the power from the pedal acts on a single point on a single tooth at any one time, much like a stiletto on a tile floor and asked the question “can we use both sides of the teeth or stop the movement between the chain and the tooth” which led to the revolutionary Enduo technology.
Enduo enables any conventional roller chain drive to have an up to 3.5x increase in lifetime and 50% decrease in energy losses. This revolutionary technology was developed by a small team of English and German engineers, who simply had a whiteboard and some brave investors that believed.
With the micromobility revolution, e-cargo bikes and e-bikes are now transferring much higher torques, with instantaneous accelerations all acting on that single point. Combined with much heavier weights, this leads to a big problem with drivetrain lifetimes in the best case being 3-4,000km with both chain and belt drives, however, to compete with gas and electric vehicles we need lifetimes of >15,000km and this is what Enduo delivers for the market.
What area of the market do you target?
We are initially targeting the b2b micromobility market because our Enduo products, Enduo Cargo for e-cargo bikes and Enduo Ride for e-bikes solve the big problem of drivetrain lifetime for businesses that need their bikes to work at all times.
Some fleets have up to 10% of their fleet in maintenance at any one time, this needs to change and Enduo technology makes sure that the drivetrain is not the reason for lost customers and business.
Our product range is meticulously designed to cater to specific markets. Enduo Cargo combines Enduo Tooth profile technology for the lifetime increase with a stronger chain for the higher peak loads, designed to integrate with all e-cargo and e-bikes with heavy loads, ensuring an impressive lifespan between 15,000 to 30,000km.
Specifically designed for e-bikes, there’s Enduo Ride which uses solely the Enduo tooth profile technology to enable a conventional cycling chain to double its lifetime.
In the realm of performance cycling, we have also introduced Enduo Track, recognised as the world’s fastest drivetrain and being used by the world’s top track teams and have plans to release a product into TT applications.
What makes your products unique – how can New Motion Labs benefit brands/dealers?
Enduo technology is the world’s first chain drive technology that utilises both sides of a sprocket tooth.
Enduo enables any conventional roller chain drive to contact on both sides of the sprocket tooth and instead of a single sliding point of contact, a dual contact on both sides, alike to a bottle opener is established on each tooth.
This means that the chain does not move as it transfers power to the sprocket tooth, alike to the rubbing of hands generates heat for your hands on a cold night, Enduo stops this movement, significantly reducing friction both in the chain and the contact.
It is this elimination of friction that enables any roller chain to be more durable and efficient. This simple but revolutionary technology enables an up to 3.5x in chain drive lifetime, which has been verified by independent testing.
Not only is the technology and product exciting, but every product is also 100% recyclable, is manufactured in Germany using renewable energy, and we are on the road to carbon neutral manufacturing, very different from other alternatives which either are manufactured in Asia with coal forging methods or made from non-recyclable rubber.
We want Enduo technology to become a standard and ultimately be used all over the world, not just in cycling. To realise this vision, we are also signing licensing agreements, enabling other manufacturers to integrate the Enduo tooth profile in their products, making them more sustainable and efficient.
What are your plans for 2024 and beyond?
Our plans for 2024 will be to expand our Enduo technology into e-cargo and e-bike applications and other cycling applications that require durability and efficiency. We are actively looking for collaborators who share our vision of cycling being a major part of our sustainable future not only its use but in its manufacture.
