eBikes. They offer all of the fun of riding, without the hard work of getting up hills. Dammit, we love those electric motors when faced with hard slopes! If you are thinking of doing a cycling tour of Ireland, you might be interested in picking up one of these Irish gadgets before you do!
eBike Entrepreneur
This is 24-year-old Irishman, Jack O’Sullivan. He wants to change the way we commute. He’s started making his own ebikes, and says his cycles are so good, they will eventually replace your car.
eBike entrepreneur Jack O’Sullivan
Thanks to congestion, Dublin also has the slowest city centre of any European city. Traffic crawls along at 6mph during peak times. So it has never been a better time to switch to pedal power.
eBike Start Up
Jack got his start in the bike industry at age 16 with his first bike brand ‘Vital Fixies’. Fast-forward four years, and Jack began working on Modmo, his latest eBike venture. Modmo has already raised €1M in seed-round funding. With this money, he is going hard on the low-emission manufacturing. He makes, transports and sells bikes in the greenest ways he can think of.
The bikes are being manufactured in Vietnam, meaning that CEO Jack has had to relocate to the Southeast-Asian country for the time being. His aim is to build a world-class supply chain, supporting green initiatives. 75% of the people who works for Jack’s company are engineers who help him do this. They manage eBike production from raw materials to finished product. And they are killing it. There are already 1,000 pre-orders for its flagship product, the Saigon+. Nice work if you can get it!
eBike Saigon+
The Tech
The Saigon+ premium eBike has Bluetooth and 4G GPS tracking. Download the Modmo app, and tap lock when you park your bike. The bike’s software will set up a five-meter perimeter around your bike. If it moves outside of this, you’ll be sent a notification and you can track your bikes GPS location.
The battery is impressive. It charges in 4 hours. Plus, you can ride it up to 200km on just one charge of its custom removable battery. It has a smart digital handlebar displaying speed, distance, trip and battery level. It has bright LED lights integrated at the front, at the rear, within the handlebar ends, and on the seatpost for night ride safety.
If you want to go large on your new eBike, there are other cool things you can buy from the range of snap-on modular accessories. This is all for an entry level price of €1599.
Says Jack, “We successfully brought our first bike from concept to delivery in less than 1-year. Now we are scaling up production to fulfil our pre-orders. We’ve massively grown the production team this year to bring more production to Vietnam.”
Free Trade Agreement
Jack’s company is taking advantage of an EU-Vietnam free trade agreement. Because Jack chose Vietnam rather than China as his manufacturing base, Modmo has also been largely sheltered from the obstacles put in front of businesses by the COVID outbreak. Vietnam was quick to close their borders to travellers and has kept the virus under control. Because Modmo manufacture their own components, they have reduced dependency on large Taiwanese and Chinese bike component manufacturers. Such suppliers suffered from material shortages and increased prices since the COVID outbreak.
Dubliner Jack and his eBike company Modmo began shipping their cycles back to Ireland in February. If you live in Ireland, or are planning to, then check them out!
Looking for beautiful places to cycle in Ireland? Then check these beaches out!
