Sea Otter 2021: The best things we saw from day 1 | EBR

It’s nice to see new and creative ideas in the e-bike space, and Sea Otter is the place to go if you want to see a lot of them in one place. But one that stood out from the rest was the Bimotal Elevate, a removable electric drive system that mounts directly to a traditional bicycle’s disk brakes. This allows you to turn any disc brake-equipped bicycle into an e-bike while making it easy to revert back to pedal power only.

The Bimotal system powers the rear wheel and currently only operates as a Class 2 throttle-only system. The pedal assist update is in the works and should be released before too long. While this is the first time we’ve seen the Bimotal system in person, it’s not the first we’ve heard of the company — we’d previously talked with the company’s CEO, Toby Ricco.

After more than nine years of development, RockShox finally unveiled its electronic suspension tuning system, called Flight Attendant.

Flight Attendant caught my eye for the first time when I caught a glimpse of it on a friend’s bike back in May, however as a loyal tester to the SRAM/RockShox team he didn’t give me any information on what the battery packs on his suspension were for.

Fast forward to the release date and it’s even cooler and more advanced than I was expecting. With plenty of customization and features there is a lot packed into a little package. My only complaint (if you can call it that) is that it’s currently only being sold on full bikes. I don’t expect this to be the case for long, and I can’t wait for the day I see Flight Attendant on my bike.

With all of the latest bike related technology being displayed at Sea Otter it was refreshing to see a blast from the past. Included in a display of OG bikes at the Specialized tent was one of the company’s original Stumpjumper mountain bikes. This piece of bicycling history surrounded by all of Specialized’s new tech was really cool to see. I had the evolution of mountain bikes in the flesh, right in front of my eyes.

Yeti is no stranger to making high end, race oriented mountain bikes that not only thrash, but also cost a pretty penny. Their e-bike was long awaited and, at least on paper, is seemingly poised to live up to the hype.

Its reputation preceded itself and, in person, the bike didn’t disappoint. (At least, as far as we can tell while it’s sitting on a display.)

The Yeti 160E on show at Sea Otter was painted in the Colorado-based company’s teal and yellow race livery and decked with the choicest of components like Fox Factory suspension and a Shimano EP8 motor. Like many high-end Yeti’s, this isn’t a bike we expect to see in high concentrations on our local trails. Yeti may be a big name in the bike industry, but they’re still a smaller brand at the end of the day. A rare bird, indeed.