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Behind the Design: Cairn BRAVE - an electric assisted back road adventure vehicle!
Jul 28, 2021
Hannah talks to Matt, designer of the Cairn BRAVE, about the development of this drop bar off-road e-bike.
Read her full review here: https://singletrackworld.com/charged/2021/07/14/cairn-brave/
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0:11
hi
0:11
i'm hannah from singletrack world i'm
0:13
here with matt from
0:15
cairn cycles to talk about this bike
0:17
here the ken
0:18
brave now a couple years ago i tested
0:21
the cane adventure 1.0
0:23
which was a gravel bike with a motor
0:27
and i was like oh it's good but i want
0:29
something that can go
0:30
more adventure more off-road and my
0:32
prayers have been answered because
0:34
here we go we've got 29 by 2.5
0:38
maximum tire clearance we've got a motor
0:41
and we've got drop bars so it's it's
0:43
like a
0:44
giant monster cross e-bike
0:47
on all my dreams in one really isn't it
0:49
matt i guess you could say that yeah
0:52
so why did you design it because it
0:53
wasn't for me
0:55
well no not really um obviously it was
0:58
for a much bigger audience than yourself
1:00
but
1:00
it works out that in your favor um we
1:03
basically saw the trend of gravel with
1:05
bigger tires bigger tires bigger tires
1:07
it was getting to the point where we had
1:09
that like swap over between like 650b
1:12
wide or 700 wide and it was like
1:15
well do we go the next step i don't
1:17
think a lot of people would
1:18
on acoustic bikes specifically um
1:22
because it's just too much to pedal too
1:24
heavy to too much
1:25
tire and um but when you add in an
1:28
e-bike system
1:29
it's a no-brainer why would you not yeah
1:31
basically
1:31
[Laughter]
1:33
so i've been riding around on this and
1:35
like you say this that big kind of
1:37
monster cross with
1:38
this sort of tyre without a motor
1:41
you kind of need to live in mongolia or
1:44
be really fit
1:45
to justify having that amount of bike
1:48
but when you stick the the motor on then
1:51
you can join up all the kind of boring
1:53
bits uh
1:54
get them out of the way and then be
1:55
off-road again and
1:57
so what we've got here is the drop bar
1:59
version but there is
2:00
a flat bar version as well isn't there
2:02
yep two bikes uh
2:03
same frame same geometry uh just it's
2:06
just a different hammer bar basically
2:08
um the way that we balance the geometry
2:11
is well
2:12
there's a lot of maths and working it
2:14
out but
2:15
when you have a wide flared handlebar uh
2:19
with quite a short stem and long kind of
2:21
mountain bike style geometry
2:23
when you swap it out to a short stem
2:25
with a wide handlebar flat handlebar
2:27
the difference in the reach is about
2:29
five mil
2:30
so you kind of balance it to work with
2:33
both and then it just comes down to your
2:34
personal preference what would you
2:36
prefer
2:36
so the flat bar version is only
2:38
marginally shorter then than
2:40
this with it's got quite a significant
2:42
flare on these bars which is comfy to
2:44
ride off-road
2:46
um so yeah you can make that choice
2:48
between the two
2:49
yeah this obviously got a rigid fork
2:52
could you
2:52
add a suspension fork yeah so suspension
2:55
corrected
2:56
not quite to like 100ml but
2:59
once you've got a spout sagged 80 mil
3:02
fork
3:03
so it's kind of bridging that gap
3:05
between like a cross-country bike and an
3:06
a and a gravel bike
3:08
with gravel bikes having that sort of 40
3:10
to 60 mil
3:11
so yeah it's a 470 axle to crown
3:15
okay 80 mil so you could add a little
3:18
bit more comfort in there if you wanted
3:20
to for
3:21
big long journeys which you could
3:22
certainly do with all the all the
3:24
rackmounts which we'll come to in a
3:25
moment
3:26
um let's talk about what's here first so
3:28
this is the one that i've been
3:30
test riding it's got 29 by 2.35
3:33
tires on it although you could go up to
3:35
2.5 if you wanted yeah yeah
3:37
2.5 uh max um if you wanted to
3:42
you a little bit bigger but two four two
3:44
five two five is the official line
3:47
okay um and then we've got a
3:50
sram apex uh brakes group set
3:54
um and a shimano e7000
3:57
motor now that's not the brand new uh
4:00
shimano motor but you do have reasons
4:02
for using this one yeah
4:03
uh yeah so the the reason uh is the
4:06
delivery of the torque
4:07
epa is is amazing as everyone has has
4:10
been finding out recently
4:12
but because it's got a 90 newton meters
4:14
yeah okay you can adjust it
4:15
but uh it's just too much on a rigid
4:18
drop by a bike
4:20
it just plows you into stuff and you
4:22
just got no control
4:24
um we did test it to be fair right it
4:26
wasn't very comfortable
4:28
um so the reason for it was uh obviously
4:31
one is costs
4:32
um but the other one is yeah because it
4:35
only got 60 newton meters
4:36
just a better delivery um and because of
4:39
that reduced
4:40
amount of torque uh combined with the
4:43
big 600 watt battery
4:44
you just get loads of range loads and
4:47
loads of range whereas on the
4:48
on the ep8 with the high torque even
4:50
with a big battery the range is
4:52
is not really that different so yeah
4:55
it's just a bit more
4:57
a bit more manageable uh than the than
5:00
the epa system
5:00
yeah you don't want to be winching
5:02
plummeting on a bike like this you want
5:03
to be going for miles and miles and i
5:05
can attest that
5:06
i have not managed to run out the
5:08
battery on this
5:10
in a single ride i i've done some some
5:12
long rides on it and still come home
5:14
with like three bars
5:15
now part of the reason for that i would
5:17
say would be that i've mostly been
5:19
riding it
5:20
in eco and there is a slight difference
5:22
between
5:23
getting this in the drop bar version and
5:25
the flat bar version
5:26
because shimano have not made
5:29
get your pens out the ready and start
5:31
complaining uh
5:32
an actuator to shift between the assist
5:35
modes that fits
5:36
on dropbar have they uh so
5:39
ideally they would like you to buy di2
5:41
yeah so that it's compatible
5:43
but obviously when you're making a cost
5:45
conscious bike
5:46
that's available to a broad market yeah
5:49
there's some complications with making
5:51
it shift so
5:52
on the dropbox version you just have to
5:53
use the computer and the button
5:55
yeah it's a little bit fiddly because
5:56
you have to go up to come back you have
5:58
to keep going up
5:59
yeah so for those that are watching you
6:02
you go into eco and then you go into
6:05
trail and then you go into boost
6:07
and then you go into off to get back to
6:10
eco again
6:11
which if you're part way up an incline
6:13
you're getting slower and slower
6:15
that is difficult and it is a small
6:17
button that you've got to get and you
6:18
might be wrestling with the trail at the
6:20
same time
6:20
so it's not ideal however uh what i've
6:23
done with this
6:24
is i've basically i've ridden it in eco
6:27
almost all the time
6:29
and then i've also modified the
6:32
assist that you get from the different
6:34
levels
6:35
so it came it comes like a standard eco
6:38
trail
6:38
boost and you can use the shimano
6:41
e-tubes very random app name for an app
6:45
and you can use that to adjust the level
6:48
of assist that each gives you so i've
6:50
now got it
6:51
in a kind of eco uh trail minus
6:54
and trail plus yeah um although it still
6:57
says trail and boost
6:59
and that means like you say you don't
7:00
need that big rush of power when you're
7:02
in the drop bars
7:04
um so yeah so using that evens it out
7:06
yeah just adjust it all
7:08
and yeah it's not ideal we'd like to
7:10
improve it we've obviously fed back to
7:11
shimano
7:12
uh and and to be fair anyone that has a
7:14
dropbox shimano bike in this kind of
7:16
setup has the same problems yeah so
7:18
it's not just ourselves but um but yeah
7:20
it
7:21
if you can if you know how you want to
7:23
ride and what you can do you can use the
7:24
app to adjust it just like
7:26
most uh e-bike systems now but um
7:30
yeah it just means it's a bit a little
7:32
bit fiddly ideally shimano could just
7:34
make it so that you went back down when
7:35
you press the button instead of off
7:37
but
7:37
[Laughter]
7:42
as we said there are two bikes and to
7:44
some extent i think that the more
7:46
experienced rider
7:47
that's probably got the legs and the
7:48
confidence to deal with that sort of
7:51
nuance
7:52
is going to be riding the the drop bar
7:53
bike and then you've got the flat bar
7:55
bike as well
7:56
which has got the shifter that then
7:58
gives you
7:59
all the up and down that you could want
8:01
and also i believe a walk mode in that
8:04
bike as well yeah and you don't get a
8:07
walk mode with this
8:08
so yeah there's there's two bikes and
8:11
for me that's like the main kind of
8:13
functional difference between them is
8:15
that the
8:15
how you can use the assist on the motor
8:18
and then obviously
8:19
uh the fact that it is a flat bar bike
8:21
versus a drop bar so
8:23
otherwise the system's the same yeah
8:25
same battery and motor you're getting
8:26
the same system
8:27
just yeah just that that little bit and
8:30
to be fair in our testing
8:31
we we're obviously doing big long ride
8:34
short rides and
8:36
it didn't matter where we were really
8:37
going we're always stuck in the same
8:40
mode there's occasions here okay the
8:42
train that you've ridden is probably
8:44
very different to the south downs
8:45
um but yeah you either find there's like
8:49
you know what hills coming
8:50
so you can prepare and you can get into
8:53
trail or boost mode
8:54
or yeah i just found myself using trail
8:56
mode the shimano trail mode is
8:58
is excellent it gives you that really
9:00
good balance between
9:01
range and power and support so yeah so
9:05
this one i've got here is a
9:07
pre-production model so there have been
9:09
a few changes
9:10
from this and basically it looks very
9:14
similar
9:14
uh when you get the the final model
9:16
which is due in december is that right
9:18
yeah december this year
9:19
um so it's always comforting when you
9:22
when you test something
9:23
and you think oh that could be different
9:25
and that could be different and then
9:27
the person that's made it goes oh yeah
9:28
we've changed that already so
9:30
um i noticed that on this particular
9:32
model here there's a bit of a gap around
9:34
here and you've made some adjustments so
9:35
that
9:36
there's not so much chance of water
9:38
ingress through there haven't you yeah
9:39
so just
9:40
uh adjusted the gusset here so uh
9:43
the battery sits lower in the gusset so
9:46
yeah
9:47
it will still get a little bit of mud in
9:49
there but we've tried to improve it as
9:51
much as we can
9:52
yeah and then the other thing i noticed
9:53
was that it is so capable
9:55
that i was writing down stuff and going
9:57
i really should have a dropper post and
9:59
i was kind of getting off stuff partly
10:01
because i didn't have a dropper post and
10:02
partly because i'm clipped in and i'm
10:03
not very good at that
10:05
but you have changed the the routing on
10:07
here so that you can have a dropper post
10:08
more easily can't you
10:09
yeah so basically it is on this bike so
10:12
it currently goes through the bb
10:14
and up but um yeah i just said you'd
10:16
have to take the motorcycle
10:17
you have to drop the motor out and
10:18
everything which is uh a bit silly
10:20
so yeah it will just come down
10:22
externally and there'll be a
10:23
little hole like most mountain bikes
10:25
these days yeah so
10:27
nice and easy to add a dropper cool and
10:29
then
10:30
i'm going to step off camera briefly
10:32
because we have some new
10:33
just in today yeah
10:36
racks which i'll give you one i'll give
10:39
you that one since someone goes on the
10:41
back
10:42
yeah yeah so this is quite exciting and
10:44
i think particularly well for this
10:46
because it will make it
10:47
more useful in more situations but i
10:49
think particularly for the people who
10:51
are looking this
10:51
as a flat bar bike this
10:54
is going to turn it into your long
10:58
distance
10:58
traveler or your
11:02
child carrier yep your supermarket bike
11:06
so we've got front rack and a rear rack
11:09
and they are going to be made in the uk
11:12
yeah
11:12
so um we weren't going into too much
11:15
detail about how busy the
11:17
the far east is right now um but yeah if
11:20
you if you're trying to do
11:21
smaller volumes of things like racks or
11:23
bikes like we are
11:25
um it's just tough right now we don't we
11:27
don't quite have the volume for for the
11:29
big manufacturers so
11:31
we're just looking for alternatives and
11:32
the local company to us in
11:34
well they're in sorry we're in sussex
11:36
but um it's all down south from here
11:38
yeah
11:39
all south from here yeah um i'm gonna
11:41
put them together this is literally we
11:42
got these this morning
11:44
uh yeah so this is the first time we're
11:46
really seeing them you're seeing them
11:48
yeah but they're yeah they'll be made in
11:49
the uk um
11:51
which is really cool it's a good story
11:53
um
11:54
you know bringing some manufacturing
11:56
back to the uk so it was a good thing
11:58
um but yeah hopefully we'll we're going
12:00
to be able to get them in for
12:02
a good price as well don't quote me on
12:04
anything just
12:05
just yes maybe maybe 100-ish for the
12:08
pair
12:08
but don't quote me on that so this will
12:11
have
12:11
a net on the front so that you could you
12:14
could put your shopping bag and strap it
12:15
on
12:16
or you could put your sleeping bag or
12:17
your tents or whatever and it'll happen
12:19
about 15 kilos is going to be the tested
12:21
weight is that 10 to 15 kilograms 15
12:23
kilos
12:24
i hope yeah yeah and it will have a
12:26
mount on the front for lights and things
12:27
like that obviously so okay
12:29
whether you want to run a light that's
12:31
powered by the system or just your bog
12:33
standard battery light
12:34
that will be able to mount on the front
12:35
as well so and then this one
12:38
iraq rear rack which one of my questions
12:40
was going to be can you put a child seat
12:42
on it and
12:43
i'm told yes yep it should be the right
12:45
width and
12:47
dimensions to um yeah to support child
12:49
rack
12:50
and we're going to test it to hopefully
12:53
about 35 kilos max
12:55
but i don't know our engineer is going
12:57
to scream at me because i've said that
12:59
on the camera
13:01
so um but it'll be enough for a child
13:03
seat at least yeah
13:04
and a child yes yeah not just a seat
13:08
so um i was hearing that you're going to
13:11
actually do your own testing of this and
13:13
test it beyond
13:14
what you uh would be like required to do
13:16
by iso because the iso doesn't test on
13:18
bumps
13:19
and you can imagine that people will be
13:22
taking this or the flat bar version over
13:24
a few bumps yeah so uh again trying to
13:28
find a test house that can test a rack
13:30
to like real world standards is quite
13:32
difficult and
13:34
currently the test is is just loaded uh
13:37
and then just
13:37
moved about a bit and it's not really a
13:40
realistic test
13:41
um so yeah we're actually slightly thank
13:45
you to our partner company
13:46
uh hunt bike wheels but um we will yeah
13:49
be building a rig that will actually
13:51
simulate a real world riding experience
13:53
with the
13:54
with the racks loaded so yeah they'll
13:56
either be massively over engineered or
14:00
or um yeah you'd just be able to load
14:02
them up really good
14:03
yeah yeah well so having ridden this
14:06
around calderdale which for those who
14:09
haven't been here
14:10
has lots of moorland rockiness
14:13
and mud and grit and then lots of steep
14:16
descents
14:17
and then lots of disconnected bits so
14:18
there's lots of horrible steep
14:20
25 road climbs in between um this could
14:23
totally have been designed
14:25
for for where i live because there's so
14:27
little that i can't ride on this so
14:29
basically
14:30
once i can't ride down something on this
14:33
i should be on one of your privateers
14:34
anyway
14:35
so yeah um and then i can totally see as
14:38
well
14:38
the flat bar option uh could be a real
14:42
great kind of sort of uh
14:45
semi-urban semi-rural family bike as
14:48
well it's not it's
14:50
it's not it's instead of your second car
14:52
yeah um especially when you can stick
14:53
the racks on it and do the school run
14:55
and that kind of thing so kind of this
14:57
the start of this project the kind of
14:58
back story to it was um
15:00
the the rider firm owners tom and pete
15:03
uh
15:03
although very different people and
15:05
wanted very very different bikes
15:08
really they wanted the same thing that
15:09
just did the other like different things
15:12
it's really hard to explain but they
15:14
were both saying i won 29 i both want
15:17
you know a big e-bike system and and all
15:19
the power and the talk that you get from
15:21
it but
15:22
really the only thing they wanted was
15:24
tom wants a drop bar and pete wanted a
15:26
flat bar
15:27
right um so yeah that's exactly it if
15:29
you've got a flat bar you could
15:31
put some nice slicks on it and it you
15:33
know it's a great um
15:35
you know durable town bike or city bike
15:36
or whatever
15:38
oh but you'd be missing out on on the
15:40
potential for adventure i think if you
15:42
only ever rode it around the town
15:44
so yeah so you've said a few times it's
15:47
designed to a price point so
15:48
what is the price for this one um so the
15:52
drop bar is two five eight nine
15:55
yeah just looking slightly off camera
15:58
that's my lovely assistant um yeah two
16:01
five eight nine
16:02
and then the flat bar is uh two one
16:03
eight nine okay
16:05
so that is a competitively priced e-bike
16:08
certainly um and with with plenty of
16:11
functionality
16:12
built in yeah so if people watching
16:16
are now like oh this is what i want i
16:18
don't want another car
16:19
or i just want another bike they can
16:22
pre-order now is that right
16:23
yeah so we can take pre-orders obviously
16:25
not available till december
16:27
but um but yeah we're taking pre-orders
16:29
now cool
16:30
and in this world of ever-changing
16:33
prices and uh availability of bits of
16:37
bike then
16:38
that could be a very smart move to
16:40
pre-order and have a
16:41
bird in the hand or nearly in the hand
16:44
anyway basically if you get the
16:45
pre-order on
16:46
that's what you're paying obviously we
16:47
can't guarantee that things won't change
16:49
from now on
16:50
um as the world is ever changing but
16:53
yeah if you can pre-order now
16:55
then you'll get it at that price at
16:56
least um yeah cool
16:58
and we'll learn that so well thanks very
17:00
much for coming today
17:01
any chance you could not take it back
17:03
with you and i could just keep hold of
17:04
it
17:05
please it's good for me yeah it's 2589.
17:10
worth a try thank you thank you
17:18
[Music]
17:23
the seagulls and then the seagulls
17:26
feed the baby otters otters are like
17:30
cuckoos
17:35
neither of them calls me out on it
17:38
i was like neither of you called me out
17:40
on this hours later chips didn't respond
17:42
and the man was like i believed you i
17:45
said
17:46
i was talking auto
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