King of electric assist

Toronto Star reporter Tyler Hamilton got to try out the BionX electric assist system at the Trek store in North York. I also had the chance to try out a BionX equipped bike awhile back from a Magna Marque rep. I must say it was quite powerful and fun, almost too much power and money for this cyclist who often likes to putter along.

Canadian company Magna Marque bought out the Quebec startup this year. Magna Marque is owned by Magna, the large Canadian auto parts manufacturer. They see this as a growing market, where BionX is an engineering marvel but was limited in to the small Quebec market. Trek has now come on board and will be producing their own models.

The BionX system costs between $1,100 and $1,700 as a retrofit kit and is sold through several Toronto-area bike retailers. Major bicycle makers, such as Trek, are also coming out with their own electric models with the BionX system. It adds about 8 kilograms to a bike's weight, quite light compared to most e-bikes on the market.

"It's by far the best system," says Case DeVisser, co-owner of Vancouver-based Ohm Cycles Ltd., which three years ago began selling a line of e-bikes based on the BionX. "Once we get people on the bike they almost always want to buy it."

That's how Magna Marque landed its deal with Trek, which for two years had resisted the BionX sales pitch. "Finally we went down to the Trek world headquarters in Wisconsin with a bike and said, `Just get your engineers to ride it.' Every engineer that rode it came back with a smile on their face," recalls Gord Hall, senior vice-president of operations at Magna Marque.