Inside Switzerland’s Modular Cargo Bike Brand | Monopole Showroom Tour

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All right. Today I’m headed to the Monopole shop here in Zurich, Switzerland. We’re going to get an overview of the products that they offer and get a little information about the inspiration behind the tool bike. So, yeah, come along. Let’s go. I found I feel Hi everyone, I’m Yuri from Monopol. We are here at our flagship store, 5 minutes from the train station of Zurich. And yeah, let me give you a tour. This is uh the tool car. That’s a design project from Echal. It’s a design school in Loausan. And with T Zber uh we we developed this uh side car. So um as an addition to the monopole to have some extra capacity and the neat thing about it is it has a bearing inside here. Just a standard one 1/8 in headset so it can turn into the curves. So we have our little garden going on here to green up the city a little bit. So, we have our test fleet right here and where people come and uh they get curious about our special bike. So, so if you come to Zurich, you can come and test ride a bike. That’s right. Yeah, you can take it for a spin and yeah, explore the surroundings of our store. So, this is our flagship store. uh we have different our different models uh that we display here at the same time it’s our main office and uh right now they’re in a meeting uh so u but uh otherwise you will always find the people behind monopole here so yeah so this is the monopole number one electric that we launched with 3 years ago So the idea was to make a everyday bike that is at the same time a compact cargo bike and basically one bike uh that you can use for for all your needs in the city. So um you don’t need a like an everyday commuter and then at the same time a cargo bike and you don’t have to think about it in the morning which one you take. You just take the monopol, you go out and go to work or do groceries on the way back home. So, you can put everything on our bike. This is an ebike version. This is the ebike version featuring the Malle uh X35 motor which fits the battery inside the down tube and has a pinion gearbox. Here we ship it with the six-speed gearbox as a stock and you can have the 12speed as an option as well. So like that you always have lights with you, some back wind. So yeah, basically So how much does this ebike version with the pinion, the lights, the rack? So, the complete bike with the frame welded in France and and with all the high quality parts and the belt uh steering system, it comes in at 6880. Gotcha. Tell me more about the belt steering system maybe over here. That’s right. That’s uh our contribution to the bike tech and the bicycle uh industry. So, um, since we have an offset between the fork axis and the steering axis, we figured out, uh, that the belt is a very good option. There is, I think the first one I saw was uh, from the 20s, a Dutch cargo bike, and it used a chain, so a milkman’s bike. You can see it in in the Shimano or Bicycle Museum in in Sakai in Osaka, Japan. So, uh, that’s actually a very similar kind of concept. So, instead of using a chain, we you we’re using the belt. So, this one you you just set to the right tension using our eccentric bottom cup of the of the headset bearing. And after that, it doesn’t need any grease or it doesn’t need any real maintenance. Only thing that is good is if it gets like muddy or dirty that you just wash it off with some water. So yeah, it’s very smooth. It gives you a little bit of uh dampening since it’s a it’s a rubber and carbon uh combination. So yeah, but it doesn’t feel like there’s any lag. So it’s always because it’s always on pulling forces. So that’s uh what we figured out. Works super well. And really when you ride it, I mean everybody has to find out themselves, but I believe that it’s really really nice. Right here we have the monopole number one bio uh with the Alfine 11speed internal gear hub. So this is a setup which is which works as well with the gates carbon drive. So you have a very lowmaintenance setup. We chose the 11-speed Alfine because it’s coming in at a lower price point than the pinion 12speed uh gearbox. At the same time, you can do the oil change right here with the syringe. So, you don’t there’s no need like on the 8-speed or or less to to unbuild the whole uh gear or the gear ring. So, and then put instead of putting in a bath. So it’s like our focus is always to have a like a longlasting and easy m easily maintained bike. So it’s easier to do an oil change on the alfine versus the pinion. Actually I think uh it’s a similar process. So it’s it’s both is with a syringe and uh I think they’re both very well serviceable. Yeah. And the service life too. Isn’t the Alfine your initials 300 miles? Actually, I always tell my customers that or our customers that um I recommend or Shimano recommends it every year. So, that’s kind of a good good uh value or there. And uh on the pinion, they say 10K. So, after 10K, you do the first oil change. So, yeah, that’s that’s a long way. You mentioned it has a belt. So where does the frame break? The Yeah. So we have our own dropout design right here. And uh once you take these two screws off and you have this plate and underneath uh there’s the split right here. So should take the dropout off and then you can uh pull the the the belt through. So that’s the Alfine version. What does this the bio Alfine? What does this come in around? This this starts at the 4780. So also like a high quality lowmaintenance build and then we have a pinion 12 speed now. Um new since just a few weeks. So we’re offering that as well worldwide. Um, Bio C12 pinion comes at at the 5780. Great. And then shall we jump back to this version? Sure. Cuz this is like a frame set you would say that people could buy. That’s right. So, we started off with the electric, like I said, and then we had people saying that they actually prefer to have a non-electric bike and use their own body. uh to to propel themselves. So we did the bio and then we also realized in our team that uh we have a this frame that could do a lot more than just being an everyday city bike or commuter bike. So we tried out different setups uh with road handlebars, with flat bars, with chain drive, with also pinion um smart shift, like all kinds of different setups. So, uh, we figured out that, uh, we want to offer this and share this with with the people cuz you can do make an amazing touring bike or travel bike that is that can take all the load up front. At the same time, it’s short enough to fit public transit or it’s under 2 m. So, that’s kind of the legislation around here. And at the same time, you can carry it on the back of your car. So, it’s has this uh compact size. Yep. Can you run a standard uh rear cassette like 10speed or or is this all internally geared hubs? And you can actually my personal setup is uh right back there. We can have a look at it. It’s using a Stram 1 by11 drivetrain. Yeah, this is uh one of the first builds that we made with the with with the frame and just kind of exploring what kind of setups are possible. So, like I said, I’m running this uh 1×11 drivetrain from Stram. At the same time, we have the Shimano brakes and the Son Schmidtson hop dynamo with a supernova lighting. So this is my everyday bike and uh you use it for messenger work as well. So you don’t have to carry the load on the back but you just put everything up front. So yeah. So you can really configure this in like 10 different ways depending on how you want it to to go. You can have a drop bar with the pinion with chain drive. You can have a flat bar. So yeah, I mean we’re always curious to see what people come up with and uh yeah, on the ebike, it it’s currently an ebike. If in the future someone wanted to make the ebike a bio, is that possible? That’s absolutely possible. So this is one of our kinds of ways of thinking uh on on product and on product design. So, we don’t want to build a an electric bike around the motor system, but to have the motor system that fits our bike. The X35 you can take the wheel out. There’s the battery inside the down tube. So, there is a cap right here. You can take off with an Allen key. The same time you have two bolts that double as a for the a bolt for the cable guides. So you take these off, you can pull out the battery and put the plug back in and then you have the same product as a frame set. So this is a really important uh po part for us in in in terms of the design of the bike. So we don’t want to make a like this is a steel frame. So it’s going to last 30 40 50 plus years. So, we don’t want to make it obsolete just because it’s um built around a certain motor system and you’re not going to you’re not going to have say that motor system goes out of business. You will still have a bike that you can change in the future that you can you can change. Awesome. And then my next question over here is this has the standard bottom bracket plate in there. Are you able to take that off and put on a pinion as a customer or is that something that has to be done uh by you the manufacturer? That’s a good question. Um this is the BSA adapter that we have fitted here. So it use it uses a 73 mil BSA or English set bottom bracket. It’s secured by the same bolts as the pinion. So if three bolts on the drive side and three on the non-drive side, they’re tensioned to 10 Newton meters and that’s the only important thing. Anyone who can do the right tensioning can replace it. So yeah, very cool. Is there anything else you want to show me? Maybe the difference of the racks, the two different racks. That’s a really good point. So, when choosing one of our bikes, you can pick either the platform rack that we have right here, flat, generally flat, very minimalistic and lightweight and compact. Then we have the shopper rack right here, which is built or in with the idea in in the mind to fit the grocery bags. We have the fry tuck bags right here. So the special thing about it is that since we have the belt for the steering, we can actually have a freedom or free space around here because we don’t have a rod for the steering. We can move down the whole load. So you have a lower center of gravity which makes more sable overall ride. At the same time, you have better clearance up here with the handlebars. So yeah, this is the shopper rack. We’re also currently developing the XL rack. So the the feedback from our customers was that they’re looking for something that has a higher payload. Right now we’re 30 kilos. We’re looking into increasing that to 40 or even 50 kilos. And also child transportation is a big topic. So uh yeah, we’re working on that. Um need some certification as well for child transportation. So, we’re uh looking at fall or towards the end of the year. So, yeah, please stay tuned for that. Awesome. I think that’s a great ending, sort of a little teaser of what’s to come. Thank you, Yuri, for the tour. Thank you. Uh and uh thanks for the bike for the week. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Always welcome. Thank you. Okay. Do you want the motor? Yeah, I’ll turn it on. I’m pulling the plan. Oh, okay. I’ll go around the block. All right. Stopping. Oh, the wheel. Man, that is a trip. But look, the side car moves with the bike. That is super cool. One of the only few who gets to ride this one. Thank you. I feel so so special. That is unique. Thanks, Yuri. Thank you, Tren.