Why Olympic champion cyclist Sir Chris Hoy is backing Skarper to make any bike an e-bike

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As one of the most decorated track cyclists of all time, Sir Chris Hoy might not seem an obvious candidate to back the burgeoning electric bike movement . The common refrain , after all, is that e-bikes aren’t real bikes .

However, the six-time Olympic gold medalist has done exactly that, investing in a fledgling U.K. startup that has built a click-on contraption that makes it easier to convert a pushbike to electric, and back again, with minimal fuss.

Skarper , as the company is called, has raised £12.8 million ($16.3 million) since its inception in 2020, with Hoy contributing to an early seed tranche. While the click-on e-bike system was originally mooted for a 2023 launch, the first production run only started going out last week to a few hundred people, with the remaining pre-orders set for the coming months.

TechCrunch chatted with Hoy as he took receipt of the first official Skarper delivery (an investor’s perk, for sure), to get his take on why this could be the next big thing in the world of e-bikes — even if you do prefer pure pedal-power, as someone of Hoy’s stature surely does.

“I’m probably not the kind of person you’d imagine would be an e-bike advocate, but once I tried my first e-bike years ago, I got it,” Hoy told TechCrunch. “When you see that you’re still cycling, you’re still using your body, but you’re getting that ‘invisible hand’ pushing you along, you get it. And you realize that for certain situations, you’d much rather ride on a pedal-assist bike than on a non-pedal assist bike.”

Sir Chris Hoy unboxing the first delivered Skarper system in Manchester. Image Credits:Skarper

The benefits of electric bikes are well-understood. A commuter might not want to arrive at the office sodden with sweat, making motorized support for those uphill climbs an appealing proposition. There’s also the reduced environmental impact with zero emissions compared to other motorized transport, while e-bikes can also circumvent heavy traffic with aplomb, cutting through lines of cars, winding through parks and other spaces typically out-of-bounds to motorized vehicles.

And some people simply can’t get out and about on a fully self-propelled bike, be that due to their age or a health condition.

But not everyone wants … Read More