Sometimes it feels like good ideas are oddly hard to come by. Good executions of a good idea are even harder still. There’s no doubt that the Clip electric motor attachment for bicycles is a good idea. It’s straightforward to attach — assuming, of course, that the bike it’s attached to is compatible and doesn’t have a front suspension fork — simple to use and nicely portable. In execution, however, there are some issues. In the end, there’s a fairly narrow set of riders the Clip will benefit.
First, what the heck is a Clip? The company says it “is the first instant e-bike upgrade that you can take with you.” Put simply, it’s a battery-powered electric motor that attaches to a bicycle’s front fork assembly, similar in principle to the old Solex mopeds. A small wheel is positioned so that it comes into contact with the bike’s front tire, providing a friction drive coupling to add electric power to a regular bicycle. And the good news is that it works.
After assembling a bike provided for review by Priority Bicycles — a single-speed cruiser with a wonderful belt drive — we found no issues at all attaching the Clip unit to the front fork. The combined battery and motor unit weighs less than 10 pounds and is easy to carry. Attaching it to a bicycle requires two hands and a bit of fiddling to ensure that the drive wheel comes into proper contact with the front tire but only takes a few seconds. The forks do get a little floppy due to the weight, but once moving that feeling goes away. There’s no sense that the Clip unit will detach from the bike accidentally, even over rough road surfaces. A small remote control is affixed to the main Clip unit to recharge and uses a flap of rubber to attach to the bike’s handlebar. There’s a big red button to active the motor and a smaller button that induces regenerative braking.
So far, so good. On level surfaces, we found that the Clip provides a reasonable amount of motive assistance that makes pedaling much easier. A boost function is activated by holding the big red button down, and it’s powerful enough that the bike will gain speed even if the rider isn’t pedaling… as long as there’s no incline (more on that below). We tested the Clip in a small urban area near us and found that it worked pretty well. Assistance is immediate upon pedaling, and the amount of power the unit provides makes perfect sense in an area packed with parked cars and people walking dogs and pushing strollers. Range is listed at up to 6 miles with the base Clip Commuter or up to 12 miles with the upgraded Clip Explorer. With a bit of human-powered pedaling assist, we figure those range estimates are probably accurate, again assuming there’s no incline to deal with.
We also tested the Clip in a residential neighborhood that has some easy but longish climbs of a few hundred feet, and that’s where we had issues. Our single-speed test bike didn’t have any gearing to make pedaling uphill easier, so we used the Boost function to gain a bit of speed before the incline. It worked, which the rider can see happening via a set of LED lights on the unit, for about 30 seconds before we felt the electric assist drop off. And when it drops, it seemingly drops entirely. After pulling over, removing the Clip unit and reinstalling it, we repeated the test with the same result. A dive into the FAQs — thoughtfully accessed via a QR code directly on the Clip unit — revealed that the Clip is fitted with safety systems to keep from burning out or overheating the motor or battery pack, which is a good idea. Sadly, there just isn’t enough juice to adequately climb even the moderate hills on our test route.
We’d recommend choosing a bicycle with gearing options; even a simple three-speed system would make it much easier to push a heavyish cruiser bike uphill, particularly with the added weight of the Clip unit. It’s also possible that tire selection would have an impact on how much assistance the Clip could offer, but we only had one test machine. Your mileage may vary, as they say. And we mean that quite literally in this case.
The Clip is an excellent idea, and one with several clever choices and useful design details. For buyers looking for just a little bit of help in relatively flat urban areas, this clip-on e-bike unit makes a lot of sense. Riders who need more than the modicum of electric assist offered by the Clip may instead want to look at a dedicated e-bike.
