We recently had the opportunity to build a fully custom Electric Road Bike for Rolf Dietrich, founder of Rolf Prima wheels, a renowned premium wheel deign and manufacturing company that has been building high end cycling wheels for many years. Rolf has ridden hundreds of high end bikes and seen many handmade titanium bikes in his long career in the bike industry. It was an honor for us to be chosen to build his custom e-bike.
Given Rolf’s extensive experience with bikes, he had very specific requests for his bike. First, he wanted a titanium frame with custom geometry, and he wanted to use wheels he built himself with carbon fiber Rolf Prima rims and a very low spoke count. Second, he required a Rohloff Hub with Gates Carbon Belt Drive system and the Rohloff E14 electronic shifting system. We built his bike with the Bosch Generation 4 performance line speed motor with Smart system and 725wh battery for maximum range. This motor has 750 watts of max power and 85nm of torque. With the 70t gates front sprocket and 19t rear sprocket, this bike is geared perfectly for 28mph top speed in turbo mode.
The bike also features the Zinn Duro carbon gravel/road bike fork that provides the greatest strength and stiffness for proper braking performance on an e-bike. There is no brake shudder with this fork. The frame features custom anodized graphics with an elegant satin finish on the bare titanium frame. Titanium can never corrode, so this finish will last forever and can easily be touched up as needed.
Zinn Custom E-bike review
Lennard:
Thank you very much for that forthright answer. I did notice the difference in the surface finish of the motor cradle between that of the tubes. I’ve never seen a 3D printed one and from your description I appreciate that you resorted to one with its advantages.Without doubt, Nalby’s welds are the absolute best I’ve ever seen and that you’ve worked with him all these years reinforces the confidence I had in choosing you to build my bike, along with your prior build of the Mg bike for me years ago and your long experience as technical writer/editor for VELONEWS.By now the accumulated mileage on my ZINN Ti e-bike has reached 300 and I’m enjoying it more with ever ride. According to Nick you too enjoyed riding it on your test ride which included my 16 spoke wheels which are currently still mounted on this 40 LB e-bike. As you know, with e-assist, weight is no issue and I ride routinely 50% faster than without an e-motor & the heavy ROHLOFF transmission.One of these days when I’m visiting relatives in the Denver area I’ll have to bring some 16 spoke ROLF wheels with me and drive to your shop to have you try them on your personal bike. Speed is my thing, still, even at 83 years of age, and these will make you too faster!If you would, please thank Nalby personally for me for his outstanding welding on my bike.Thanks,
Rolf
