Vaporware or Gamechanger? The Bike Tech from the CES Show 2025 – Outside Magazine

Powered by OutsideBe one of the first to try our new activity feed! Tap “Home” to explore.3D printed titanium bikes, and a motor so compact you can’t even tell where it is. Photo: Urtopia
The Consumer Electrics Show (CES) isn’t the first place you’d think of when considering new tech in bikes. And frankly, you’re not going to find the latest iteration of a race-ready road bike or a new gravel bike. But with the rise of electric assist, CES is worth paying attention to, even if it feels like most of it is vaporware.Below is a roundup of everything bike-related (and bike-shaped) at CES 2025, a place where they call bikes ‘personal transportation.’Perhaps the headlining feature here is a 3D-printed titanium e-bike. We’ve seen 3D-printed titanium before. What we haven’t seen, however, is an e-bike like this that weighs in at under 20 pounds claimed.The claims are similarly surprising. Assist is provided by a drive unit called the Quarq DM1.2, a mid-drive motor that they say weighs just 2.6 pounds on its own. Further, Urtopia claims the system can produce 65 Nm peak torque, a surprising number for its size.As a point of comparison, the Fazua Ride 60 mid drive motor (found on the likes of the Cervelo Rouvida among others) offers 60 Nm torque, but that lightweight drive motor weighs in at 4.3 pounds. Even Giant’s new Syncdrive hub drive motor weighs in at 3.7 pounds.Bicycle Retailer reports Urtopia said it has more than 300 dealers in the U.S., and more in Europe. While this bike is set as a concept, the company expects to push the drive system to production soon enough.Core has released a new generation body temperature sensor called the Core 2 Body Temperature Sensor. According to Core, its temperature sensor is used by more than 65 percent of UCI WorldTour teams as another data point to track performance.This new second-generation sensor is claimed 30 percent lighter. Perhaps more importantly, it is a claimed 48 percent smaller than before. While the old one wasn’t especially big, its smaller size should make the sensor easier for non-pro cyclists to take with them. This isn’t vaporware; it’s available now for order.Livall launched a second-generation version of its Pikaboost e-bike conversion kit ready for sale. The aptly named Livall Pikaboost 2 first surfaced through an Indiegogo campaign, and now, it’s ready for purchase.The system, including the battery and the friction drive system, is contained in one unit that clips onto your seat tube or seat post. Clip the system on your bike, lower the roller to make contact with your bike’s rear wheel, and Livall claims seamless electric assist.Thanks to the geared roller system, Livall claims the system offers regenerative braking, a rarity amongst most other e-bikes. Does this mean added stress to your bike components that were never designed for electric assist? Probably. But hey, it’s an interesting idea either way, particularly with its comparatively inexpensive $369 USD price point seen on its Indiegogo campaign.The system claims a 70 km range (43 miles) from a 158 Wh battery, as well as Class 1 assist up to 32 kmh (20 miles per hour).Vaporware? According to Livall, this is shipping soon.Bosch has introduced an update called Battery Lock. Bosch claims that users will be able to automatically lock the battery when the e-bike is switched off, not via a mechanical lock but through the Bosch eBike Flow app. If a ‘locked’ battery is inserted into another e-bike equipped with the Bosch smart system, the motor is automatically disabled and the bike is made inoperable.Users who want to ‘lock’ their battery will need to have an eBike Flow subscription, where it can be turned on and off easily. Expect to see this over-the-air update later this year.Trek Bicycle and Aizip collaborated to create a Small Language Model Assistant (SLMA) for biking. What does that mean, however? No clue. We’ve reached out to Trek for details and will update this story accordinglyWhat’s it like to be an American cyclist living in France? Watch to get professional road cyclist Joe Dombrowski’s view. © 2025 Outside Interactive, Inc

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