lafreetwist

The Giant Lafree and Twist History

At the start of the third millennium, Giant Bicycles of China belatedly ventured into the electric assist bike world, and to do this they teamed up with the Dutch to design the Lafree model. As the story below shows, this was soon replaced, with the new model named the Lafree Twist. Since then they've continued to use the Lafree and Twist names on various models across the years, and this page is here to sort that out the resulting confusion, showing what's good and bad and helping with model identification.

Here's the original Lafree which came in various versions known as E-Trans, E-Race, and E-World. The motor was at the bottom bracket driving through the chain and a derailleur gearset, it had a huge lead acid battery and built in charger, these weighing almost 11 kilos, pushing the bike's weight to about 39 kilos, almost at the legal limit. Despite the huge battery, range was poor at around 12 miles, the bike was poorly received and just

could not compete with the lighter Yamaha which reigned supreme as best at that time.

As a result, Giant went back to the drawing board and teamed up with Panasonic to produce a similar concept but much improved bike, the Lafree Twist Lite at the left. This had much improved software, an NiMh battery and only weighed just over half the original model. There's a widespread concensus that this was the best electric bike ever produced, not just as an electric but for the fact

that it rode just like a good ordinary bike, indistinguishable from one without the battery. Equipped as seen with mudguards, front wheel dynamo and lights, it had a Shimano Nexus 3 speed hub, giving it hill climbing to at least 12% and the legal 15 mph top speed. It also came as a gents version with a curved crossbar as seen in other versions below.

To capitalise on the huge success of the Lite model, Giant followed with the Comfort seen at the left. This had suspension forks, hub brakes and a hub dynamo, together with the rather poor 4 speed Nexus hub which had no more range than the three speed, so offering similar peformance but for the slightly greater weight. During the life of this model, Shimano discontinued the 4 speed Nexus and Giant were forced to go to the SRAM

5 speed P5 hub, which was very much better, though dearer. With the gear range increased from the 184% of the Nexus to the 252% of the P5, to maintain the legal 15 mph top speed the gears were set low with first gear extremely low at 31". This made the bike easily capable of very steep hills, with balance being the limiting factor due to maximum power assist at about 3.6 mph in that low gear. That gave the option of changing the standard 19 tooth rear sprocket, fitting a 17 tooth instead giving a sensible 34" low gear and a maximum assisted speed of nearly 17 mph.

All of the Lafree Twist models were getting increasingly expensive to produce. The higher price of the Comfort had helped, though introducing the SRAM had partly cancelled that, so Giant went upmarket again with the model at the left, the Comfort ST. This had all the Comfort features, plus a full chaincase, and also had a larger diameter main frame tube, since one slight criticism of the previous step-through models had been

the slight flexing of the frame when pedalling hard, a common problem with step-through. Of course, the full chaincase makes rear wheel removal a less than pleasant experience, but chain and sprockets should have a very long life, almost as good as an oilbath case.

Ultimately Giant found themselves unable to continue the chain drive range and it was discontinued in 2006. The Lafree name disappeared completely at that point, and the Twist name also seemed to, since Giant then introduced the much cheaper Suede model, a front hub motor bike, not illustrated here as it's not part of the Lafree/Twist saga. The Suede had some faults which required attention, so Giant introduced an intermediate replacement called the Argue (!) which never made it to the UK. The Argue underwent further revisions and is due shortly in the UK, now to be known throughout Europe including the UK as the Twist, shown below, so that name story is set to continue.

Here's the new Twist due in 2007. Front hub motor so no gearing for that, making it very different from the very successful Twist series above, and much less capable for hill climbing and towing. The batteries are unusually as two units mounted pannier fashion either side of the carrier. Li-ion on the Twist 1 with 8 speed Shimano hub gear, NiMh on the Twist 2 with 7 speed Shimano hub This battery mounting helps it to look like a normal bike at a glance, but does restrict the choice of additional

Further Lafree Twist Information

The US market had the cumbersome full name of Giant Lafree Twist Lite changed following a suggestion from West Coast dealer Eric Sundin (Electricbikes NW), and it became the Giant Lite there, though some US owners, possibly through contact with the European market, also use the Twist name. In keeping with the American inclination to regard electric bikes as leisure bikes rather than serious transport, these were minimally equipped, with no mudguards, carrier or lighting as the photographs below illustrate.

They must have become quite good performers though, since in addition to their lighter weight later models were geared high for the 20 mph US market with the 252% range SRAM P5, the previous hubs being the 3 and 4 speed Shimano Nexus.

panniers. Whether the very upright short wheelbase Dutch style frame, and low powered hub motor to get long battery range will suit the British market remains to be seen.

12.10.2007
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