Scottish start-up nominated for Eurobike Innovation Award

Edinburgh based start-up Intra Drive was last week selected as a finalist for a Eurobike Innovation Award.

The panel of six industry experts selected Intra Drive’s next-generation multi-speed drive unit from a field of 65 entries in the start-up category.

Eurobike is the undisputed leading global trade fair for the bike business, with the 2018 show attracting 60,000 visitors and 1,400 exhibitors. The upcoming Eurobike show takes place from 4th to 6th September in Friedrichshafen, Germany, where winning products will be announced on the first day of the show.

Intra Drive was founded by Mark Ravilious, an inventive mechanical design engineer with a background in renewable energy. Ravilious had a vision for bicycles to be low maintenance and user-friendly. The product combines a gearbox and electric motor removing the traditional cassette and derailleur.

“Being nominated for a Eurobike Innovation award is an opportunity to showcase the product and I’m delighted to receive recognition of the time and effort invested over the last three years on this project,” Ravilious said.

“I am looking forward to the reaction from the bike industry and I already have several meetings lined up with parties who are interested in producing the product under licence.”

Intra Drive has received assistance from the Mountain Bike Centre of Scotland, Scotland’s national centre for mountain biking innovation and excellence, and also received Smart funding from Scottish Enterprise, which enabled the development of a unique next-generation multi-speed drive unit, with the goal of improving performance and durability whilst reducing maintenance.

It is now seeking an established commercial partner to progress the product from working prototype to volume production under license. The technology developed over the last three years is relatively close to production-ready and has been designed with volume manufacturing processes in mind from the outset.