America’s love of sleek lightweight European-inspired city commuter bikes seems to be over. Today’s prevailing trend is for multi-terrain utility electric machines, like SUVs that you pedal.
Bike buyers want fat tires, moto-inspired aesthetics and the structural strength to tackle potholed metropolitan avenues and loose gravel fire roads.
While typical direct-to-consumer fat-tire e-bikes try to milk this by packing on gears, chains and derailleurs that easily twist out of alignment under heavy motor torque, New York’s Priority Bicycles has gone the opposite way. Its new E-Sauce has a pure single-speed configuration paired with an industrial belt. It is a mechanical statement aimed at riders who value usability over fiddly gear ratios.
Priority Bicycles
The E-Sauce arrives into a North American ebike market that is now estimated to be topping a million sales a year. Almost half of these are bought online through direct-to-consumer brand websites like Priority. That direct-sale market is worth around US$800 million a year.
Industry veteran Dave Weiner originally launched Priority Bicycles in 2014 by going direct to consumers, via a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign. Weiner’s plan was that bicycles shouldn’t require a mechanical degree to maintain. By partnering with Denver-based industrial belt giant the Gates Corporation, Priority became the first major manufacturer to commit its entire fleet – from full-sized commuters down to children’s starter models – to the grease-free, rust-proof Gates Carbon Drive belt system.
In a conventional ebike setup, a heavy motor pushes torque through a standard metal chain. This stretches links, wears down gear cassettes and puts delicate derailleurs out of alignment. Owners often face a tedious cycle of degreasing, scrubbing and applying fresh lubricants that then attract road grit.
Priority Bicycles
The E-Sauce has no derailleur hangers to bend when parking at a public rack, no multiple gears to skip, no stretched chains to snap under sudden acceleration and absolutely zero oily grease to ruin your work pants. It eliminates expensive routine servicing by replacing fragile 10-speed mechanical metal chain systems with a singe quiet carbon-reinforced track that can be hosed off with water if it gets muddy.
Electronically, it relies on a powerful 750-watt rear hub motor capable of producing continuous heavy torque. Energy is supplied by a substantial 720-watt-hour battery in the down tube, which can be removed for charging at a coffee shop or under the office desk. Priority claims this delivers a real-world range spanning 20 to 60 miles (up to 96.5 km) depending on terrain and how aggressively the rider uses the handlebar-mounted throttle.
The E-Sauce solves the single-speed “ghost pedaling” problem – where legs spin frantically with zero resistance at high speeds – through an ingenious digital transmission. From 0 to 20 mph, a torque sensor measures leg power for a natural responsive Class 2 ride. Once digitally unlocked past 20 mph, the software switches to a cadence-sensing algorithm. Because a torque sensor would fail as leg tension drops, the cadence system simply detects pedal rotation and instructs the motor to pour on power up to 28 mph (45 km/h), replacing mechanical gears with smart coding.
Priority Bicycles
When weighed against online market rivals, the E-Sauce loses a raw “watts-per-dollar” battle. Many budget machines with similar 750-watt motors and wide tires also use low-tier shifting components, heavy steel frames and standard metal chains that corrode and drop off-line when subjected to salt, rain or mud.
Priority is banking on a more mature consumer willing to pay a premium for structural durability, an all-aluminum frame and a component array engineered to be ridden hard and put away wet.
With a total weight of 59 lb (26.7 kg), the E-Sauce is notably lighter than full-suspension, ultra-fat competitors, which routinely pass the 75-lb mark. To maintain a playful BMX-style handling, Priority opted for agile 27.5-inch wheels with 2.4-inch WTB knobby tires. A 3.9-inch-travel suspension fork soaks up curb strikes and trail roots, while stopping is handled by dual-piston hydraulic discs featuring electronic motor cutoff.
The electrified evolution of the company’s cult-classic un-assisted Sauce bike will retail at $2,199.
About the Priority E-Sauce
The gamble for Priority rests on that single-speed design. It places the brunt of hill climbs on the rear hub motor and the rider’s quads. For flat cities like New York, Chicago or Miami, it’s fine. However, for residents of San Francisco or Seattle, the lack of mechanical gear reduction for steep inclines may be a deterrent.
The Priority E-Sauce could be a blueprint for the next phase of ebike evolution: an era focused squarely on reducing ownership costs and hassles. It follows a lineage of low-upkeep models ranging from the utility-focused Priority Current Plus to the ultra-minimalist Priority Glide city line, and even up to advanced electronic gearbox options like the Priority Skyline.
By merging the rugged, care-free attitude of a classic single-speed beach cruiser with highly sophisticated dual-sensing electronic controls, Priority has created a minimalist but highly capable utility platform. Perhaps the best ebikes will turn out to be the ones that ask for least attention when you aren’t riding them.
Product page: Priority E-Sauce
