Behind the scenes: With their extremely slim e-bike, the Austrians from Geero 2016 were way ahead of their time. But it's not just the product itself that's exciting: This spirit of innovation can also be seen when you take a look behind the scenes. For example, they fully rely on "Made in Austria" and attach great importance to regional value creation and sustainability.
It's the year 2016. With Geero, a newcomer from Austria is entering the e-bike stage, whose first bike has exciting key data that are almost unique at the time: Slim tubes, a compact, integrated battery, low weight and a motor that's more relies on naturalness rather than irrepressible support. It all sounds like a buzzword collection from the e-bike marketing guide for 2021 - but it was a good five years ago, a little eternity in the bike shop. Just to put this in perspective: Bosch was not to introduce batteries integrated into the frame for the first time until the following year, all mid-mounted motors weighed well over 3 kilograms and for almost all e-bikes the greatest possible power was still at the top of the specification. It shouldn't be a secret that a lot has happened to date, both in the technology of the bikes and in the heads of their riders and designers: slim, light e-bikes like the Geero are very trendy.
Looking back, it's clear: the Austrians were definitely ahead of their time and the courage to go against the trends of the time is still paying off today. Last year, the Geero 2, the successor to the original model, was presented, which brings with it some new features such as a removable battery, but has remained essentially unchanged - nevertheless: Even in 2021, it will still be a technically and visually convincing and modern E- Bike that's more trendy than ever. We could do that too only recently convinced in our test.
As exciting as the “Geero” product may be, it is also worth taking a look behind the scenes at the Styrian manufacturer. Here, too, they do a lot differently than large parts of the competition and rely fully on regional production and direct customer contact.
Behind Geero are mainly the brothers Michael and Tomy Rath. With their company Bikee they have been producing motors for e-bikes since 2010 and they have teamed up with the e-commerce specialists from niceshops GmbH for the “Geero” project. The origins as a down-to-earth family business that started on the local farm (which by the way still serves as a development center today) characterizes the course to this day and is part of the company philosophy. The production site of Geero and Bikee is not far from home, about 20 km south of Graz, and there is also a showroom in Graz from which you can also take a test drive. Almost all production steps have been taking place in Austria since 2018. This is how a ready-to-ride e-bike is made from countless individual parts right on your doorstep.
However, regional production not only strengthens the local economy and reduces the ecological footprint by saving transport routes - it also has very tangible advantages for Geero and its customers. Service, repair and maintenance work can be carried out quickly and flexibly here, and you can also react flexibly to changes in the market, for example to be able to better serve changing demands.
The chic Geero bikes can only be bought from the manufacturer himself. The direct sales concept makes it possible to reconcile regional production and attractive pricing. Thanks to the Band Manager concept launched in 2019, there is also a very significant disadvantage of direct sales: At around 30 locations in Germany and Austria you can arrange a test drive – great!
A visit to Styria is also planned for us during the course of the season – we look forward to being able to take a look at the Geero production facility ourselves.