Skarper Reviews 79

Great product. Very individualised support- and also very flexible. Happy to use a non recommended bike mechanic to fit.
Once calibrated, the battery is 10 seconds to remove and is simple to use and recharge. It allows me to use all of my high quality bikes, which I would not be able to use otherwise due to a recent and permanent illness. The unit is asymmetrical but I have not found any balance issues after riding > 300K with it.

As the years go on I found cycling getting harder and harder, especially up the hills. I have a perfectly good hardtail bike so could not justify buying a new electric bike which was going to cost me £4K plus. So I did some research and came across the Skarper. It looked like the perfect answer, and as it turned out it was. I purchased the kit which came very professionally packed. The installation instructions were easy to follow and could be done by any DIY person. It took me under 2 hours to complete with no drama. I rode the bike today for the first time. Wow, wow it was everything I hoped it would be and more. Would I recommend it to anyone looking for a bit of extra assistance, oh yes. My only disappointment is that I did not buy the Skarper sooner.

great advice and support team, excellent technical advice.
A great product expertly designed and functionality exactly as described.

Absolutely love my new Skarper. I have been servicing my bike for a while and had the right tool to change the brake rotor so I was up and running from the box within an hour (excluding charging time). I took it out on the first weekend, managing a 22 mile ride on Saturday and 50 mile ride on the Sunday. I got to 50 miles by pausing it on the flats and downhills and only using it for the climbs, and still had 17% power left. It's a fabulous feeling doing those distances without too much effort. And great being able to take it off and leave it at home for the short rides when not needed. I also got great help and support from Harry at Skarper with the few questions I had.

Love my Skarper!
Husband got it for me as was struggling with hills, now I leave him standing.
This has been a game changer for me. We have even been cycling in France up & down the cliffs of Dieppe.
The battery has never run out while I’ve been cycling (45 miles)
Another big bonus for me is being able to keep my own bike. No weight problems with transporting in the car.
The customer service from Skarper has been brilliant from purchasing to helping me install the App.
Now Im waiting for a little warmer weather to try the new App
I would definitely recommend Skarper.

I have a recumbent that I regularly use for my 20-mile commute. As I find the return journey quite tiring I wanted to get some motorised support on my recumbent. However most of the aftermarket kits don't work on a recumbent - that is until I found Skarper. It's not cheap, however with a special Autumn offer and the Cycle2Work scheme this kit became affordable.
Out of the box the Skarper did not completely fit however with great support from the Skarper team (especially Harry), I received some additional attachment which made the fit perfect.
I have now done various rides and the Skarper delivers where it needs to. In Eco mode it provides plenty of support to make the hills around Yorkshire that bit easier to make my rides more comfortable. All in all, an excellent product and a great team with super support. Great communication and great responsiveness.

The fluient support by skarper resulting in comfort in nearly any given terrain or weather comdition.

When going downhill and exceeding 25km/h there is hardly
any resistance from this gorgeous instrument.

As the skarper device is mounted below the center of gravity of the bicycle the added weight results in higher stability and minimal sense of added weight once on speed.

An excellent piece of kit. Great for hillier cycling routes but I can still use my bike without it for trips to the shops etc.
Easy to click on and off the bike. So I still have my made to measure bike but it is electric when I want it to be.

Just got my Skarpers - super helpful customer service from both Skarper and Alpkit and fast delivery. Easy to fit if you have some basic bike maintenance knowledge - was up and running in an hour.
Lovely piece of design and technology - and high quality manufacturing as well. Works really smoothly to provide boost when climbing, and a nice kick of acceleration when taking off from a stop as well was an unexpcetd bonus at traffic lights :-)
Feels very well integrated, giving a 'normal' cycling experience, no sudden boost or cut - get's you up to the 15mph maximum, and then smoothly disappears once you are powering the bike above that speed, which extends battery life enormously. 3 boost modes give usefully different experiences. You can switch between these on the phone app.
It is a significant weight addition (~5kg unit and disk) to my lightweight bike (11kg) - you obviously notice that, but handling only modestly affected as weight is low down. And of course you can take it off - which was one of the biggest attractions to me - I want to have my bike as I built it - and have the option of electric when I want to use that. I can move it across my various bikes - which is a huge win compared with being locked into a single compromised e-bike design.
Roll on a 180mm disk drive for mountain bikes please!

Living on a large hill this device is a leg saver and has brought the fun back into cycling.

The Skarper easily converts bikes with disk breaks into an electric bike. The advantage is that you can use the bike either with or without the electric drive,

Awesome experience of getting fitted, asked all the questions I wanted, had a test ride as well. The product itself is super easy to take on and off. It's exactly what it does on the tin, but because it's limited to 17 mph, you very quickly reach that pace on a flat. You end up with a heavy unit attached to a bike you don't really use on the flats.

It completely comes into its own once you have a decent amount of hill. You get up without breaking a sweat at all, so that's my only point.

I'm riding in central London, and I do sometimes do some hills around North London, but my commute is pretty flat, so I don't use it a huge amount.

After trying a demonstration bike fitted with Skarper at a local bike shop I purchased a unit from the first batch. Although expensive I found it attractive in that it allowed me to fit it to two of my existing bikes a 2011 Rockhopper Expert mountain bike and a 2008 Ultra Galaxy touring bike. The latter needed a replacement rear wheel to provide the disc drive interface. I took delivery of the Skarper unit in April 2025. The Skarper was used exclusively on the MTB during 2025 with out a problem. It was used by my son on a weeks tour we took in the Peak District in July and found that it exceeded the range claims. On one of the days it covered 30 miles over extremely hilly conditions when it used turbo mode on several occasions. This compared to the claimed 31 miles in Eco mode.
This year I have mounted it on the touring bike to use it as a winter road bike.
The new App. would not work on my Skarper ( A first Batch only problem). A software update was carried out with the help of the very capable and helpful Harry at Skarper on a video call. The App. now connect’s via Bluetooth to my Skarper unit. The only issue I have had this year is when trying to charge the Sensor. The contacts on the Sensor were presumably oxidised and prevented charging. This was solved by plugging and unplugging the charging cable several times to “clean” the contacts. The new App. is excellent and provides much more confidence in the battery charge state when riding.

Skarper does what it says on the tin. It is very easy to click on and off the bike and once on it is very easy to use. It also connected to the phone via Bluetooth with no issues although I have yet to control the Skarper via the phone on a ride. Skarper gives you two bikes in one, an electric one for the longer rides or for assistance getting up the hills but you still have an “under your own steam” when you want it. Exactly what I wanted. Eco mode provides a gentle support leaving you feeling you have still done some work, whilst in turbo mode gets you up hills effortlessly. The team at Skarper were incredibly helpful throughout. Thoroughly recommend.

When I heard that Sir Chris Hoy and Red Bull Advanced Technologies were both involved in the development of Skarper I was sure it was going to be a great product. I took delivery of one of the Launch Edition units plus an extra disc drive so that it could be used on both my wife's bike (the original intention) and my own. It has certainly lived up to its promise and my wife loves it. I haven't had much of a chance to use it on my own bike (so maybe I'll have to buy a second unit!). I was please to see the arrival of an App for Smartphones but when I tried to use it it wouldn't connect via Bluetooth. It turned out that as my Skarper was an early unit it needed an update to its internal software. The very helpful Harry from Skarper talked me through the update process on a video call, which only took a few minutes and now the App connects and controls the Skarper perfectly.
Cannot recommend Skarper strongly enough!

I love my Skarper. It was so easy to fit to my bike. I live on a hill so it has really opened up cycling to me. I love the fact that there is an App that lets you change mode as and when you need more assistance.

I signed up for the early Skarper promotion in Autumn 2024, and i am glad i did, because the Skarper Disc Drive system is just brilliant. The great thing about it is the performance and the exclusive portability of the drive unit that allows you to disengage it from the bike and carry it with you, so giving you peace of mind from theft. The new mobile phone app that compliments it, is superb and my favourite mode is cruise, to effortlessly glide along. Its a fantastic product with superb customer and after sales service.

Skarper's delivery was quick and smooth, and engineering is sleek and efficient. While I'd like to use my bike journey as a workout, it does give me an advantage to other bikes when I cross traffic lights. I can then easily depend on my own 2 legs again by back-pedalling 3 times to turn it off.

An absolutely amazing product that does all it purports to and more. Seldom do products surpass their promotion claims but this one does. As an early adopter the delay in production was frustrating but worth waiting for. I love the fact that I can easily remove it and use my bike for exercise on shorter rides but add it for longer ones so I can keep up with my " very cycle fit" partner. Also carrying bikes on the back of our classic camper is easy as the additional weight is removable. 10/10 Skarper