How MODMO is rethinking urban mobility

How do you get around your city? Our mission at MODMO is to provide a zero-emission, crazy fun and healthy alternative.

When we developed the Saigon, we weren’t just building an ebike. Our vision was a lot bigger than that. We wanted to completely reimagine urban mobility by creating your go-to, zero-emission transport method of the future.

To create the bike that will replace your car. A bike so functional, so utilitarian and with such a good user experience that you wouldn't want to get around your city any other way.

So we set about building the Saigon, our flagship model, piece by piece, optimising every part of the bicycle as we went. We now have two models - the Saigon+ and the Saigon S - and a host of MODs, and much more in the pipeline, all with an emphasis on performance, zero-emissions and utility.

User Experience

Our first point of call when building the Saigon was to make the bike something that you will love riding. We knew that for it to be successful and truly game changing it would need to be the easiest, the fastest, the most reasonably priced option on the market, and just your damn favorite way to move.

We made everything matte black and super smooth - you cannot see the welds on the Saigon’s frame - and we hid everything inside the frame rather than attaching it to it, so no-one will know that you are riding an e-bike.

We partnered with some of the best bicycle part producers in the industry - GATES, Enviolo, etc - and built the remaining parts internally because we couldn’t find anything like what we wanted on the market. This includes our batteries, which you can read more about here.

Everything Your Car Can Do

Our second priority was to find a way to cater to every feature that the average person values in a car. Things like speed and efficiency, not having to sweat or get dirty to get around like you might when walking or cycling a normal push bike, the ability to carry things and bring your whole family with you, etc.

So we put our heads together to brainstorm all the ways in which you could hypothetically modify a bike to make it suit your needs in different situations, and developed a fully modular e-bike.

Our mods are diverse. They all clip easily onto your bike, allowing you to go from the school run to snowboarding in a snap. We built a wide range, including two Front Baskets, a Child Seat, a Food Delivery Box, a Pannier Rack and a Waterproof Pannier Bag. There will be many more coming and we love your feedback so please keep sending in your suggestions.

NOTE: We are currently testing and perfecting our MODs, they will be available for pre-order on our website in the near future.

Sexy Tech

We also knew that if the Saigon was going to stand out, it would need to be just as technologically advanced as your smartphone (and let’s be honest, why not more). So we built a smart system inside the bike that would enable it to record all the data you would expect such as location, speed, distance, time, battery level, and portray it to you in an easy and useful way through an app. We are constantly evolving this technology so you can expect regular updates.

Then there’s the obvious point that the Saigon is a powerful e-bike, not your average push bike. We felt this was important because at the end of the day no-one wants to push their car, and you probably don’t want to be pedaling your bike with all its mods and cargo, potentially a child in the carryon seat, either. You’d be sweating and exhausted by the time you got to where you wanted to go, which, unless you’re deliberately training or working out, isn’t really a good thing!

Our Saigon models have five assisted power levels which can take you up to 25km/hr. They are built with Aikema front-hub 250-Watt motors with 50NM of torque, which is both powerful and very quiet. The bikes can also take you a long way - up to 200km on a single battery charge - and the batteries last for a very long time. You can charge 1,000 times before the capacity is reduced to 80%.

Then there is our theft-protection system which means that you can take and park your bike in a wider range of places without worrying that it will be stolen. You can read all about it in this article comparing it to Apple’s AirTags.

Zero Emissions

Finally, the Saigon bike is the ultimate answer to zero-emission urban transport. We want to be part of the push to make our planet a healthier, greener place, for us and for the generations to come.

With our production and most of our team based in Vietnam, we come face to face with the impacts of environmental pollution and climate change every day and this is a key part of our drive to promote zero-emission transport.

If there was an existing practical, affordable, easily mass-produced solution to green transport world-wide then everyone would already be traveling zero-emission. We believe that the Saigon is the answer to making this happen.

This is where you come in. Thank you for taking the time to read this and for your interest in our bikes, we are very excited that you are here.

Have a read about how MODMO is rethinking sustainability, or check out this article on Gagaco the startup reimagining urban agriculture.