Lotto Dstny to use urban Orbea e-bikes for Liège-Bastogne-Liège team presentation

Lotto Dstny will use urban bikes, the Orbea Diem, in the team presentation of Liège-Bastogne-Liège on Saturday. Usually, teams arrive for the team presentation aboard their road bikes, which in Lotto Dstny’s case would be the Orbea Orca.

The initiative is led by Orbea, the team’s bike sponsor, who want to promote the use of bicycles as a solution for urban mobility. A recent study illustrated the key role that e-bikes could play in revolutionising urban mobility, with a study showing that e-bike owners use their car less, and in some cases, get rid of their car completely.

Orbea’s Diem, which was released in early March, is a top-of-the-range urban e-bike built around a Shimano motor. Overall, this bike is built to work with minimal interference or maintenance. Along with fully integrated cables and hoses, and a battery that's built into the frame, the bike comes equipped with a belt drive that requires no lubrication and virtually no maintenance.

To make the bike as simple as possible to use, Orbea have fitted it with automatic gearing from a company called enviolo, and built in lights, fenders, a luggage rack and even a phone charger.

The bike is equipped with security features, including a secret mounting point for an Apple airtag or a similar tracker, so owners can keep tabs on their bike if it get stolen.

Lotto Dstny will be the first team to use the presentation to show off a bike other than the road bike they'll be racing on. Time will tell whether this idea leads to similar initiatives across the peloton.