Search
Limited to 400 units, the Arctic-finished 512 A24 pairs a 4,500W mid-drive motor with a 1,550Wh Samsung-cell battery, riding as a street-legal Class 2 e-bike or a private-track machine at the flip of a toggle.
Ristretto, headquartered in Austin, Texas, builds its 512 First Edition in two frame sizes. The A24 takes the larger of the two wheels — 24 inches, against the A20’s 20 — and this version wears a finish the company calls Arctic, one of four colorways in a production run capped at 400 units. It’s priced at $3,440, and which mode it’s set to changes what kind of vehicle it becomes.
Out of the box, the A24 ships in Class 2: throttle and pedal assist both active, capped at 20 mph, legal on most bike paths and trails without a license, insurance, or registration. A toggle switches it into Race Mode, which opens the throttle to the motor’s full 4,500 watts and a 40 mph top speed — restricted, by Ristretto’s own terms, to private property and closed tracks. The frame, the battery, and the brakes stay the same in either mode. Only the ceiling moves.
A mid-drive motor drives the rear wheel, brushless and built with carbon fiber elements, pulling current from a pack Ristretto calls Catalina. It’s a 30Ah battery built on Samsung 50E cells, machined into an aluminum alloy shell for heat dissipation, with a dual battery-management system and a fuse module guarding against overcharge, over-discharge, overload, and short circuit. Total capacity runs to 1,550Wh — enough for up to 100 miles in pedal-assist mode, or a little over 45 on throttle alone — and a full charge takes eight hours.
DNM supplies the suspension at both ends. Up front, an inverted USD-8FAT fork machined from AL7075 tubing runs a 15mm thru-axle and 160mm of travel through a combined coil-and-air spring, with a click adjuster for setting compression and rebound by hand. In back, dual MK-AR shocks use a nitrogen-charged floating piston and a hard-chromed 14mm damper shaft, tuned to a 100lb spring rate with 40mm of travel and their own adjustable preload. The 24-inch wheels wear Milehigh’s M24 EV+ tires, four inches wide with a block tread and a puncture-resistant casing built for the switch between pavement and gravel. Braking runs through Tektro’s Auriga hydraulics — a 203mm rotor at the front, 180mm at the rear — with sensors built into the brake levers that cut motor power and trigger the tail light the instant a rider squeezes them.
A 3.5-inch color TFT display handles the readouts, IP65-rated against weather, its shell a blend of ABS and polycarbonate under tempered glass. A Bluetooth app pairs with it to adjust power level, throttle response, and pedal-assist strength from a phone, switch whether the motor answers to pedaling or a handlebar throttle, and track speed, distance, and battery life as they change. Lighting runs as its own small system underneath: a two-bulb LED headlight rated to 3,000 lumens, ten individually switched LEDs across an aluminum-spoilered tail, and a horn and turn signals routed through a single master controller.
Smaller parts follow the same logic. The pedals pair a T700 carbon fiber body with a titanium alloy shaft and a sealed triple-bearing hub. The saddle’s shell is water-resistant, fixed rather than height-adjustable, its width doing the work of accommodating different riding positions.
The battery carries its safeguards close: an aluminum shell that manages heat, a BMS that regulates charge, a slot machined into the housing for an Apple AirTag tied to Ultra Wideband tracking through Find My on iPhone 11 and newer. The last piece is the smallest — a single master key, kept in its own carbon fiber box alongside the bike’s ID card, cut for one job: locking the Catalina pack to the frame. All images courtesy of Ristretto.
