Hi Eddie, thank you for your comments. We feel a little kicked by what you say and would like to make it clear from our side following on from our telephone conversation in the latter part of last week.
The motor issue; this was resolved within 6 days as you are aware. The battery; yes this does take time as they have to be returned to Spain by road as they are classed as dangerous goods. We can only apologise for the delay.
As for your latest fault, this was fixed within 2 days despite the fault being due to physical damage i.e. broken wires.
We know you enjoy the bike and hope that we can all move forward. Wishing you a joyful riding experience
BH UK
Hi Andy,
Sadly as you know I didn't have good phone reception on the two occasions that I spoke to you, and was barely only getting every other word. But don't worry I shall be writing something positive for you after I have collected the bike and ridden it. I shall also be doing the same for BH Spain.
In response to you "feeling a little kicked" please consider the following about how I am left feeling.
To start.. BH failed to track the battery, and it was infact delivered some 26 miles away from where it should had been. If this wasn't the case, then myself and CR were being lied to. It was only because of my direct contact to BH Spain that this matter even came to light, and was then resolved.
Yes the 2nd motor was replaced very quickly, but with me being in CR the same day as opening the box that contained the wrong front forks after my three month wait for them, must have gone someway to helping with that one. Seven months later I still have no new front forks, so it was just as well that I had sense to buy my own, and have them fitted at my expense. Perhaps I should be refunded the cost of front fork purchase, bearings stem, labour costs, and three trips to CR. And you wonder why I'm so aggrieved. To be honest, I'm still livid with the treatment that I have received over the last year. Poor doesn't even begin to cut it, and if I were to work out my out of pocket expenses, they would probably now be in excess of £500.00
Another point that should be raised in relation to the front forks, is that as end user, I couldn't care less that BH UK had to purchase the wrongly supplied forks themselves. Why should I repeatedly need to know that, and infact the statement is more than likely wrong. The forks were incorrectly supplied, so BH UK would have returned them and been refunded, so wouldn't have paid a penny. The person that shouldn't have had to buy replacement forks was me! I guess that point doesn't matter to BH UK though, and has very conveniently been forgotten.
I am grateful for you coming down to collect and repair the bikes electrics super fast. That is very much appreciated, but sadly again would this have ever happened had I not contacted Spain. Being cynical, I very much doubt it.
Since new, I have barley had a single ride that hasn't shown error codes, so it'll be interesting to see if the bike finally now functions as it should.
I would also add that one way or another, that I have only probably had 7 trouble free months from this bike in my one year of ownership, and given that I paid in excess of 2k for it, I would have expected better. So in respect of this, you can hardly expect me to be a happy customer. Even on my first ride, it broke down in less than 1.5miles and had to be pushed home. It took nearly six weeks for the first motor to be changed due to bearing failure, but to be fair to Maxtrax they did offer to get me a full refund on the bike, but I declined as CR had been so good in trying to resolve the issue.. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so amenable.
Whilst I love the bike, sadly for me all faith in it has now gone, and once CR have finished servicing it and it's been collected, I am probably going to sell it as I just can't face the thought of wondering what will go wrong with it next, and how will it be resolved. So once again, I will have lost out.
I would also like to add, that I wouldn't want my negative experience of both the bike and BH to put anyone off buying one. The NEO Xtrem is a superb bike, and it fulfils many roles successfully and competently, and I'd like to think that I have just been unlucky. The bike is brilliant fun to ride, and problems aside, makes you grin and smile with every ride.
Had I not had my bad experience, there would currently be a NEO Race sitting besides the Xtrem, as I consider it to be the best road bike that I have ever ridden. It's well spec'd has superb range, and somehow manages to feel just so natural and right to ride. Infact, now that it has it's 12ah battery, it is possibly a ten out ten bike.
I've yet to ride a NEO Jumper, but again, I would imagine that it fulfils it's role very well, and it would had been on my list of bikes to try now that I want to upgrade to a FS bike.
So anyone reading this, please consider that I am just one very disgruntled customer, and hopefully not representive of other BH customers, who are hopefully happy owners.
Sadly the above has not been my experience of BH though, and I don't actually believe that BH UK has any real commitment to the UK E-bike market. Trying to search for info about the range gives a clear indication of this, and not to have been even offered a courtesy/demo bike whilst I have been having issues, is another sign of inadequate customer relations and after care. Having said that, being told that BH UK don't even have any demo bikes came as an even bigger surprise. You must be the only UK e-bike company that doesn't. At least Maxtrax had that angle covered.
I've got to be honest in saying that BH UK fall a long way short of expectations and standards, and the company as a whole has many areas that badly need addressing if it is to succeed in this country. Taking responsibility and not blaming member partners and suppliers would be a start.
Finally, both CR and myself have asked on several occasion for a price and obtainability of a 12ah battery for my bike, with unsurprisingly no response from BH UK. I would now like BH as a company to publicly answer and clarify the following..... Regen!!
From research and bike use I already know the answer to this, but does the bike actually have a fully working functional regen capability, and what are the calculated gains? Given that like others, I was sold the bike on this premise, and that it is thoroughly detailed in both the user manual and on the console, I would be interested to hear what you have to say in relation to this.
For anyone reading this who might be wondering how the bikes forks looked after just a couple of months or so, here is an early stage photo. By December the forks as whole no longer even functioned, and were pretty much solid and unusable.
