I have just returned from a week cycling in the sunshine(bliss) in Lanzarote and hired the BH sport plus for the week and thought I would share my impressions.
As I like crank drive bikes, my bike at home being a BS10 I jumped at the chance of using the sport plus for the week as I have been looking for another crank drive bike with a more of a race bike geometry than I get with my BS10.The sport plus is indeed much more race styled than Iam used to but I must admit I preferred its more forward weight bias, although I had to take it back to the shop to get some bar ends fitted as I found I was getting pins and needles in my hands due to not being able to change position on the flat bars, something Iam sure I would have got used too with more time but the bar ends cured the problem straight away. The bike has carbon forks and thin(25) tyres, more of which later. The Panasonic 250w crank drive has only 3 levels of assistance,low,med and high and to be honest I found little or no difference in med and high, there is a very distinct shove of the line as soon as any pressure is applied to the pedal which caught me out when stopped for a drink of water at the side of the road, foot still on the pedal....mmmm...yeah, Iam sure you can picture it lol. The motor I found to be quiet and powerful and very quickly got me up to the 15.5mph limit and power faded out at about 16 or so, although I found that it was no where near as sophisticated as the bosch system Iam used too, I found the assist cutting in and out quite sharply. The big 13.2 ah battery was excellent, although very heavy by comparison to my 11ah bosch, i never did more than 50 miles in one go but it never got below half on the battery read out. I must say that the 10 sp Tiagra rear set up was light years ahead of mine on the BS10,shifts up and down were fast and smooth ,click click, very nice. The bike was light,19.5kg although funnily enough it felt a lot heavier than my BS10 which is about 22kg but I think this had a lot to do with the position and weight of the battery more than anything else. The brakes were v rim brakes and after having been used to hydraulic disc brakes they nearly gave me a heart attack the first time I applied them ,poor by comparison is just not the word, thank god for hydraulic discs is what I say! So to the tyres.....thin and fast, they rolled far better than the wider ones on my BS10,however I had 3 flats on the front during the week all after going over the same area. The roads/cycle ways in Lanzarote are very good and smooth but there is an area of about a mile approaching the airport where in order to make it look more pretty they have ditched the tarmac and replaced it with block paving that it mildly uneven and 3 times after passing this area my front tyre went flat, not a puncture but just went down, I was able to pump it back up enough to get me back to the shop where they had to reseat the tyre, they told me that they had been having problems with this bike over that area, I even went to the main BH dealer after the 3rd time and even before I had opened my mouth he said "let me guess a flat front tyre is it?" they have had problem after problem with the sport plus front tyre over certain surfaces, his advice was don't go over any of the block paving! mmm...
Overall I enjoyed my time with the sport plus, loved the geometry, wonderful gears and when they didn't go flat the quick rolling tyres, I was not so impressed with the very basic power control display, on/off/low/med/high no trip/mph/range etc. The comparative crudeness of the assist by comparison to the Bosch system but I would love to try a speed pedelec version of this to see how it compared to the BS10.
As I like crank drive bikes, my bike at home being a BS10 I jumped at the chance of using the sport plus for the week as I have been looking for another crank drive bike with a more of a race bike geometry than I get with my BS10.The sport plus is indeed much more race styled than Iam used to but I must admit I preferred its more forward weight bias, although I had to take it back to the shop to get some bar ends fitted as I found I was getting pins and needles in my hands due to not being able to change position on the flat bars, something Iam sure I would have got used too with more time but the bar ends cured the problem straight away. The bike has carbon forks and thin(25) tyres, more of which later. The Panasonic 250w crank drive has only 3 levels of assistance,low,med and high and to be honest I found little or no difference in med and high, there is a very distinct shove of the line as soon as any pressure is applied to the pedal which caught me out when stopped for a drink of water at the side of the road, foot still on the pedal....mmmm...yeah, Iam sure you can picture it lol. The motor I found to be quiet and powerful and very quickly got me up to the 15.5mph limit and power faded out at about 16 or so, although I found that it was no where near as sophisticated as the bosch system Iam used too, I found the assist cutting in and out quite sharply. The big 13.2 ah battery was excellent, although very heavy by comparison to my 11ah bosch, i never did more than 50 miles in one go but it never got below half on the battery read out. I must say that the 10 sp Tiagra rear set up was light years ahead of mine on the BS10,shifts up and down were fast and smooth ,click click, very nice. The bike was light,19.5kg although funnily enough it felt a lot heavier than my BS10 which is about 22kg but I think this had a lot to do with the position and weight of the battery more than anything else. The brakes were v rim brakes and after having been used to hydraulic disc brakes they nearly gave me a heart attack the first time I applied them ,poor by comparison is just not the word, thank god for hydraulic discs is what I say! So to the tyres.....thin and fast, they rolled far better than the wider ones on my BS10,however I had 3 flats on the front during the week all after going over the same area. The roads/cycle ways in Lanzarote are very good and smooth but there is an area of about a mile approaching the airport where in order to make it look more pretty they have ditched the tarmac and replaced it with block paving that it mildly uneven and 3 times after passing this area my front tyre went flat, not a puncture but just went down, I was able to pump it back up enough to get me back to the shop where they had to reseat the tyre, they told me that they had been having problems with this bike over that area, I even went to the main BH dealer after the 3rd time and even before I had opened my mouth he said "let me guess a flat front tyre is it?" they have had problem after problem with the sport plus front tyre over certain surfaces, his advice was don't go over any of the block paving! mmm...
Overall I enjoyed my time with the sport plus, loved the geometry, wonderful gears and when they didn't go flat the quick rolling tyres, I was not so impressed with the very basic power control display, on/off/low/med/high no trip/mph/range etc. The comparative crudeness of the assist by comparison to the Bosch system but I would love to try a speed pedelec version of this to see how it compared to the BS10.
