Claude Butler Urban Electric

[John Fleet]

Claud Butler Urban Electric

This bike now seems to be generally available - lots of results on a Google search including Claud Butler Urban Electric 2008 - £809.99 - Cycles UK

Good to see a British name on an electric bike - what are people's views?

 

[Mussels]

It's an electric bike and the only info about the battery or motor is:

Protanium Lithium Polymer 10 M/amp Battery

They aren't selling it very well.

 

[frank9755]

It's a Tongxin motor. If it's been done well and is reliable, it should be a good bike at a reasonable price.

But until someone tries one and writes about it, we won't know!

 

[flecc]

Someone else posted this previously, and I researched it then

It's actually an American Schwinn bike with Tongxin Nano motor which is bought in and badged as a Claud Butler by Falcon Cycles Ltd here.

Claud Butler is a Falcon brand, and the name is registered by them.

"Protanium" is a Schwinn proprietary name which has no meaning.

The only English electric bike is the TGA Electrobike.
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[The Maestro]

Thats funny because I was looking at the Schwinn range of electric bikes the other day (just bought a Schwinn MB on ebay so was checking out their website) and when I saw this it reminded me of the Schwinns. It doesn't appear to be one from their current range though, the most similar one to it seems to be this:

Schwinn: 2008 Transit

Some very nice features like internal cabling and the Li Polymer batteries are supposed to survive many more recharge cycles than standard Li-Ion - about 1500 I read.

800ish is a pretty damn good price considering the cheapest Schwinn electric is about $1900. Must be an old version maybe, still looks good.

 

[flecc]

I think that's it, one of the previous models, but the exchange rate is very favourable at the moment making US products more affordable here. Don't take too much notice of that charge capability claim though, Schwinn are terrible for hyping their products, including nonsense like the "Protanium" name.

Their first e-bike in this series with the same battery was heavily hyped with claims about huge range and high speeds, but it was a complete disaster, a Schwinn Vice President admitting in an email that it was not fit for the market, after which it was withdrawn.

I'm prepared to bet that the battery will be very little use after 500 charges and may not even reach that. Schwinn don't make batteries and the content will be from the usual Oriental sources, even the highest quality of those Li-polymer batteries not claimed as capable of anything like that. Only Lithium Iron ( LiFePO4) is capable of that number of charges and more in e-bike use.
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