Crank drive performance

Streethawk

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jan 12, 2011
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the weak point is only the unproven Appro X-Fusion. The headset is tapered, you can swap out the handlebars, front wheel and fork in an hour or less.
The rest won't break, not the KS A5 RE.
It's a £50 Chinese Air shock. It will. Never survive real use. The stroke is far too short and I assume it'll have no real damping. Performance will be, excuse the pun, shocking.

What the BBC height? Head angle? Wheelbase? Stem length? Chainstay length? In my experience they just choose these things randomly on Chinese frames. That's why they're cheap, no R&D cost.

If the frame is strong, and I have my doubts, the way they make them strong is using excessive amounts of material, so very heavy. However having looked at the link to the Norwegian bike the whole rear triangle is so puny that there's no way it'll be anything other than a flexible mess.

These are terrible bikes with decent electric kits. But who wants that? Chinese hybrid frames can be Ok for general use, but not seen a decent Chinese designed mountain bike yet.

If you think these will take sales away from Haibike etc you're mistaken.
 

Woosh

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May 19, 2012
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It's a £50 Chinese Air shock. It will. Never survive real use. The stroke is far too short and I assume it'll have no real damping.
the Appro X-fusion is a basic air shock, 120mm, with damping and rebound adjust.
 

Woosh

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May 19, 2012
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What the BBC height? Head angle? Wheelbase? Stem length? Chainstay length? In my experience they just choose these things randomly on Chinese frames. That's why they're cheap, no R&D cost.
I don't have the CAD file so can't answer you for now. May try to get the details from the factory in a few days.
 

Woosh

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If the frame is strong, and I have my doubts, the way they make them strong is using excessive amounts of material, so very heavy.
The frame is indeed strong and they use more metal, but we are talking about 500g of alloy. Not tons.
 

Woosh

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However having looked at the link to the Norwegian bike the whole rear triangle is so puny that there's no way it'll be anything other than a flexible mess.
I'll post some pictures later.
Typically, the Chinese way is a sort of crowd sourcing. Different factories share the same basic design, improvements 'emerge' within weeks, and other factories see nothing wrong to build on them. Within a year, the design is well proven and they are produced in prodigious quantities.
 

Woosh

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If you think these will take sales away from Haibike etc you're mistaken.
the point of bikes like the MaxDriive is not to take on Haibike but to enlarge the market pioneered by Haibike and US bike companies.
 

Danidl

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Sep 29, 2016
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Yes, that saying originated in the 1960s and 70s when IBM dominated firstly the mainframe market for business-critical applications, and latterly the embrio PC market. But even IBM eventually woke up to realise that other far more dynamic businesses were doing those things better than they did, and IBM sold off and withdrew from those markets.

You're the one making that comparison here Danidl... So if we were to complete your analogy, maybe Bosch and Apple, like IBM, have also had their day? (watch the hate voting ensue!).

It's easy to be blinded by brand loyalty... BMW and Mercedes also aren't the strong brands they once were... they are today far from the solid, quality, reliable marques many once believed them to be, yet people still aspire to owning them.

Today, a lot of Bosch product (domestic, professional) is made in the same Chinese, Maltese, Polish factories as lesser brands where once they were made in Germany by Germans - when perhaps it was worth paying a premium for that. The fact that your overpriced premium iPhone is made in the same Chinese factory that Tesco have their cheapy own-brand tellies made? Who is kidding who about "premium" brands?

That Bosch stage an e-bike race at the Nurburgring which they fully expect to win hands-down, and then get slaughtered by some upstart Chinese Company called Bafang, says what about Bosch paying attention to how the market has - in fact - moved on whilst they've been asleep?

It says a lot about blinded loyalty when someone wants to buy an e-bike solely because it has a premium "brand" on it rather than what might actually be the better ebike.
I can accept the broad tenor of your remarks but just a few objections.
IBM quit the pc market, because of the low profit margins. The existence of cloned bios and the plethora of below cost sales a by a glut in the market forced their hand With PS2 range, they had designed really clever manufacturing systems. The inside of those machines have not yet been bettered. They did an honourable transaction with Lenovo, a Chinese firm, provided them with their design and manufacturing tools. Lenovo are now the premium Chinese brand.
Whether Apple have had their day, does not concern me in the least, I'm not a fanboy. My children bought me an itouch mediaplayer which I eventually upgraded and still have. I did buy an ipad2, for a significant birthday, and it still works and I did have a iPhone 4, for a while until either my fingers got thicker, or my eyesight weaker, and I replaced it with a bigger screened, android. What I will say in their favour is that the apple kit is pretty robust, the batteries last and the cameras are ok.
Whether the same plant is used to assemble other phones along with the apple product is irrelevant, the same parts are not being used, and most likely different QA processes are used.
I have no comment to make about German cars, d8veh who has a background in QA made references on that topic some time ago.
Not everyone has the time to become an expert on everything, so they want shortcuts, buying a premium brand, be it in coffee, pullovers, ebikes TVs etc , is a shortcut and assures a level of performance. They read a few reviews maybe, like the colour of the paint, They are happy to make the trade-off of money for time and maybe street cred. And in the main they are right.
 

Trevormonty

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jul 18, 2016
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It's a £50 Chinese Air shock. It will. Never survive real use. The stroke is far too short and I assume it'll have no real damping. Performance will be, excuse the pun, shocking.

What the BBC height? Head angle? Wheelbase? Stem length? Chainstay length? In my experience they just choose these things randomly on Chinese frames. That's why they're cheap, no R&D cost.

If the frame is strong, and I have my doubts, the way they make them strong is using excessive amounts of material, so very heavy. However having looked at the link to the Norwegian bike the whole rear triangle is so puny that there's no way it'll be anything other than a flexible mess.

These are terrible bikes with decent electric kits. But who wants that? Chinese hybrid frames can be Ok for general use, but not seen a decent Chinese designed mountain bike yet.

If you think these will take sales away from Haibike etc you're mistaken.
Definitely not up to serious MTBing on regular basis. But it would make good commuter when fitted with road tyres. FS is great for ironing out pot holes and kerbs while allow tyres to be run at max pressure, 9spd is perfect for commuting and is cheap to maintain.

Lately being running FS eMTB with road tires and using it for commuting. Every expensive commuter and waste of good MTB but so much fun flying down roads with excellent brakes and handling.
Surprisingly fast on flat without assist.
 

Woosh

Trade Member
May 19, 2012
20,390
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Not everyone has the time to become an expert on everything, so they want shortcuts, buying a premium brand, be it in coffee, pullovers, ebikes TVs etc , is a shortcut and assures a level of performance. They read a few reviews maybe, like the colour of the paint, They are happy to make the trade-off of money for time and maybe street cred. And in the main they are right.
there are also plenty of people who want to pay a justified price, who would spend some time to check out the components going into a £2,000 or £2,500 bike and shop on the internet.
 
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