New! Sirocco-Sport from Woosh
- Thread starter Woosh
- Start date
D
Deleted member 4366
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Might be something in that.
At a guess, if you spend £2K on a German ebike, £1,200 or more is profit and VAT.
Give Hatti £600 for one of these, and I doubt profit and tax comes to much more than £300.
Ultimately people are usually looking for a reasonable cost of usage together with minimal wastage. My old Juicy MTB cost me £49/month over 27 months (including alternative transport costs when off-road) - for that price I could buy one of these, replace it with the same again a year later, and enjoy two consecutive years warranty with (in all likelihood) minimal issues.
The downside of that approach is that you'll (presumably) not get as nice a ride/performance as a more expensive bike, and deliberate wastage is build into the ownership strategy.
So yes, a TCO analysis from a member here, over the long term, would be great!
The downside of that approach is that you'll (presumably) not get as nice a ride/performance as a more expensive bike, and deliberate wastage is build into the ownership strategy.
So yes, a TCO analysis from a member here, over the long term, would be great!
Rob, yes, you are right.RobF, yes
Hatti, not sure I should start a new thread for this, but certainly relevant to your bikes. I couldn't find your warranty info on your website, but would assume it's a year on everything bar consumables. Could customers elect to pay an extra sum when purchasing, for an additional year of warranty? I think that'd really give some consumers confidence in a new product they didn't know particularly well (this'd be good for all circa-£800 bikes, imo).
The warranty is for 12 months and covers everything (including battery) except indeed consumables. It may be possible to offer additional guarantee on electrical parts for the second year.
I think it should be about £50 but still to be finalised.
Totally agree. Up to 5 ft 10" is comfortable - over that is strteching it a bit. Problem is that some very tall people may have short legs! (Reverse also is true).
We are looking into a larger frame size for next year.
Rob, you are about right.
The tyre, saddle, seatppost, forks and crankset are OK-ish, but it's a good base to build something to suit your preferences.
We were planning to put a Shimano crankset and hydraulic forks on this bike but Shimano lead time is a bit long at 90 days. We're hoping to do this though, although price will be a little bit more.
D
Deleted member 4366
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Hopefully, Myself and Saneagle can provide you that within the next few days - weather permitting. Watch this space.
Hatti, phew, £50 for an extra year guarantee on electrics? That is excellent, since that's the thing most likely to break after the first year.
Do you have a dealer network, out of interest?
Do you have a dealer network, out of interest?
D
Deleted member 4366
Guest
My Woosh Sirocco Sport arrived today. It took me no more than 10 minutes to unpack and assemble the handlebars, front wheel and pedals. It was very straight-forward. A full instruction booklet is supplied, but not really needed except to explain that there's left and right-hand pedals. Here's how it looks:
The first thing I noticed was how light it was, so I weighed it and my scales showed 19.2kg. As you can see, it's quite plain - no sickers or anything. Maybe the next batches will have them because this one was more or less straight out of the container. I visited Woosh a couple of months ago when they showed me a photo of the Sirocco Sport, which looked really nice with coloured (not black) frame. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To me, this one doesn't look anything special; however, if you want stealth, this one's got it in spades.
Woosh tell me that the battery has Samsung cells with a higher discharge rate than the normal bottle batteries, and I can confirm that there was no sign of any battery sag on our test hill.
I only had a chance to do a couple of test runs for quick evaluation, but I can say that the motor's very smooth and quiet, which adds to the stealthiness, and it climbs the hills better than average. I got up a 14% hill (measured) in top gear (out of 18) with hard pedalling and in 15th gear with easy pedalling.
I'll do a full review tomorrow as long as it dooesn't rain.
The first thing I noticed was how light it was, so I weighed it and my scales showed 19.2kg. As you can see, it's quite plain - no sickers or anything. Maybe the next batches will have them because this one was more or less straight out of the container. I visited Woosh a couple of months ago when they showed me a photo of the Sirocco Sport, which looked really nice with coloured (not black) frame. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To me, this one doesn't look anything special; however, if you want stealth, this one's got it in spades.
Woosh tell me that the battery has Samsung cells with a higher discharge rate than the normal bottle batteries, and I can confirm that there was no sign of any battery sag on our test hill.
I only had a chance to do a couple of test runs for quick evaluation, but I can say that the motor's very smooth and quiet, which adds to the stealthiness, and it climbs the hills better than average. I got up a 14% hill (measured) in top gear (out of 18) with hard pedalling and in 15th gear with easy pedalling.
I'll do a full review tomorrow as long as it dooesn't rain.
Are you planning to swap out some of the ultra-cheap components straight away, d8veh? I'd be inclined to at least have replacements to hand for the stem (adjustable ones tend to develop a wobble, so swap it for a rigid one) and the front shocks (cheap ones deflate quickly).
Should be interesting to see how it performs over the long term.
Should be interesting to see how it performs over the long term.
Hi halfer,
This is the stem on the Sirocco-Sport:
28.6mm x 105mm - 5° to 55° adjustment. Matte Black.
Melt forged alloy, 4-bolt front-loading plate
Regards
D
Deleted member 4366
Guest
I've done a review of the first 30 miles on it, which I posted in the Electric Bike Reviews section, but sometimes there's a delay in reviews apperaring. if it doesn't appear soon, I'll post it again here. In the meantime I can say that it does everything that it's supposed to really well.
D
Deleted member 4366
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I think that the wobble from these stems comes after you tighten the screw without the teeth properly engaged so that later the teeth engage, which leaves a bit of free-play. Once you''ve re-tightened the screw, it should stay tight. It's a bit like a drill-bit in a chuck. You make it as tight as you can, but soon after you start drilling, it's slipping in the chuck, so you have to re-tighten the chuck and then it doesn't come loose again.
That's impressive, Hatti; thought it'd be an unbranded one. My experience of the very cheap ones is the teeth are too soft, and eventually the wobble wears them away in a shower of iron filings, regardless of how much it is tightened. But a ProMax one should be okay!
D
Deleted member 4366
Guest
Rather than wait a month for my review to appear in the reviews section, I'll post it here as well seeing as you asked.
This bike was lent to me by Woosh so that I could review it for you. I don't owe Woosh any favours, so what I write is how it is.
The bike came in a large carton. The pedals, seat and front wheel are detatched and the handlebars hang by their cables. The instructions are in the charger box.
The first thing to do is get the battery on charge. To remove the battery you need the keys, which are tied to the cables at the handlebars.
Assembly involves screwing on the pedals which are marked left and right, but the instructions don't mention that the left hand pedal has a left-hand thread, so look out for that. To assemble the handlebars, you undo the 4 screws on the stem with the supplied hex key to remove the clamp-plate, put the handlebars in place and screw the clamp-plate back on. Don't tighten the screws until you've adjusted the height of the handlebars for which one screw on the side of the stem has to be loosened right off, otherwise you'll have the levers at the wrong angle. So, you fix the handlebars loosely in place, adjust the height of the handlebars, rotate the handlebars to get the levers at the right angle and tighten the handlebar clamp. Keep the key handy because the adjustable stem may well loosen off after a few miles and need re-tightening. After the second tightening, it'll stay tight. The seat just slides in and is clamped in place with the quick-release clamp. All this takes about 5 to 10 minutes.
Now that it's assembled, you can check it out. This is what you get:
- 250w Bafang SWXB motor
- 8.8aH bottle battery with Sansung ICR18650-22F cells with maximum discharege rate of 17.6 amps
- 15 amp controller integrated into the battery holder and is potted so tamper-proof (Grrrrr!)
- independent throttle and PAS
- 18 speed Shimano Tourney SIS gears with 44/14 top gear
- sprung seatpost
- Velo Plush seat
- Top Gun 111SA-CEN suspension forks 50mm (?) travel
- Cheng Shin knobbly tyres
- aluminium alloy frame
- cable disk brakes.
- weight 19.2kg with battery (on my scales)
The frame looked quite small, but with the seat and handlebars up, it fitted me (5ft 10")pretty well.
A quick test showed that everything worked as it should; however, the left pedal just touched the stand, so I pushed the stand back a bit and tightened its fixing bolt. Later I found out that like on all bikes with this type of stand (and others) that when you push the bike backwards, the pedal jams under the stand and pulls it out a bit, so you have to make sure that the fixing bolt is very tight, or lift the stand before pushing the bike backwards, which is the logical thing to do.
The first test was directly to our short 14% test hill. I could just get up in top gear with hard pedalling. I tried again in 4th gear and it got up with minimal effort from me. Throughout my use of this bike I never needed to change off the biggest chainwheel, so I'll refer to the gears as 1 to 6 even though it has 18. One thing that I did notice was how smooth and quiet the motor is even under high load. It seems that Bafang has improved a lot since my QSWXK5 two and a half years ago.
Next test was a 20 mile trip down Ironbridge Gorge and back. This gave me a chance to fully evaluate comfort, handling, etc. The steering is very precise and good for manoeuvring in tight situations. I guess the lightness of the bike helped too. The cycle paths were covered in leaves, but no problem with grip from the off-road tyres, which also rolled very well on tarmac - surprisimgly well in fact. I had been riding for more than half an hour before I even thought about the suspension, so it does its job, but you can't expext too much from only two inches of travel. There was no clatter from the front forks like you get on some cheap ones and they contribute to an exceptionally normal all-round ride that's really quiet. Even the knoobbly tyres don't make any noise. I couldn't fault anything. The ride was completely uneventful, everything worked perfectly and I just concentrated on having a nice ride.
The PAS on level 2 is really smooth - none of that fierceness that you get on some bikes that give full power as soon as you start pedalling. I had been riding for well over an hour before I even thought of standing up on the pedals to give my back-side a rest. The only negative point was that the front brake doesn't seem very sharp. Maybe it'll improve once it's had a bit of use. The back brake has everything the same, but performs better.
For the first 15 miles I only used the default middle power setting, and the PAS system works nicely so no need to use the throttle, but when I started the final ascent up the gorge, I switched to high power. By now two of the four lights were out on the display, and under full power, the slight voltage sag extinguished another light, so I managed the ascent with only one LED lit using first and second gears with no serious pedal effort. It was a bit worrying wondering if the battery was going to cut out half way up, but it made it easily. Once I levelled out at the top, I decided to throttle a bit to see if I could use up the battery before I got home. With only one LED lit (about 33v) speed and power were noticeably less than when I set off, which is not surprising with 25% less volts, and now top speed was down to about 13.5mph. With 20.5 miles on the meter, and after a short rest, the battery voltage was 35.5v and two LEDs were lit on the display. I later did a couple of laps round the block to take it to exactly 25 miles when the last LED started flashing. The power was now significantly down, so I called it a day. You have to bear in mind that this journey is very hilly and I'm 100kg, so a 75kg rider on normal roads should be able to do 35 to 40 miles. One thing I did notice on these laps was how well it rolled down the hills. I was free-wheeling at 20mph+ on only slight inclines but with a bit of wind behind me.
I bought my cheap chinese Sunlova for £540 two and a half years ago and did 2000 miles on it before selling it to a friend, who's still using it. The Woosh Sirocco Sport is better than the Sunlova in that the electrics are much better finished and waterproofed and it's better looking and smoother and quieter. I can't see any weak points on this bike, where I'd say you need to keep an eye on other than routine service items like spokes and brakes, so for £599 it has to be good value.
Those of you that know me, know that I like to change things and tinker, but on this bike it's not easy because of the battery and controller arrangement. The controller's sealed in the compartment at the bottom of the battery, and although the battery's stronger than the standard bottle batteries, it's not strong enough to give any significant increase in power, so you'd need a new controller and battery to get more power, in which case you'd be better off starting from scratch with a kit and a bike. I think you have to say it is what it is, which is adequate for most people. The only sensible improvements would be lights and mudguards, and maybe investigate different brake pads.
Summary:
Strong points are: Smooth, quiet motor; reasonable climbing ability; everything works well to give a neutral ride with reasonable comfort; stealthiness;light weight.
Weak points are: front brake power
This bike was lent to me by Woosh so that I could review it for you. I don't owe Woosh any favours, so what I write is how it is.
The bike came in a large carton. The pedals, seat and front wheel are detatched and the handlebars hang by their cables. The instructions are in the charger box.
The first thing to do is get the battery on charge. To remove the battery you need the keys, which are tied to the cables at the handlebars.
Assembly involves screwing on the pedals which are marked left and right, but the instructions don't mention that the left hand pedal has a left-hand thread, so look out for that. To assemble the handlebars, you undo the 4 screws on the stem with the supplied hex key to remove the clamp-plate, put the handlebars in place and screw the clamp-plate back on. Don't tighten the screws until you've adjusted the height of the handlebars for which one screw on the side of the stem has to be loosened right off, otherwise you'll have the levers at the wrong angle. So, you fix the handlebars loosely in place, adjust the height of the handlebars, rotate the handlebars to get the levers at the right angle and tighten the handlebar clamp. Keep the key handy because the adjustable stem may well loosen off after a few miles and need re-tightening. After the second tightening, it'll stay tight. The seat just slides in and is clamped in place with the quick-release clamp. All this takes about 5 to 10 minutes.
Now that it's assembled, you can check it out. This is what you get:
- 250w Bafang SWXB motor
- 8.8aH bottle battery with Sansung ICR18650-22F cells with maximum discharege rate of 17.6 amps
- 15 amp controller integrated into the battery holder and is potted so tamper-proof (Grrrrr!)
- independent throttle and PAS
- 18 speed Shimano Tourney SIS gears with 44/14 top gear
- sprung seatpost
- Velo Plush seat
- Top Gun 111SA-CEN suspension forks 50mm (?) travel
- Cheng Shin knobbly tyres
- aluminium alloy frame
- cable disk brakes.
- weight 19.2kg with battery (on my scales)
The frame looked quite small, but with the seat and handlebars up, it fitted me (5ft 10")pretty well.
A quick test showed that everything worked as it should; however, the left pedal just touched the stand, so I pushed the stand back a bit and tightened its fixing bolt. Later I found out that like on all bikes with this type of stand (and others) that when you push the bike backwards, the pedal jams under the stand and pulls it out a bit, so you have to make sure that the fixing bolt is very tight, or lift the stand before pushing the bike backwards, which is the logical thing to do.
The first test was directly to our short 14% test hill. I could just get up in top gear with hard pedalling. I tried again in 4th gear and it got up with minimal effort from me. Throughout my use of this bike I never needed to change off the biggest chainwheel, so I'll refer to the gears as 1 to 6 even though it has 18. One thing that I did notice was how smooth and quiet the motor is even under high load. It seems that Bafang has improved a lot since my QSWXK5 two and a half years ago.
Next test was a 20 mile trip down Ironbridge Gorge and back. This gave me a chance to fully evaluate comfort, handling, etc. The steering is very precise and good for manoeuvring in tight situations. I guess the lightness of the bike helped too. The cycle paths were covered in leaves, but no problem with grip from the off-road tyres, which also rolled very well on tarmac - surprisimgly well in fact. I had been riding for more than half an hour before I even thought about the suspension, so it does its job, but you can't expext too much from only two inches of travel. There was no clatter from the front forks like you get on some cheap ones and they contribute to an exceptionally normal all-round ride that's really quiet. Even the knoobbly tyres don't make any noise. I couldn't fault anything. The ride was completely uneventful, everything worked perfectly and I just concentrated on having a nice ride.
The PAS on level 2 is really smooth - none of that fierceness that you get on some bikes that give full power as soon as you start pedalling. I had been riding for well over an hour before I even thought of standing up on the pedals to give my back-side a rest. The only negative point was that the front brake doesn't seem very sharp. Maybe it'll improve once it's had a bit of use. The back brake has everything the same, but performs better.
For the first 15 miles I only used the default middle power setting, and the PAS system works nicely so no need to use the throttle, but when I started the final ascent up the gorge, I switched to high power. By now two of the four lights were out on the display, and under full power, the slight voltage sag extinguished another light, so I managed the ascent with only one LED lit using first and second gears with no serious pedal effort. It was a bit worrying wondering if the battery was going to cut out half way up, but it made it easily. Once I levelled out at the top, I decided to throttle a bit to see if I could use up the battery before I got home. With only one LED lit (about 33v) speed and power were noticeably less than when I set off, which is not surprising with 25% less volts, and now top speed was down to about 13.5mph. With 20.5 miles on the meter, and after a short rest, the battery voltage was 35.5v and two LEDs were lit on the display. I later did a couple of laps round the block to take it to exactly 25 miles when the last LED started flashing. The power was now significantly down, so I called it a day. You have to bear in mind that this journey is very hilly and I'm 100kg, so a 75kg rider on normal roads should be able to do 35 to 40 miles. One thing I did notice on these laps was how well it rolled down the hills. I was free-wheeling at 20mph+ on only slight inclines but with a bit of wind behind me.
I bought my cheap chinese Sunlova for £540 two and a half years ago and did 2000 miles on it before selling it to a friend, who's still using it. The Woosh Sirocco Sport is better than the Sunlova in that the electrics are much better finished and waterproofed and it's better looking and smoother and quieter. I can't see any weak points on this bike, where I'd say you need to keep an eye on other than routine service items like spokes and brakes, so for £599 it has to be good value.
Those of you that know me, know that I like to change things and tinker, but on this bike it's not easy because of the battery and controller arrangement. The controller's sealed in the compartment at the bottom of the battery, and although the battery's stronger than the standard bottle batteries, it's not strong enough to give any significant increase in power, so you'd need a new controller and battery to get more power, in which case you'd be better off starting from scratch with a kit and a bike. I think you have to say it is what it is, which is adequate for most people. The only sensible improvements would be lights and mudguards, and maybe investigate different brake pads.
Summary:
Strong points are: Smooth, quiet motor; reasonable climbing ability; everything works well to give a neutral ride with reasonable comfort; stealthiness;light weight.
Weak points are: front brake power
D
Deleted member 4366
Guest
I did another ride of 28 miles today, much less hilly than Yesterday, but with one long 2 mile climb at the end. I kept it on level 2 apart from the last climb, which kept the speed down to about 12mph average, and it was a little windy. The bike completed the journey easily and uneventfully. It was down to one LED on the final cllimb, but is now showing 3 out of 4. I estimate that there's about 10 miles left compared with what I saw yesterday, so I'd say that a normal guy on normal roads in normal conditions should get over 40 miles. I didn't pedal very hard today, because I was still a little tired from yesterday.
Excellent review dave and it sounds like an excellent bike.
Thanks for posting it was very informative.
Seriously good enough for any newcomer to electric bikes ....well done Hatti and Woosh
Lynda
Thanks for posting it was very informative.
Seriously good enough for any newcomer to electric bikes ....well done Hatti and Woosh
Lynda
Great review Dave. Thanks for posting and putting in all those miles on these cold days to give us your well informed view of this bike.
I think for most of us the battery/controller integration is probably very welcome as it adds to the neatness of the bike and the performance seems fine anyway, so no tinkering required.
All we need now is the kit version .......think this would fit very nicely on my Scott Sportster
I think for most of us the battery/controller integration is probably very welcome as it adds to the neatness of the bike and the performance seems fine anyway, so no tinkering required.
All we need now is the kit version .......think this would fit very nicely on my Scott Sportster
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