Hi Nick! I know I’m necro'ing this thread, but there is still too little real info out there for this bike. I own one, and commute 30 miles a day on it. First off, despite the below I love it.
· I've had to make some mods. Bar hand grips, daft slide on rubber ergo whatsits. Nope. Replaced with lockon normal grips. So when they wear out I don’t have to spend 2 hours getting the old ones off. Hand grips wear out you know J
· No bottle cage mounts (seriously WTF?). Seat post mount added. I still need to drink water when I’m pedalling regardless of whether I get a bit of help or not from that motor)
· Speed controller - seems to limit it to 13.5mph, not 15.5mph tested with Garmin 820 in loads of different scenarios (downhill road, gravel, uphill road,gravel etc). Its also pretty rubbish for going up rough hills. and by 'rough hills' i mean the 6ft cobble canal locks. Granted some are quite steep.
· Seat. That is an uncomfortable seat. Though I am still using it, but I added a suspension post…
· The gates Carbon drive is lovely, however, the second generation of this bike, with the eScent battery, has a basic level CDN front chainring, i.e. it’s plastic! Seriously again, WTF? I broke that within the first 100miles. I checked on the Gates website and it says that chainring is for the very basic level of cycling. So I guess in my case, not suitable for 30miles a day down the canal (really?). I've replaced that as well for the CDX metal version.
· Your warranty and customer service are great. They were awesome in getting my bike back to me, well they were nice to me on the phone. It took 3 attempts to get it right. The first time I got sent 2 empty battery boxes to send my bike back in. The second time I was sent the wrong bike. We got there in the end, and I have the new bike – still, it must cost you a fortune to send out a whole new bike for just a broken component…
Please can your guys have a look at that top speed and power – perhaps the battery could be increased?