Ongoing reliability of Kalkhoff/Focus Impulse 2 motors

[Robint]

WOW this is so disappointing I bought my Agattu in 2012 from 50 Cycles and tbh I havent had any issues, only I was concerned about the weare on the front rim by the agressive caliper brakes and searched around for a suiable disc brake replacements - no help from 50 Cycles btw. Never did solve the problem. Also I quickly clamped up the front telescopic forks as these made slow speed maneuvering (on pavements) treacherous). Overall I thought the bike was fantastic and rode regularly up till 2016 when health stopped further riding. By that time I was down to 50% battery capacity (I think the original was 24v 10Ah) so I guess someone could guess how many km I had done? A good write up on the original Panasonic set up is here https://www.atob.org.uk/kalkhoff-aggatu-wave-electric-bike-review/ forget the hype just take in the specs. I was always impressed at the build quality. Everything was top shelf quality. So its disappointing to hear of a name I associated with Rolls Royce has now become nasty and unreliable.

Shock horror - I just been readin here about the latest advice on a new pedelec etc. I was amazed to learn that the main players Bosch , Yamaha, Shimano have all opted for a Dongle type system using Canbus comms etc. So the user is locked into a proprietary coded drive train , battery motor , controller, charger. So any problems it must go back to the dealer and motor stuff must go to the factory - long delays etc. Also batteries and spares are very expensive and proprietary, you cant put a generic battery in place for example. This is counter to cycling culture where we fix things ourselves. Serious backward step IMHO

 

[Nealh]

Spot on Robin, cycling should be a relatively cheap easy transportation mode even including pedelecs . Generic stuff is but the proprietary ones aren't they are a false economy and only worth the risk if one is able to write off the cost, esp after two years shoul danything major go wrong.