why do 50 Cycles continue to deal with a brand that is generally troublesome?
In 1995 they took on a brand that quickly became the best selling quality e-bikes on the market, by early 1997 some 38% of the members of this forum owned their best selling model. But then it all went wrong, primarily due to battery failures in those early lithium days. This lead to a huge row between the manufacturer and 50cycles and in the Autumn of 1997 they parted company. The manufacturer eventually sorted out the problems and made their bikes some of the best again.
Meanwhile though, in November 1997 50cycles took on Kalkhoff and hit the jackpot, the two pedelec models being excellent. Although not powerful by today's standards, their Panasonic crank motor units were more powerful than the popular Giant Lafree's unit, so 50cycles sold them in droves.
Kalkhoff having this success with their first pedelecs then branched out on supplies, first adopting the German battery maker BMZ to supply batteries for the Panasonic units instead of Panasonic batteries, and they were popular being available in a huge range of capacities from 8 to 24 Ah.
So Kalkhoff then approached the German company Daum who had produced Germany's first crank motor unit and adopted those as their first in-house power unit, calling it Impulse. It seemed ok apart from a strange software quirk, but which was quickly corrected when customers complained.
Meanwhile Bosch entered the market with much more power, so Kalkhoff-Daum felt compelled to follow by boosting their power, designating the unit the Impulse 2. That was very powerful, but unfortunately that led to the current problems, cogs shedding teeth, pawls failing etc, and Daum were obviously struggling to correct the problems.
Of course 50cycles were suffering the considerable backlash, and given their unfortunate experience with their previous brand, were probably thinking "Oh no, not again". They will have seen how that previous manufacturer had eventually overcome their problems, so I can understand them wanting to stick it out with Kalkhoff, probably receiving promises to put things right.
That hasn't been the case though, hence Kalkhoff now also fitting Bosch units. That sort of switch isn't easily done in large numbers though, given manufacturing lead times, so it could be some while before they get enough Bosch units for all models. And who knows, Daum might solve their problems meanwhile, making the switch unnecessary.
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