The Electric Horseman... Some Assembly Required
When I first opened the large bicycle box, I was a little dismayed over not having any assembly instructions. On a simplistic level, you will have to mount the front tire to the frame, the handle bars need mounting as well, along with the seat post. An excellent set of allen wrenches are a must.. You will also have to install the pedals to the crank arms. That with hooking up the front brake assembly.. Then air up the tires... Took well less then an hour.. I had their high resolution image on my computer screen for reference while I was hammering the bicycle together.. If you read some of my posts from a few days ago, you will see that I have modified the bicycle right out of the box. The assembly is straight forward. Can always email me or post questions to the forum if you run into a hard spot...
After reading the brief handouts, sent along with previous bicycles, translated from German, it was stated that the power unit should only be plugged into a 220volt circuit... So I bought a power transformer to handle the task of converting 110 volts to 220 volts. This has worked excellently... But it may not have been necessary... But since I was at the far end of the food change, I did not want to gamble... The back of the battery charger states that it can be plug into any circuit from 110 volt to 230 volt... Data I did not know in advance.. So I may have wasted $20 something on the transformer. Oh well... . In any case you will need a Euro plug converter to mate the euro round plug ends with the US standard socket.. A very small cost...
My impressions of the bicycle are only about 8 days old. I do enjoy riding the Kalkhoff Pro Connect. I like its stretched touring like frame, which makes it quite stable. Very comfortable. Easy to handle in foot and motor traffic. It is an excellent road bike, a trekking bike. It’s a critter born for asphalt. So far I am in the second go at ‘conditioning’ the battery, which means running it till it quits.. For first conditioning set, I went 67 miles before the battery shut down.. I am now on my second battery charge.. As of sundown tonight, I had racked up 62 miles and still have one light on the console and battery... Neither of these guys are flashing.. Which sort of indicates I have between 10% -20% battery capacity left. I will certainly reach the upper 70's, perhaps into the low 80 miles traveled between battery charges. These numbers are well beyond even my own expectations.
The international buying process has some frustrations, things like your bank or credit card company charging fees to convert currency come to mind. But otherwise, the ordering process is quite straight forward.. 50Cycles has a best seller on their hands in the Kalkhoff. They have been responsive to my questions that have arisen during the break in of the cycle.. Are they perfect... No.. But they are very good...
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