ME!!!
50cycles in their hey day, prior to the ‘Impulse‘ motor fiasco, were helpful and a useful source of spares and advice. We bought two bikes in July 2008 from them and joined this forum within days of those purchases. (no jonnie-come-lately then!). The Panasonic motor-ed bikes they sold being, and still are, absolutely superb. I now get great advice and spares from two companies in Germany and Holland.
I got caught though when considering an update for my wife’s bike, at the time when motors were being changed. Regrettably, I bought an Impulse2 driven one, started to read the alarming reports as the Impulse saga developed, and ‘moved it on’ at a considerable loss, but less than the loss I would have suffered had I kept it. I made the buyer fully aware of the risks, he didn’t seemed concerned as he had just purchased EVO one with the battery in the downtube and wanted ours for his wife. Wonder how he got on?
Fortunately, I retained the wife’s original bike, mainly because she didn’t really like the characterless paintwork, style, and heavy new bike, preferring her ProConnect all the time. So, I set about getting spare bikes, as little used, well looked after second hand bikes off of ebay to have good Kalkhoff Panasonic bikes in reserve. This was well before the more recent ‘jumping and the second hand trade-in bandwagon that 50cycles jumped on, so picked up barely used bikes for about £400 a piece. Thus we have Kalkhoff electric bikes on which we have covered 50,000 miles (2x 18k, 9k, and 5k respectively), and all bikes still ride like new and should ‘see us out’!
So, yes, there are real customers on this forum, who have helped each another at times, with flecc being a particularly good source of technical advice and market knowledge. I followed and commented on the original Impulse2 thread, and always took note of threads related to Kalkhoff and 50cycles including this present thread.
Over the years we have been stopped and spoken to about our bikes by countless passer-byes. In the first 5years, prior to Impulse2, we enthused wholeheartedly about the bikes and never hesitated to recommend them or 50cycles. How times have changed, would NEVER offer such are recommendation nowadays, neither Kalkhoff nor 50cycles in whatever it latest incarnation is.
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