A first month review.

[Kev_w]

It's been an odd four weeks, my mates say I'm a luddite having avoided disk brakes & bigger wheels till a couple of months ago, so the pedal assist has come as a shock.

I have 8 levels of assist, level 5 on a larger back gear has removed the hills I ride but just the 2nd level is ample for general riding, and I find level one is good for getting around bollards on cycle paths as it does surge a little when the motor assist comes in, there's likely 3 setting on the controller but it's dealer software and I've not yet found a hack.

When it does break fixing will be an issue and I worry when the service spanner comes on the display it'll switch off the assist (for a car I'd find an ebay lead and software and reset the system) but that's in the future, the can bus lead appears to be a 3 way 3.5mm jack but the only drawing of the controller I can find doesn't show pinouts.

If I had a gripe it's the Zoom forks, both my pedal MTB's have Rockshox Recons but they don't make a 700c version and also the Zooms have 65mm drop, has anyone fitted 29er forks to a 700c wheel and if so did they raise the front end much?

The battery holds its charge well, 500mw and I'm getting 70km from around 70% of the full charge which is ok considering the bike's 3 year old and has been stood unused and we've been caught in heavy rain and nothing broke

So yeah, so far so good for the Rock Machine Crossride 350E womens step through

 

[AndyBike]

If I had a gripe it's the Zoom forks, both my pedal MTB's have Rockshox Recons but they don't make a 700c version and also the Zooms have 65mm drop, has anyone fitted 29er forks to a 700c wheel and if so did they raise the front end much?

RS do a fork called Paragon. It has 65mm travel, though I seem to think theres also a 50mm version.
'Fraid to say I know nothing about how good it is , but it looks to share its tech from mtb forks, so i reckon it should at least perform as a suss fork, with more adjustments than the basic zoom.
RS Paragon weighs 1820grams

 

[Kev_w]

RS do a fork called Paragon. It has 65mm travel, though I seem to think theres also a 50mm version.
'Fraid to say I know nothing about how good it is , but it looks to share its tech from mtb forks, so i reckon it should at least perform as a suss fork, with more adjustments than the basic zoom.
RS Paragon weighs 1820grams

Good spot! There's both coil and air sprung versions, don't seem common in the UK but available online, food for thought anyway as opposed to buying a pair of Pikes or Judy's to lower as it appears to be possible to lower some versions by adding or removing spacers.

 

[AndyBike]

Good spot! There's both coil and air sprung versions, don't seem common in the UK but available online, food for thought anyway as opposed to buying a pair of Pikes or Judy's to lower as it appears to be possible to lower some versions by adding or removing spacers.

If its adjusting the travel on an air fork, that requires a different air shaft(air shafts are set to travel, so if you want to increase or decrease travel, you need to corresponding air shaft.
Unfortunately there the amount you can really increase or decrease is about 20mm, and even then depends entirely on the fork.
The 'spacers' on an air fork increase or decrease the internal volume of the air spring, which affects damping and fork performance, they dont affect travel in that way.

 

[Kev_w]

If its adjusting the travel on an air fork, that requires a different air shaft(air shafts are set to travel, so if you want to increase or decrease travel, you need to corresponding air shaft.
Unfortunately there the amount you can really increase or decrease is about 20mm, and even then depends entirely on the fork.
The 'spacers' on an air fork increase or decrease the internal volume of the air spring, which affects damping and fork performance, they dont affect travel in that way.

Thank you, that's handy to know, I'm confident in my ability to strip a pair but knowing that I won't need to learn how

A couple of years back I had a collision that bent the Mazarochi's I had on my Marin so bought a pair of 26" RS Recon solo air as they had V brake mounts as I've been a disk brake sceptic, I've used Shimano XT V brakes with the parallel linkage and swore by them until buying a Whyte 29er with Shimano MT 400 disks.