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It is a definite no now. I did have DHL quickly fly one undeclared from China direct to me in the UK after the first concerns about lithium batteries arose, but that was in one of their own Boeing freighters (which are mostly very ancient anyway! :rolleyes:). I think they'd be more astute...

Strange how many are entering this tiny market for assisted road race style bikes. With Cytronex occupying it virtually alone for years, Annad joined in not too successfully a little while ago, with Freygeist currently in an adjoining thread (hinted at being the Annad again) and now this Boston...

That's not the problem Shimano have, and that won't be harmful in any way. Shimano's concern is with torque, so it's the low ratios that concern them. If the rear sprocket relative to the front sprocket is too large and the resulting gear ratio too low, that can push the torque loading beyond...

It's not necessary if you've got one soundly fixed in place. In any case I think a right hand one might be tricky on your bike, it's a bit crowded in that area. .

Duty and VAT application from China is a bit erratic and often missed for some reason. It used to be like that from the USA , but these days everything from the USA into the UK gets caught. .

Yes, that's an awkward frame for most anti-torque arms which expect a larger flat area to sit against, the one you've chosen is a good choice. .

Perhaps HMRC felt sorry for you, being unable to afford the real thing! :D .

You only avoided it either through the sender marking it as a gift or sample (Chinese companies sometimes do that), or because HMRC didn't spot it in transfer. .

No, nothing to do with that. As I posted above, it's simply a VAT collection cost issue and the government's avoidance of that cost which has annoyed the couriers, including the Royal Mail. For quite a while the couriers bore the costs, but finally refused to carry on being unpaid tax...

It's not practical though, since you are paying an overseas company who can't accept UK VAT and aren't liable for it anyway. By law VAT collection is done by the UK seller or service provider, but with personal imports it's HMRC. The only alternative would be for HMRC to seize the goods and...

If you do that too often, it could be you who gets arrested! :eek: .

It's the British government to blame. They require courier companies to do their tax collection job, and the couriers rightly resent it. Since they don't see why they should carry HMRC's costs they've started charging for the collection, accounts handling and transfer of the tax money. .

Since Bob Wales says there are several with this name, maybe a good idea to say it was a typo and your bike is actually named Lucky? ;) .

Their range "estimate" of 44 to 62 miles is nonsense for most, only the very fit could achieve that from the 10Ah battery. Comparing it with the A-bike really exposes how poor it is, that miniature folder being hardly a valid comparison. And I doubt very much torque from that tiny diameter...

I hope no-one will ignore you James, that wouldn't be very nice. :) By way of information, Bafang is the manufacturer name of the motor in question. It refers to the Suzhou Bafang company of China. Their motors are often marked with the name 8 fun and sometimes referred to as that. (Eight...

There is a requirement for pedelecs to be labelled with certain details, but of course that only applies if a bike is claimed to be a pedelec. In addition this labelling requirement is almost universally ignored and always has been. Odd though it might seem, almost all e-bikes sold since 1983...

But of course there is no law against selling non-compliant vehicles, so long as they are not claimed to be compliant. .

If it's a USB port true to USB standards, it will only have a 500 milliamp supply at 5 volts. That's just 2.5 watts, not much for lighting. However, if the battery manufacturer went outside of the USB specification which sometimes happens, a USB port physical connector is rated at 5 amps. At...

Indeed, the same as a bicycle, which in the UK isn't subject to any road speed limits since they are motor vehicle law. The low recumbent bikes and trikes are capable of 75 mph downhill, that's 120 kph! :eek: .

I wasn't viewing this discussion as an argument either, just as interesting. I only knew the Cycle Analyst under it's old name of DrainBrain (yes really!) long ago so didn't know anything about the latest versions. Of course I understand that it can't improve on what a bike does, but I...