Urbanmover UM36X - first impressions

[Beanie101]

Rented From: Philippe Roux ski shop, Verbier, Switzerland

Rental Price: about £25 a day

Time Rented: the day

Local Terrain: Mountainous

I'm posting here rather than in owner reviews, as I don't think a few hours' rental usage is a fair test.

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Strengths:
Well built, to a price
Fairly lightweight
Stable and manoeuvrable in the rough stuff
Very fast freewheeling (up to 40 mph) and stable at speed
Assistance from the hub motor works well on lesser inclines
Precise derailleur gears, but only 6 of them
Good V-brakes, but very noisy in continuous use
Stylish and modern-looking (especially in black)
Very easy to use


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Weaknesses:
Not so good on steeper inclines and no good at all on very steep ones
25km/h assistance limit seems slow and the 6th gear feels too low on the flat
Hub motor is fairly noisy when it is assisting
No handlebar-mounted switch to turn off the motor (unless you are a contortionist, you have to dismount)
MTB style of bike forces you forward into a gorilla-like posture – not to everyone’s taste
Gorilla posture throws weight forward on to handlebars and front shocks are not up to the job of absorbing the jarring over larger lumps and bumps (off road)

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Summary:
Rented the bike for the day and took it up the cablecars to Col des Gentianes, about 2,900m high. Ducked under the tape marked “route barrée” and took it down a hair-raising rocky track, past rock slides, over the remains of late season snow avalanches and through shallow streams. Apart from the jarring at the front, I was much more impressed with how it coped than I expected to be. Then freewheeled on smoother dirt tracks and roads all the way back to Verbier at 1,500m. It went like the wind (and faster than some MTB’s), but then you don’t need an e-bike to do that.

I thought that I had better try its climbing ability, so chose some steep and very steep streets to try it out on. Whereas the Flyer C9 that I tested last week would have gone up anything, the UM36 (and I) balked at the steeper slopes. I was probably putting in about 200W of effort for a short period but it wasn’t enough and I had to get off.

In conclusion, this would be a good value bike on the flat and on milder slopes but if you need to go up mountains, get a bike with crank assistance and more gears.

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Overall Rating (out of 10) : 8

 

[flecc]

I thought that I had better try its climbing ability, so chose some steep and very steep streets to try it out on. Whereas the Flyer C9 that I tested last week would have gone up anything, the UM36 (and I) balked at the steeper slopes. I was probably putting in about 200W of effort for a short period but it wasn’t enough and I had to get off.

In conclusion, this would be a good value bike on the flat and on milder slopes but if you need to go up mountains, get a bike with crank assistance and more gears.

Thanks for the review Beanie101, an enterprising idea to do this with a hire bike.

It's obviously very much the typical MTB hub-motor bike, fine while the going is easy or moderate though not the best of cycling experiences, but show it a real hill and it reveals it's weakness.
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[Beanie101]

Urbanmover problems

I had no idea until I read mcrosby's post on customer service that there were such bad problems in the UK. There is a Swiss distributor for Urbanmover but I don't know how well set up they are.

One has to assume that hire shops know what they are doing and the people that I use only have four of these bikes (brand new). I think that if I was running a hire service in the mountains, I would use Flyers or similar. More suited to the inclines and probably much more robust.

 

[Urban Mover]

Hi Gents,

Another interesting thread.

I'm in danger or repeating myself and don't want to be accused of spamming! But...we do have a new control unit coming which will enable to you turn the power off or to 50% all from the handlebars. We have also just launched the UM36 complete with a 36V Panasonic Li-Ion battery which increases torque significantly and should really help of those steeper hills you are discussing.

Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Mark

 

[flecc]

I'm in danger or repeating myself and don't want to be accused of spamming!

No problem Mark, information like this is always very welcome.
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[Haku]

Introduction of 36v systems to the UM range: Good.
Withdrawl of throttle from the UM range: Bad.

It's a real shame the 36v system doesn't have a throttle because I find it immensely useful, I use the (derestricted) trottle on my 2 year old UM36 all the time, not for getting maximum speed all the time but so I can control just how much 'boost' the motor gives me so I can extend the battery life on long journeys and enjoy speed on short ones, plus when you're hovvering around 15mph the motor doesn't keep cutting in/out giving you an uneven ride, and on the hills that are just too steep to cycle up you can make the bike push it's own weight (especially nice when you've got a few kg in the panniers).