Marchant

Being hopelessly inept and unconfident I entrusted the fitting of my Swytch kit to a professional but the first rim burst 5x inner tubes and although Swytch were good enough to supply a replacement, the second is giving the same trouble. My bike tech says the rim is too narrow. Has anyone else experienced similar problems? cheers, Marchant.

Thanks for this very plausible suggestion: I will give it a go.

Yes I have and no joy, I'm afraid. I have also tried removing and replacing the battery but it only seems to come back to life after a few hours rather than a few minutes. And as I said, the oddest thing to me is that it only does it once during the battery's cycle; once it has had its 'tantrum' it behaves perfectly well until I need to recharge, which I tend to do at around 25 miles.

Don't really know ho I can put it more succinctly; when the battery is full charged it will give me 7 or 8 miles (my commute is only 2 miles so I will have switched it on and off 3-4 times) and the then the next time I switch on the battery will indicate that is empty. However, after I have taken the battery off and left if for a few hours, when I replace and switch on the battery once more indicates that it is fully charged. I was advised to re-solder the connections to the back of the key switch, which I did, and check all the connectors on the control box, which I had my local eBike shop do, but the problem persists. Jimmy replaced the cells in the battery back in October so it is tip-top condition.

Everyone baffled? Not just me then. Oh well...

Good afternoon. Recently I was delighted with all your sage advice concerning the battery problem on my newly-recelled Oxygen battery in that, when fully charged it would deliver for 7-8 miles but after switching off and on would indicate battery empty. Then if I removed the battery for a few hours and then replaced it all would be well. Your advice was to resolder the connections behind the key lock which I did, and check and make good all connections in the controller, which I must confess I had Take Charge eBikes of Bath do for me. But sadly, all to no avail. The odd thing is that it only seems to fail once and then behaves perfectly well until the battery needs recharging after which it starts all over again. I wonder if any of you experienced and knowledgeable people might be able to help me?

Many thanks for this vfr400, I am not at all ept (opposite of inept) in matters electronic, but during lockdown I changed the pickups on my guitar, just to see if I could do it really, so I do have some practical experience of using a soldering iron. Diagnosis is always the key in these situations since if I prove too incompetent to solve the problem myself then at least I can direct someone with greater skill and experience. Once again, I am most grateful.

Hello everyone - hope some of you knowledgeable people can shed some light on this; - I had the battery of my 2014 Oxygen eMate re-celled by the near-legendary Jimmy back last October and until recently the performance has been better than ever. But now after I have done 6 or 7 miles, the next time I turn the key the battery indicator shows 1 bar and continuously flickers, delivering no power whatsoever. The last time this happened I took off the battery and when I replaced it the following morning (without adding further charge) the battery came fully back to life as if nothing had ever been wrong. Clearly the problem isn’t the battery itself and Jimmy was utterly baffled, so I wonder if any of you experienced people might be able to offer an explanation. Thanks in advance.

Good to make your acquaintance! My name derives from the books of Robert Rankin, specifically his Brentford Trilogies, in which John Omally has a bicycle which is quasi-magical and has a half-life of its own. As a lifelong cyclist of 'normal' bikes, this just puts me in mind of ebikes.

What happened was...(in the voice of Jethro)...was that 5 years ago I was made redundant from a job which necessitated a 9 mile each way commute. My next and current job is a mere 2 miles each way so I reverted to my road bike. However, importantly and foolishly, I neglected to charge the battery of my Oxygen eMate and consequently, it died. It has taken this long and certain circumstances in my life to get around to putting Marchant (yes, my username is actually my bike's name) back on the road, so with a great deal of spit and polish (Marchant was covered in dust, dry leaves and cobwebs) and the help and advice of the excellent Jimmy at ebikebatteries.co.uk, the great day finally arrived yesterday! Either the new battery has acted as a tonic for old Marchant or I had forgotten how good she actually was, or possibly both. Whatever, it's marvelous to have her back, and I am ready to rack up some miles. I can't remember if I mentioned it before (it would have been a long time ago) but Marchant has pedigree; she was the very machine which came 2nd in the 2014 Bristol Park Street ebike race. She is an excellent piece of kit! Anyway, it's nice to be back.

Ah. Best try and lay hands on one then... Many thanks.

Yeah, it cycles on/off with a clicking sound like a dripping tap. Haven't charged the battery for some time and have used it on quite a few short runs. Haven't tried using it yet...

As of last night my charger just continually clicks on and off when plugged in. Never had this occur with my previous model. Can't tell if the fault is with charger or battery; any ideas, anyone?

Kind of you Richard, but I spoke to the excellent John Camm at Oxygen yesterday and he already has one on the way to me. Thanks anyway.

Cheers Dave, after a good-ish bit of fiddling I figured that must be the case so I'm grateful for your confirmation and have contacted John accordingly. The bike is an absolute belter, by the way.

The twist grip changer failed changing down on a hill this morning. The gears all move as they should, but the index changer won't shift 'em. Any ideas?

It was my first time there and I really enjoyed it, but I thought the spectators were a bit thin on the ground for what should have been an established event...

Absolutely cracking day out! I would strongly recommend it to anyone with an interest in ebikes. I had a go on the Oxygen mtb and it was amazing, no surprise at all that it won the race.

Flecc makes a good point regarding hills. Here in Bath, cycling east-west is a doddle, while north-south is a challenge. Typically, the company I work for moved south; I didn't want to shower & change every day so I sold my Moulton and bought an ebike. But the fact remains that cycling has always been my preferred form of transport, I have never been an enthusiastic pedestrian...

I would just like to say that famously Sir Edward Elgar was a keen cyclist who rode a bicycle he called Mr Phoebus (because it was a Sunbeam!), but he gave up cycling in 1912 because there were getting to be too many cars on the road...

It will definitely be my next bike. And John, the boss of Oxygen tells me that it is the 5th incarnation of the eMate and the last, as they have refined all the parts to the highest level available and will be able to supply all replacement parts plug & play going forward. In other words, my next bike is likely to be my last. All good stuff from Oxygen.

Absolutely right d8veh, nice no-nonsense chaps, we got on well. I will investigate the batteries; as the fat lady said to the fat man, thanks for the tip...

I actually drove the 400 mile round trip from Bath to Oxygen HQ in Barnsley where I was treated most hospitably. The problem in the end was with the control unit which was exacerbated by the LBS clipping off the connectors. Why they did that remains a mystery; I won't be returning to them to ask. Anyway as I said, a satisfactory conclusion was reached eventually and I left feeling very much like a valued customer which is a nice (and nowadays quite unusual) feeling to have.

Good day, everyone. I've been happily riding my Oxygen eMate City for the last few years and have racked up 5500 miles to date. That is until a couple of weeks ago when it stopped working half way along my 9 mile commute home. Since it was well out of warranty I decided to take it to a fairly new ebike LBS here in Bath with whom I had never previously done business. They had it for a week and eventually declared it unrepairable, so I contacted Oxygen directly. They couldn't have been more helpful, and as a consequence I will soon be back on the road. My bike has given me stirling service but the new iteration Oxygen is a breathtaking piece of kit and I would strongly advise all here looking to upgrade or perhaps thinking of making their first ebike purchase to have a good hard look at the Oxygen 2014 range. You will be buying a first class product but more than that you will be spending your hard-earned with a company whose back-up is second to none.