I was not critizing 50 cycles for making a profit , and i have found you a very good firm to deal with,what i fail to understand is the price hike from£900 to£1500 from the Sprint to the Forte just by adding a crossbar to a Chinese frame and some switchgear, it does not add up.

Thanks as always for your tips, flecc . Good point on the legality - I hadn't thought of that, blinking red tape .

 

An "oversized" Ezee battery case for customers' own Ezee battery mods might be a cheaper idea then, but I suppose demand isn't really there (though, with the U.S. market for Ezee bikes on the up, who knows... ): I think I just don't relish cutting my case open to extend it... still, I'm drifting well off-topic, so... for now its extra legpower & steep hill avoidance measures .

I was not critizing 50 cycles for making a profit , and i have found you a very good firm to deal with,what i fail to understand is the price hike from£900 to£1500 from the Sprint to the Forte just by adding a crossbar to a Chinese frame and some switchgear, it does not add up.

 

Very wrong prices Urstu.

 

It's not £900 to £1500

 

It's £995 to £1345, and currently with a promotional code, to £1295.

 

So £300 difference, not £600 as you said, which was a huge exaggeration.

.

50cycles have arranged to look at my Torq and hopefully resolve the problems I have. I can't take it in for 2 weeks, but will feedback the results.

I understand Scott is off sick today hope it isn't due to 'My Torq Story'!

 

Once my warranty/guarantee period is up I would like to try and copy Flecc's Torq Radical. I wonder how much someone would charge to do this? Could/would 50cycles do this with Flecc's input and produce a Flecc Special to order?

I might be tempted to DIY it following Flecc's write up. Obviously cost is a major considerstion didn't reveal what it cost him in time and materials. Would be nice to know Fleccie?

 

John

Sorry about the generalization about prices ,my Sprint was only£925 but considering i can go to Halfords and buy a complete mountain bike for under£100 i still fail to see how it costs even £300 to add a cross bar on a bike when done by a small addaptable Chinese company.On a more serious note i would have more faith in your lithium batts if you had faith in them ,we get a lousy 6month warranty the yanks get 12monthes maybe they are not the pushovers we are, Sparta amongst others are offering a 2yr warranty.

hi i would also like to say i dont understand why we have to pay £1200 for good ebike but in japan you get electric bike with panasonic drive lithium battery for under £600 also yamaha bikes for simmilar money maybe thats why they sell hundreds of thousand of ebikes and we sell thousands

 

jim

50cycles have arranged to look at my Torq and hopefully resolve the problems I have. I can't take it in for 2 weeks, but will feedback the results.

I understand Scott is off sick today hope it isn't due to 'My Torq Story'!

 

Once my warranty/guarantee period is up I would like to try and copy Flecc's Torq Radical. I wonder how much someone would charge to do this? Could/would 50cycles do this with Flecc's input and produce a Flecc Special to order?

I might be tempted to DIY it following Flecc's write up. Obviously cost is a major considerstion didn't reveal what it cost him in time and materials. Would be nice to know Fleccie?

 

John

 

Cost was very small John, a pair of Marathon Plus tyres discounted to £40, a multi sprocket freewheel at £9.99, an Acera rear mechanism at £14.99, a twistgrip gear changer at £8.95, a hub to scavenge a freewheel thread from at anything from £15 to infinity, rear V brake at around £20, new chain and an assortments of odds and ends for no more than £30. Say as little as £140.

 

But as I said to Stuart when he thought of doing the same, easier said than done, and there are some risky procedures involved which no-one would commercially undertake. For example, running the Torq motor flat out with the bike upside down to use it as a capstan lathe, while using an angle grinder to accurately grind off the steel bearing housing extension and part of the alloy shell, and driving the bearing inward at the same time after previously removing an internal washer from the motor. Then there's making the spindle strengthening adapter

 

These milling operations could be done more delicately by an extensively equipped engineering company instead, but they'd want engineering drawings first and charge the earth for doing the job, and without being electrically skilled your rotor assembly and lead out wiring would be at considerable risk. In fact it would be as cheap to start with a new Quando motor with it's longer spindle. I don't know how much that would cost, but probably around about £300 as a spare. Then add the spindle strengthening adapter cost for manufacture, a freewheel thread converter made by a specialist company like Highpath for about £100, plus the costs of an engineer who was both electrically and cycle conversant to complete the assembly, wheel offsetting etc. Add the previous £140 and you have a total of around £800 minimum including the skilled labour, plus a Torq, so £2000 new.

 

Not much point when a Forza with similar performance costs £1400, less whatever an existing Torq is sold for. This emphasizes that it's only practical for someone who has the necessary skills, the appropriate equipment, and the willingness to take potentially costly risks to do it on a budget.

.

hi i was not talking or complaing about your bikes but the bikes i am talking about are made by national bicycle industrial and are made in japan not imported this company is part of matsushita so panasonic

 

jim

hi again i forgot to add if you google yamaha pas or national bicycle industrial you can see what i am talking about

 

jim

To Urstu and Jac

 

Lots of answers there, and you are both falling into the trap of over simplification as you'll see. With the F series, it's not a case of adding a crossbar, look at the weights of Torq and Sprint and you'll see that the frames are very different, and that is visually clear too. The cost of that frame type appears in the Torq also.

 

Some of the components on the F series are more expensive, the gear systems, disc brake etc being examples, and those differences can be large.

 

Then there's the market realities I repeatedly have to explain. You can't expect to buy a bike at the cost of it's manufacture at the Chinese factory. To that add the manufacturer's margin, packaging, insurance, transport to the UK, import duty, the importer's operating costs and margin, then 17.5% VAT, and what you end up with bears no relation to the original cost of manufacture.

 

If you add £50 to the cost of making a bike in the Orient with an added feature, that £50 also expands in exactly the same way.

 

Then there's the fact that the banking and commercial system worldwide operates on a percentage basis. The percentage margin a company has to add to a product at a higher price is of necessity a larger amount of money than on a cheaper product. This creates the law of diminishing returns.

 

A Jaguar X type which is essentially a tarted up Mondeo is not good value for money when benefit analysed, due to that law, the increased monetary margins for all in the chain sees to that, those in the chain being the manufacturer, vatman and dealer. Likewise a £60,000 Mercedes is not worth £44,000 more than a £16000 Mondeo in terms of actual benefits received. This is just as true for dearer e-bikes like the F series of course.

 

It's also important to compare like with like, the Japanese Panasonic unit in Japan is not the same as the one seen on some of the bikes using similar at this end. Most of ours now are a higher powered version with a larger capacity battery, the Japanese one being severely limited by Japanese law.

 

The need to offer longer warranties in the USA results from their consumer background which makes legal action easier on consumer issues. Everything over there gets longer warranties, Sony's being much longer there than here for their electronic products for example. The costs of supporting warranties are factored in by the manufacturer/importer in any market, so no-one is necessarily getting something for nothing.

 

So as I implied at the beginning, things aren't as simple as they might superficially seem.

 

P.S. I see my slow typing was beaten by 50cycles again, hence some duplication in my reply.

.

Edited August 3, 200718 yr by flecc

hi flecc i know it cost al lot to import stuff but 50cycles were selling the panasonic bike for i think £1200 it sells there for well under 600 i think if those bike were built and sold here for simmilar money a lot more would have been sold i dont speak or read japanese but i would be surprised if power unit is very different maybe the chips are that controll the power any anyone interested can look on ƒpƒiƒ\ƒjƒbƒN@ƒTƒCƒNƒ‹ƒeƒbƒNŠ”Ž®‰ïŽÐ

 

jim

i hear what you are saying about having to factor in extendended warranties by law in the u s a but NCYE WHEELS seem to manage it and for a price of £1077 pounds ,but i appreciate you may have to pay a state tax on top of that. that aside everyone seems to to have dodged the issue of our lousy six month warranty and i have my doubts whether this ,would stand up in consumer law ,i refer to goods being fit for purpose they were made.

hi any one interested in looking at panasonic would have to google panabyc

dont know why it did not print before just a small point nissan and honda both seem very happy to manufacture here also lots of people are very happy to come and live and work here

 

jim

Opinion 50/cycles

 

Nice to hear an opinion on bats from the horses mouth as it were,it is the first time i have heard you voice an opinion on bats ,i take it you were taking of lithium as iknow m/hydride will last the distance having done 2500 miles on my present one and although down on capacity is still going strong ,is it your opinion that i should get the same sort out millage out of the lithium batt if treated correctley,or would you admit after all the hype these batts were maybe a step backwards.<,I'll be very surprised if you answer this>.

There's a legality issue Stuart, it boosts the overall power and makes it potentially illegal even when restricted, though a controller change could take care of that. Not so much point now with the F series available..

 

I wouldn't want a company to break any law. But on the other hand, it's perfectly legal to sell things where I live that are illegal to actually use on a vehicle. (let's say on a car for instance, illegal exhaust (too noisty) or something involving generation x (or y) those neon lights).

 

Electric bikes with aftermarket support -- that's all I ask as a would-be rebel.

 

 

So, on topic, this thread is selling me on the F series and off the Torq which I had weighed fairly evenly up to now with pro or cons.

PDF Manuals

 

Hi Russ

 

Sorry missed your thread,

Thats a good idea to a pdf of each manual on here, I will see if our guys can muster some manuals of each model to email to you.

 

Thanks

 

Scott

 

I sent Mr. Ching the web address of a typical PDF Manual (below) on the 8th July inviting him to look at it and, perhaps, adopt a suitable version of that format for eZee Bikes: it seemed to me an ideal solution to printing and distribution.

http://www.tresterra.com/manual.pdf

Regards

Peter

Japanese economics.

 

hi flecc i know it cost al lot to import stuff but 50cycles were selling the panasonic bike for i think £1200 it sells there for well under 600 i think if those bike were built and sold here for simmilar money a lot more would have been sold i dont speak or read japanese but i would be surprised if power unit is very different maybe the chips are that controll the power any anyone interested can look on ƒpƒiƒ\ƒjƒbƒN@ƒTƒCƒNƒ‹ƒeƒbƒNŠ”Ž®‰ïŽÐ

 

jim

 

Ah so!

 

Peter

Hi prState

 

this thread is selling me on the F series and off the Torq which I had weighed fairly evenly up to now with pro or cons.

If you're seriously looking, and you prefer the 700C/28" Torq wheels to the F-series' 26", but you want a motor with a bit more "oomph", you could wait to see if the Torq option with higher power (like F-series) front motor, front suspension forks & disc brake option, currently on sale at Ezee South Africa, becomes more widely available .

 

You could always buy a second battery for greater (offroad) range .

 

Stuart.

hi flecc i know it cost al lot to import stuff but 50cycles were selling the panasonic bike for i think £1200 it sells there for well under 600 i think if those bike were built and sold here for simmilar money a lot more would have been sold i dont speak or read japanese but i would be surprised if power unit is very different maybe the chips are that controll the power any anyone interested can look on ƒpƒiƒ\ƒjƒbƒN@ƒTƒCƒNƒ‹ƒeƒbƒNŠ”Ž®‰ïŽÐ

 

jim

 

I see Scott has answered much of what you said in the interim, but to his answer I'd add scale. The costs of supply and support for a bike like that Panasonic folder in a very small UK market are very high by comparison with Japan where very many thousands of these bikes were sold. As for building here, that's out of the question for a small market, as has been demonstrated in many areas, including bicycles. Since as Scott explained the Japanese pricing could not be emulated, such a large scale of sales is unachievable in our market. We in this forum are very much a minority, the great majority of our population stubbornly sticking to the car (preferably 4 x 4) for the arduous 500 yards to the newsagent, school etc.

 

The Japanese are far more receptive of alternative transport.

.

Warranties and the law

 

i hear what you are saying about having to factor in extendended warranties by law in the u s a but NCYE WHEELS seem to manage it and for a price of £1077 pounds ,but i appreciate you may have to pay a state tax on top of that. that aside everyone seems to to have dodged the issue of our lousy six month warranty and i have my doubts whether this ,would stand up in consumer law ,i refer to goods being fit for purpose they were made.

 

I was considerably miffed when I discovered that the battery warranty was only six months from 50Cycles/eZee Cycles, and it occurred to me that for such an expensive item (on the face of it) 6 months suggests a lack of confidence in the product by ......well, who? (read on). 'Fit for purpose' comes readily to mind.

I had a lengthy (not many, just long) email correspondence with Mr. Ching of Ezee and he stated that they were constrained by local conditions and the law of the country in which the product is sold in determining the guarantee/warranty period. To discover the mechanics of those decisions is something we are not privy to.

I too discovered the 12 months guarantee/warranty given by Nycewheels, USA and used that as a basis for discussion with Mr. Ching.

What I also discovered was that the Lithium Battery used by Ezee Cycles is made by the Li-ion Battery Company in Beijing and their website, on the subject, quotes a period of 1 year and further states (if I have read it correctly) that a retailer of its batteries may NOT change that period.

Too late I discovered the period of 2 years given by Gazelle to use it in my discussions with Mr. Ching.

 

Out of interest here is the warranty given by Nycewheels, and it is by no means straightforward - it depends on the state of the union to which the product is delivered (I think that's what is meant by the paragraphs in red).

 

Zee Bike, Warranty

 

eZee bike electric bikes warrants to the original purchaser of each new bicycle that the following components will be free from defects in material and workmanship for the period indicated

Frame: For 5 years (60 months) as long as the original purchaser owns the bike.

Batteries: One year (12 months) from purchase

All other components: One year (12 months) from purchase.

eZee bike electric bikes further warrants that any repair or replacement parts supplied will be free from defects in material and workmanship for a period of one year from the date of purchase.

LIMITED REMEDY

Unless otherwise provided, the sole remedy under the above warranty or any implied warranty, is limited to the replacement of defective components and parts with those of equal or greater value at the sole discretion of eZee. The customer will be responsible for labor costs associated with warranty replacements.

IN NO EVENT SHALL eZee BE RESPONSIBLE FOR DIRECT, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DAMAGES FOR PERSONAL INJURY, PROPERTY DAMAGE, OR ECONOMIC LOSSES, WHETHER BASED ON CONTRACT, WARRANTY, NEGLIGENCE, PRODUCT LIABILITY, OR ANY OTHER THEORY.

Some states do not allow the exclusion or limitation of damages, so the above limitation or exclusion may not apply.

EXCLUSIONS

THE ABOVE WARRANTY, OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY, DOES NOT COVER NORMAL WEAR AND TEAR. ALL WARRANTIES ARE VOID IF THE ELECTRIC BIKE IS USED FOR OTHER THAN NORMAL ACTIVITIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, FAILING TO FOLLOW THE OWNER'S MANUAL OR USING THE ELECTRIC VEHICLE FOR COMMERCIAL ACTIVITIES OR IN COMPETITIVE EVENTS, AND TRAINING FOR SUCH ACTIVITIES OR EVENTS. eZee MAKES NO OTHER WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ARE LIMITED IN DURATION TO THAT OF THE EXPRESS WARRANTIES STATED ABOVE.

Some states do not allow limitations on how long an implied warranty lasts, so the above limitation may not apply. This warranty gives you specific legal rights, and you may also have other rights which vary from state to state.

 

Peter

Under European law applicable to all member countries, everything is warrantied for up to six years, the period for a product being fixed by the court trying a case in relation to what is considered a reasonable life for that product. The case has to brought by the complainant.

 

Supplier warranties have no force over that.

.

Hi prState

 

 

If you're seriously looking, and you prefer the 700C/28" Torq wheels to the F-series' 26", but you want a motor with a bit more "oomph", you could wait to see if the Torq option with higher power (like F-series) front motor, front suspension forks & disc brake option, currently on sale at Ezee South Africa, becomes more widely available .

 

You could always buy a second battery for greater (offroad) range .

 

Stuart.

 

Cool, didn't even know about an newer Torq model.

 

,,,

Don't know if this or agrees or diagrees with what's been said, Giant Twist (Lafree Lite) manual in the U.S. says 6 months Warranty for my battery. Fortunately, it's been 4 years almost to the day. I believe I'm correct in adding though, that the local bike shop I ordered it from is free to add their additional coverage, though I'm pretty sure they didn't add to what Giant offered.

Another Torq Story - A Happy One

 

I've had mine for just on a year now and love it, have done a few mods to make a good bike even better and to make it better suit my needs, nothing radical though . It is a cyclists bike so it may not suit anyone looking for an easy ride but for me it's just great. I also have a Sprint, undoubtedly a good bike but for me it lacks that indefinable fun element.

I'll second what Ian said, the Torq character is unique, and I was careful not to lose it in the T bike, and indeed have slightly added to it.

 

If someone is fit enough and can cope with the hillclimb limitation and other areas mentioned, the Torq repays in a way that no other e-bike can. The F series are more powerful and can give both the Torq's speed and better hill climbing and comfort, but none of the character since its all just too easy.

 

It's precisely the Torq's lack of low speed torque and peak power coming in late that gives a feel of power going on for ever, increasing as the speed rises, which couple with a keen rider's efforts in an especially rewarding way. The enthusiastic rider has the impression of not only being better than they really are, but getting stronger as the bike's speed and the scale of their apparent achievement increases. Yes, it really is a bike that justifies psycho-analysis!

 

This is completely the opposite of virtually all other e-bikes which just do a job of one sort or another in a mechanical and characterless way, adding little to a rider's experience.

.

Edited August 3, 200718 yr by flecc

I'll second all Ian's remarks, except no Sprint here , and with the proviso that its still early days for my ownership (few months) and more time is required for me to be convinced of long term reliability (under "normal" usage) - watch this space! - but the cyclist's bike fun element is definitely there: very much a matter of personal taste & needs though .

 

to prState: take a look at this thread and the links within to Ezee SAfrica to see what I mean - 2 motor options for the Torq. I haven't heard of it available elsewhere yet though.

 

I've never ridden 700c/28" before the Torq, but I've come to appreciate the better rolling for fast trips over long distances :-). I think 26" may be a little more compact & "manoeuvreable" while retaining some good rolling characteristics too. The higher power motor option for the Torq is likely similarly internally geared to the F-series, and if so gearing up a little from 26" to 28" wheel size will reduce hillclimbing a little bit, but given the torque of F-series motors that shouldn't be a big problem :-).

 

EDIT: (after reading flecc's last post) Will lose most of the "character" of the original Torq which flecc described very comprehensively though... but it depends what you're after :-).

 

EDIT: flecc beat me to it, very accurate & revealing description too flecc :-) So long as its just the bike you're psycho-analysing though... .

 

Stuart.

Edited August 3, 200718 yr by coops