2021 Rize Models - Shipping Thread

Also my wife's silver RX for your viewing pleasure
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These Bikes are incredible! I keep forgetting the 2021s are 52v 15ah!
I have never been on one but im guessing an Ultra at 52v will be a lil frisky!
 
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My RX has finally shipped, arrives Tuesday, I think the holdup was the 2nd battery that I see listed on the Rize website as arriving early October (Canada). So I emailed yesterday and said I’d pay for shipment of the
2nd battery but just ship the bike. Sure enough I got an email at 1:30am this morning saying the bike and other accessories had been shipped. So Tuesday is the big day.
 
My RX has finally shipped, arrives Tuesday, I think the holdup was the 2nd battery that I see listed on the Rize website as arriving early October (Canada). So I emailed yesterday and said I’d pay for shipment of the
2nd battery but just ship the bike. Sure enough I got an email at 1:30am this morning saying the bike and other accessories had been shipped. So Tuesday is the big day.
Good catch! Im far to big and stupid to have realized something like that lol.
 
Excited that I ordered my Rize RX today, and it shipped! Should get it Friday. I think I'm going to build it myself- never did that before. But I was thinking of maybe getting Velofix to do it, so that they could tune it and make sure it's running perfectly. Would cost another $265. Does anyone think having the bike professionally built and tuned is worth it?

Also, the one thing I didn't like about the components of the RX is that it has mountain bike tires, rather than road tires. I was thinking of getting the Schwalbe Super Moto X tires and swapping them out. Do the tires really make a difference though? I've never switched tires before, and I'd rather not spend money on nothing.

I'll update the group and post a review once it's built and I've had time to try it out.
 
Excited that I ordered my Rize RX today, and it shipped! Should get it Friday. I think I'm going to build it myself- never did that before. But I was thinking of maybe getting Velofix to do it, so that they could tune it and make sure it's running perfectly. Would cost another $265. Does anyone think having the bike professionally built and tuned is worth it?

Also, the one thing I didn't like about the components of the RX is that it has mountain bike tires, rather than road tires. I was thinking of getting the Schwalbe Super Moto X tires and swapping them out. Do the tires really make a difference though? I've never switched tires before, and I'd rather not spend money on nothing.

I'll update the group and post a review once it's built and I've had time to try it out.
Run the stock tires first and see how you like them before spending cash. Imo the stock tires are pretty good, i was expecting them to be louder but they are fine, the bike motor is louder than the tires and those knobbies provide some extra grip and cushion. Watch a few Youtube videos first then take your time and put the bike together yourself because $265 is way to much for putting together an RX.
 
I LOVE the Super Moto-X tires, but would still suggest the same - that you ride the bike with stock tires for a bit to see what's going on. Maybe even experiment with the tire pressures to see if there's something there you can live with. Do not just inflate to maximum pressure and assume you are going to get the best of what the tire has to offer. I don't know what the range is, but assuming it 30-60psi for instance, try it at 30psi for a while, then try 45psi to get a feel for what's possible.

Whatever you do, get some tire sealant into those tubes!!! I like the Slime brand because I've had good liuck with it, it's cheap, and it's available everywhere, but there are other brands available as well. Maybe do some homework on that and get SOMETHING on order while waiting for the bike to arrive?

As far as assembling, if you are determined to do an absolutely great job assembling/checking out your new bike, and willing to take whatever time it takes to do that and get familiar with it (not the "I had it running in 1/2 an hour" approach!), I'd say go for it! You'll not only know it much better, you'll be less shy when it comes to doing things like a tire change, and the self satisfaction you get from a project like that is worth it's weight in gold.....just makes that new bike grin that much bigger.

Absolute worst case - you have to call Velofix to have a look at your bike because of something you feel is an insurmountable task.

And oh heck yes! Please feel free to ask questions and keep us posted on your progress! -Al
 
Ugh. One of the two bikes arrived today, 3 days later than FedEx initially stated. Their online tracking is a total mess right now. It says the other bike is still in Orlando, but FedEx customer service says it actually at a facility in St. Petersburg! No word on when it’s going to make the final 20 mile journey home. I’ll call them tomorrow morning again if the status doesn’t update properly. It’s infuriating.

On the bright side I managed to get the one bike put together without too much trouble. Charging the battery up and will take it out some time tomorrow to check things. Only issues were with the brakes rubbing and the derailleur being super noisy. Pretty sure I got the brakes sorted, but not positive on the derailleur. It sounds better, but there’s an awful lot of a grinding feeling being transferred to the pedals. That may be cause it was on the stand? First time using one so I’m learning as I go. :) I still need to get FlatOut in the tires as well. Woohoo!

Update: spoke to FedEx again just to see if they showed any real update and it’s worse than I thought. The bike left Orlando, but still hasn’t showed up in St. Pete. So the other person misspoke I guess. Problem is is left Orlando on Monday and that isn’t that far away so they opened a case for it to have someone else try to track it down. Frustrating…

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I received my Rise RX today, and I built it. I'm going to write a longer review later, but some initial thoughts, issues, and impressions:

The overall quality of the bike and its construction seemed great, just very solid and well-put-together. It also looked incredible. The instructions said several times to make sure something was tight, but it already was. It was packed very well, and I think the packaging protected it well.

It took me a few hours to build. This is the first bike I've ever built though. The tools they included are lousy. It was a bunch of hex wrenches on an attached key-like folding set. The set had a few problems: you couldn't detach the wrenches, so you had to turn the whole set, which sometimes got in the way of the bike. At some points, you needed to use two of the same size wrench at the same time- and it only came with one of each size, all attached to the same set. (Lucky for me, I had a spare of the same size, which I used from then on whenever I could.) And finally, when I was trying to adjust the left brake lever (for the front brake) using the 2 mm wrench, the wrench was so thin that it actually twisted and bent.

A few impressions once I took it out to ride: damn, this thing is fast! My previous ebike was a RadCity, and I struggled on that to get up to 24 mph on a full battery at max assist. With this, I was able to get up to about 24 mph using assist level 1 (out of 9), and it was easier to go up hills than with the Rad. On power assist 9, and pedaling hard, I was able to get up to 33 mph on a flat paved path. That was a bit frightening, and I don't think I would recommend going over 30 mph often. I was pleased that it didn't just zoom ahead past 20 mph- before riding it, I was afraid that I would accidentally zoom past 28 mph and put myself in greater danger. I instead found that to go fast, I had to do something to try to go fast, whether holding down the throttle, peddling faster, etc. It's not that it's hard to go 28+ mph on this bike, it's not, it's just that it won't happen by accident. I also found that the ride was very smooth, except...

The front fender was rubbing against the tire most of the time. I actually noticed this when I installed the fender on a bike stand, and tried to fix it by squeezing the attachments closer together (and that seemed to work on the stand), but I guess riding it made the fender slip back in place. I looked up online, and it seems like I'm going to have to bend the attachment to the bike so that it fits better.

Another problem was that the front brake seemed weak, so that's why I tried to adjust it using the 2mm wrench as the instructions seemed to say. But that made the brake handle push out really far. I may need to find or buy a new hex wrench to fix this.

Anyway, more photos and a full review to come later. But my immediate impression is that I don't regret buying it, despite the issues with the front fender and front brakes / brake handle, which I think I can fix. It rode very well and met all of my hopes and expectations, despite those issues.
 

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Tools always seem to be worth what you pay for them. That "tool" went directly to the trash can here.

On the brake(s), suggest you cool it rather than getting on them hard looking for max performance right away. Asking for too much too soon can frequently lead to squeaky brakes - something you want to avoid for sure. They need to break in to work at 100%. Give them several battery charges to really start working right. Don't use them any harder than necessary until then.

The fender does require some adjusting/tweaking to get it right. Most of the wire "holders" are adjustable in length somehow. There length needs to be set so the gap on both sides of the tire are equal. The top one, the one that mounts to the fork where the headlight mounts, is usually set so it's as high as possible.

I think most of us want to know/see how fast our new bikes will go. Few of us ever ride them that fast again as long as we own them!

Congrats on the new bike, and even more congrats on taking the time to get to know it by assembling it yourself! -Al
 
MAF1008 - you have 9 levels? I thought the default was 5.
My Rize RX arrives tomorrow (Saturday), Im not too happy with Rize managing delivery but I think, in Canada, they were overwhelmed by the demand. I have already gone out and bought quality tools including a torque wrench, I think its a worthwhile investment. I'm guessing the supplied tool will be handy to keep with you when your cycling.
It's highly recommended to learn how to maintain a bike yourself (e or not) but if you take a Rize RX to a dealer, they're going to be reluctant to work on it and secondly they'll take you to the cleaners on price. I've found bike fenders often come out of alignment, (probably why a lot of people just remove them), but tweaking the attachments should be a regular part of your maintenance checks.
I'm really excited about getting my RX tomorrow, finally, its been a long journey since ordering in early August, its great that you found the quality and performance good. Now I'm even more excited :))
 
MAF1008 - you have 9 levels? I thought the default was 5.
My Rize RX arrives tomorrow (Saturday), Im not too happy with Rize managing delivery but I think, in Canada, they were overwhelmed by the demand. I have already gone out and bought quality tools including a torque wrench, I think its a worthwhile investment. I'm guessing the supplied tool will be handy to keep with you when your cycling.
It's highly recommended to learn how to maintain a bike yourself (e or not) but if you take a Rize RX to a dealer, they're going to be reluctant to work on it and secondly they'll take you to the cleaners on price. I've found bike fenders often come out of alignment, (probably why a lot of people just remove them), but tweaking the attachments should be a regular part of your maintenance checks.
I'm really excited about getting my RX tomorrow, finally, its been a long journey since ordering in early August, its great that you found the quality and performance good. Now I'm even more excited :))
You made a great choice, your gonna love it just don't forget to post the Bike porn when you get it put together!
 
Little update on my second bike: FedEx finally found it and it’s now close by according to tracking. Should be dropped off Monday. I hope. 🤞
 
MAF1008 - you have 9 levels? I thought the default was 5.
My Rize RX arrives tomorrow (Saturday), Im not too happy with Rize managing delivery but I think, in Canada, they were overwhelmed by the demand. I have already gone out and bought quality tools including a torque wrench, I think its a worthwhile investment. I'm guessing the supplied tool will be handy to keep with you when your cycling.
It's highly recommended to learn how to maintain a bike yourself (e or not) but if you take a Rize RX to a dealer, they're going to be reluctant to work on it and secondly they'll take you to the cleaners on price. I've found bike fenders often come out of alignment, (probably why a lot of people just remove them), but tweaking the attachments should be a regular part of your maintenance checks.
I'm really excited about getting my RX tomorrow, finally, its been a long journey since ordering in early August, its great that you found the quality and performance good. Now I'm even more excited :))
Yeah, it came with five levels, but the switch between "Speed and Eco" (which supposedly was just really the same 9 levels, but spaced out between the two modes) didn't work. I couldn't figure out how to get it to work, either by following the instructions (holding the button down) or changing the settings. In the menu, I was able to shift the setting from 5 levels to 9. I'm happy with that arrangement and prefer it to 5 levels split between speed and eco anyway. Also, if your bike works like this too, I'd suggest increasing to 9 levels, because I'm not sure that the 5 level mode actually had the same power at power level "5" as the nine level mode has at power level "9". That is, I think level 5 under the 5 level setting may have been the same level 5 as under the 9 level setting, but that the highest levels may have simply been restricted under 5 levels. Which is fine, if you don't want too much power, but then A) you got this bike so you probably want the option of power, and B) if you don't want to use more power than level 5, just don't press the up button beyond 5.
 
A few more small-ish critiques from my experience yesterday:

The bike seat was very "meh", not as soft and comfortable as I was hoping. Not terrible or hard, but pretty generic. It would be fine to use, but I have a spare Cloud 9 seat I'm going to try to install today.

The suspension seatpost didn't seem to do anything, it felt like a normal solid seatpost. I'm going to see if I can loosen it today.

The front light that the bike came with seemed weak. To be fair, I was riding it outside around dusk, so there was still plenty of light outside for visibility. And the light would be plenty strong for other people and cars to see you. But I'd really like an ebike with an attached light to have a strong enough light to be able to see ahead clearly at night, without any other light from outside present. That was one of the critiques I had of my RadCity- I needed an external headlight to safely see in the dark, and it was, of course, difficult to get a headlight to fit on the handlebars and point perfectly (I ended up putting it on top of the included headlight and attaching them with rubber bands), so if the attached light in the RX could have just been strong, it would have been so much nicer. If anyone has ideas about compatible lights to replace the Rize's with, I'd be open to hearing them. And also, I know, it's a $3k bike that has a pretty nice set of parts overall, and so they probably had to skimp a little somewhere rather than putting a $300 headlight on it.

I tried to get the "walk" mode to work, and couldn't. That's not really a problem for me, but if someone else is depending on it to go up stairs or something, it could be a problem for them.

I thought the stickers where you could label the bike as "Class 1" etc. were pretty funny. "I'm sorry officer, I was just peddling really hard! Look, Class 1!". I put the Class 3 sticker on mine though, hah.

Nothing to do with this particular bike, but I installed Slime tire sealant for the first time ever yesterday, and if you do that, be prepared with paper towels or something for that green goop to drip everywhere. I got most of it in the tires, but still, it makes a mess. Same with lubing your chain.

Something good I didn't mention: it is possible to ride the RX at zero power level. You obviously can't go as fast, and I had to lower the gear setting, but it is ridable and felt smooth, at least on flat ground where I tried it. I didn't notice much resistance from the motor. So if you were ever out and the motor stopped working for whatever reason, you could probably bike it home as long as you didn't have too hilly of a way. Or you can use the power assist to accelerate and go up hills, and the zero power setting to ride on flatter ground after accelerating or downhill, etc.

To be clear about all my critiques: I'm making them because I want to be honest about the bike. Overall, I'm very, very happy with it so far. I was afraid that a lot of things would need calibration that I couldn't do easily, and I'd need to get it professionally built, but that wasn't the case. It came in really good shape, and just needed to be put together like the instructions said (and with less tightening than it said). I'm also just incredibly happy with how it rode yesterday, despite the fender rubbing against my tire. Aside from that rubbing noise, I thought it was very quiet, and it was so smooth. It also was not too powerful or out of control- as I said, it was easy to keep the speed in the teens or low 20s while cycling, and I had to intentionally try to go faster to actually go faster.
 

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A few more small-ish critiques from my experience yesterday:

The bike seat was very "meh", not as soft and comfortable as I was hoping. Not terrible or hard, but pretty generic. It would be fine to use, but I have a spare Cloud 9 seat I'm going to try to install today.

The suspension seatpost didn't seem to do anything, it felt like a normal solid seatpost. I'm going to see if I can loosen it today.

The front light that the bike came with seemed weak. To be fair, I was riding it outside around dusk, so there was still plenty of light outside for visibility. And the light would be plenty strong for other people and cars to see you. But I'd really like an ebike with an attached light to have a strong enough light to be able to see ahead clearly at night, without any other light from outside present. That was one of the critiques I had of my RadCity- I needed an external headlight to safely see in the dark, and it was, of course, difficult to get a headlight to fit on the handlebars and point perfectly (I ended up putting it on top of the included headlight and attaching them with rubber bands), so if the attached light in the RX could have just been strong, it would have been so much nicer. If anyone has ideas about compatible lights to replace the Rize's with, I'd be open to hearing them. And also, I know, it's a $3k bike that has a pretty nice set of parts overall, and so they probably had to skimp a little somewhere rather than putting a $300 headlight on it.

I tried to get the "walk" mode to work, and couldn't. That's not really a problem for me, but if someone else is depending on it to go up stairs or something, it could be a problem for them.

I thought the stickers where you could label the bike as "Class 1" etc. were pretty funny. "I'm sorry officer, I was just peddling really hard! Look, Class 1!". I put the Class 3 sticker on mine though, hah.

Nothing to do with this particular bike, but I installed Slime tire sealant for the first time ever yesterday, and if you do that, be prepared with paper towels or something for that green goop to drip everywhere. I got most of it in the tires, but still, it makes a mess. Same with lubing your chain.

Something good I didn't mention: it is possible to ride the RX at zero power level. You obviously can't go as fast, and I had to lower the gear setting, but it is ridable and felt smooth, at least on flat ground where I tried it. I didn't notice much resistance from the motor. So if you were ever out and the motor stopped working for whatever reason, you could probably bike it home as long as you didn't have too hilly of a way. Or you can use the power assist to accelerate and go up hills, and the zero power setting to ride on flatter ground after accelerating or downhill, etc.

To be clear about all my critiques: I'm making them because I want to be honest about the bike. Overall, I'm very, very happy with it so far. I was afraid that a lot of things would need calibration that I couldn't do easily, and I'd need to get it professionally built, but that wasn't the case. It came in really good shape, and just needed to be put together like the instructions said (and with less tightening than it said). I'm also just incredibly happy with how it rode yesterday, despite the fender rubbing against my tire. Aside from that rubbing noise, I thought it was very quiet, and it was so smooth. It also was not too powerful or out of control- as I said, it was easy to keep the speed in the teens or low 20s while cycling, and I had to intentionally try to go faster to actually go faster.
Since the seat is an option there are no instructions in the manual, so just to ensure everyone knows how to adjust it: Remove it from the bike and flip it over to find the adjustment screw inside the seat post. And, the Suntour can take 3 different springs. If you fall significantly outside the weight range of the medium spring that comes with the stock unit, it pays to replace it with the correct one. Much better sensitivity.

And a general rule is to set the spring to sag (compress) roughly 20-30% under your static weight. From there you can fine tune it up or down to your individual liking.


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Since the seat is an option there are no instructions in the manual, so just to ensure everyone knows how to adjust it: Remove it from the bike and flip it over to find the adjustment screw inside the seat post. And, the Suntour can take 3 different springs. If you fall significantly outside the weight range of the medium spring that comes with the stock unit, it pays to replace it with the correct one. Much better sensitivity.

And a general rule is to set the spring to sag (compress) roughly 20-30% under your static weight. From there you can fine tune it up or down to your individual liking.


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Thank you! If I want it to be bouncier (I guess I'm light?) do I turn it negative (counterclockwise) or positive (clockwise)? The instructions used the term "preload", but I wasn't sure what more or less preload actually does.
 
Thank you! If I want it to be bouncier (I guess I'm light?) do I turn it negative (counterclockwise) or positive (clockwise)? The instructions used the term "preload", but I wasn't sure what more or less preload actually does.
Softer (Negative) will be squishier and bouncier. Harder (Positive) keeps it rigid if you find it's too bouncy while pedaling, or you want to minimize the energy lost when pedaling for serious exercise. And the Preload is the sag. You want to set it about 20% of the available travel so that it isn't too soft and potentially bottoms out on big bumps. If you are less than say 130lbs or so, definitely consider ordering the proper light spring. Its only $20 delivered from Suntour and will be much smoother and soak up the minor vibrations better.

The same rules apply for the front suspension fork as well. Good forks have a little sliding O-ring on one side to help you set that preload, but if you don't have one just use a little zip tie or something to help you set it up. Aim for 20% sag to start on simple forks (adjust the left fork knob, not the lockout knob) and fine tune it from there to your liking.

 
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