S-500 Limited Fatbike 2019 review

Mookov

New Member
Hi EBR forum,

Some reviews helped me to choose my e-bike so I decided to write my own after I bought my first one.

I use bikes as my main transportation. My company is 10km away from my house, so I am making 100km per week.
My choice went for a fat bike because I want to use it even in winter.
I chose an electric one because I wanted to feel less tired on the week end after those 100km on week days.

I chose a Téo Fat Bike because I am living in Montréal and the company is 15km away from my house, so I could have seen the product before buying it, been advised and it feel safer in case support or service is required. I watched also the video on youtube from the Vancouver test and product seemed to match my expectations.

First I wanted to buy a 2018 model because they were $200 off. But seeing the 2019 improvements and the fact that it was not available in black, I decided to buy the 2019 model. There was a special price also, got it at $CAD 2199 with an alarm system and a thing to attach a cell for free.

Here is the list of the improvements I am aware of:
  • Tires have higher studs
  • Luggage support can handle 25kg (was 15kg). Seller told me they improved it because some users were carrying people on the back and it tended to break it.
  • Controller has less wires, more robust plugs.(Seller showed me the difference between both, I can confirm)
  • Screen has color
  • Battery is now a Samsung (Was Panasonic)
  • All motors are now 500W
After 200 km of usage, here are my observations:
I like it! This is my first e-bike, I don't have much comparison point, but I quickly enjoyed the feeling with this bike. It was easy to tame. There are two ways to trigger the motor: using the assistance level: from 1 to 9. It seems like each level is associated to a speed, and the motor will help reach that speed, but not beyond (1= 14km/h (need to check), 9=32km/h). The other way is the throttle on right handle that seems to dictate the Wattage output from 0 to 500W.
I never had a motorcycle but always wanted to play with a throttle, and was not disappointed, it is a lot of fun.
Controller has lot of options, I just played with 2 for now: the number of level and max speed.
9 levels is too much for me, and requires a lot of 'click' to move from 1 to 9 (moreover with my big winter gloves, not all clicks are effective). Settings allow to change this to 3 or 6 levels. I am currently using 6.
There is also the option to increase max speed, default is 32. I set it to 50 for fun, and this seems to affect only the throttle. Throttle set to max I was able to reach around 42 km/h on flat road. I did not test much more because law limits to 32 km/h in Canada and I read on this forum that using max wattage decrease battery lifespan also.
There was some snow left on some paths, and I went through easily. Be careful on ice though as tires are not made for that. I found it convenient to use throttle at low speed without pedaling to pass trough deep puddles, keeping feet reasonably high.
There is also a 9 speed derailleur, which can be handy to use the bike without the motor at low speed or to help maintaining full speed when motor is used.
What I am doing now is set the derailleur to 7, electric assistance to 5 on 6 (28 km/h) and use the throttle gently to start moving when I am at a stop. I start pedaling at the same time which makes the assistance taking over the throttle quickly (I would say between half and one pedal turn. Acceleration is smooth that way. There is a little delay to make the motor automatically stop when you stop pedaling - around half a second - Just be aware of that. If you use the brakes, motor will stop immediately though.

Let's talk about some minor issues now:
On level 6 (32 km/h), there is a noise that I don't have at level 5. Not sure yet if it is due to the speed or the motor power, probably more the latter. Not very loud and annoying but let's say intriguing.
It seems like my front brake rub sometimes the brake block. I reinstalled the front wheel, it remove the problem for 2 days then it came back. It is now on and off. Googling this, it seems to be common for disk breaks and I don't feel it slow down the bike. More important is that breaks are operating very well.

Overall I am very happy and I hope I will be able to use this bike for years, I will try to make all required maintenance accordingly.
That's it, if you have specific questions on that bike, I could try to provide answers.

Thanks for reading.
 
@Mookov

Welcome to the forum and congratulations on your new ride.
Glad to hear that you are enjoying your ride.

When I got my Teo couple years back I had a noise that would come and go and drove me nuts for couple of weeks, after making sure that everything was tight and repositioned in a way that there was no way that it could make any noise, there it was after few kilometres of riding the strange noise came back.
As a last resort decided to make sure all the spokes were tensioned equally, after an hour of the the most pain staking adjustments (yes it took me that long since I'm not a bike technician) was time to find out if it helped any.
To my surprise all the strange noises were gone just like that. Some of the spokes were really loose, I didn't expect that from a brand new bike,my guess it was assembled on a last shift before a long weekend.

It may be a good idea to have a look at the spoke tension as well as all the other nuts and bolts to make sure that they are snug.

Enjoy your stay here and post lots of pictures from your rides.
 

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Thank you,

The issue I had with the front brakes was getting worse and adjusting them was making the resolution temporary only.
Spoke tension was one of the suspect but I don't have the correct tools to adjust them - manually I did not found them loose though.
I finally found the root cause of the issue two days ago (I hope it is the root cause at least): The tire was not equally adjusted to the rim, probably making the wheel to not turn perfectly round and the brake disc to not stay in a neat vertical plan.
To make it more clear, here is a picture: distance between arrows was not the same everywhere (sometimes null).
So I deflated the tube, add soapy water between rim and tire bead where it was not equal, move it a bit manually and inflate to 30 PSI, it was much better after that.

Now that snow has gone, I kept my tires to 20 PSI, both changes combined and I feel same sensation as when it was brand new, fast acceleration/top speed and efficient braking.

I may buy the tool to adjust spokes though as I can see a little horizontal shift when I look the tire rolling compared to the fix fender. But this seems to have no impact.

I also hesitate to buy new tires for summer. I would like the Schwalbe Jumbo Jim Snake skin, as they seem to have the less resistance, but I am not sure if it is a real game changer and if I want to change tire twice a year.

I like the way you expanded your fenders, I will check if you posted on that. I bought a waterproof cover for my bag on rear rack because yes, rear fender is not sufficient.

Next step will be to check everything around the rear wheel because I still have a noise when I ride above 30 km/h - and all nuts again as you suggest.

Thank you
 
Hope you have more luck with summer tires than i did, instead of lots of words here is few pictures.
Last picture shows what happened to mine after 5 miles.
 

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