My review of the ARC Street Kit - purchased May 2017, and fitted onto a 2013 Scott X30 hybrid
Upon opening the box, there is a heap on components and bags inside. However no instruction manual. This is pretty poor for a kit that’s almost $1000. At the very least provide a simple piece of paper to tell you where to find the instruction manual – save people hunting around the internet and finding the wrong one.
Next step is to sort through the multitude of bags and components – none of which are labelled and most of which bear no resemblance to the pictures in the instruction manual. I have pieces that look kind of similar, extra pieces that aren’t even in the manual, and missing pieces.
The torque arm that is supposed to be supplied with the kit is missing
. Apparently it’s not super important for my kind of bike, so I’ve left it off for the time being.
The instruction manual is pretty terrible. It can’t make its mind up whether it’s giving partial unclear instructions, telling me how wonderful it is or just talking about stuff that I just don’t care about. Sure, some background information is nice, but place it away from the instructions in a different section. They need to be clear, detailed and focussed on what they are trying to convey. This instruction manual is the opposite.
Some other issues with the installation:
1. The battery cradle pictures indicate a slot to place the bottle holder nut. The metal casing had no such slot, so I had to drill it out manually.
2. The plastic component of the battery holder is made of ridiculously soft plastic. After a single ride, the bolts had come loose, so I tightened them – making a quite noticeable dent in the plastic. I’ve already had to drill an extra hole in the frame so that the battery is securely mounted at 3 points. The metal component of the battery holder needs to be made a lot bigger than it currently is to remove the need to mount a heavy battery on some flimsy plastic.
3. Because of the heavy battery, it would be nice if provision was made to cable tie the battery to the frame (e.g. an insert or channel in the design to slip some cable ties through)
4. The e-brakes & sensors don’t work with hydraulic brakes – would be nice to know this upfront before purchasing the kit!
5. The controller has a mounting attachment, which is great, however they supply crazy short bolts so it has no chance of fitting around a decent frame. For those of us with hybrids, why not just supply an extra set of longer bolts? In my case, I’ve had to use cable ties that are quite thin so they fit through the bolt holes.
6. The controller installation section looks like it hasn’t been updated for a while, as the photos look quite different (cables coming out of both ends of the housing). With the poor written instructions, all you have to go on are the pictures, and they’re ambiguous too
7. The RPAS sensor that was in the RPAS bag actually was supposed to go on the drive side of the crank, meaning when I installed it on the left side as per the picture, RPAS worked when pedalling backwards only. There was another random bag with a similar looking sensor that worked. Why cause us grief when you could just label the components properly?
All in all, the initial experience for this kit is quite poor. The installation headaches took some of the joy away from building my first kit. A little bit more attention to detail from the ARC folks would help a lot here.
As far as actually riding it, I’ve only been on a couple of short rides so far, its certainly got some speed (~35km/h), but can’t really comment on the range quite yet. Hopefully the poor experience ends with the installation and the actual riding and range will be great!
It would be interesting to hear other peoples experiences with this kit!
Upon opening the box, there is a heap on components and bags inside. However no instruction manual. This is pretty poor for a kit that’s almost $1000. At the very least provide a simple piece of paper to tell you where to find the instruction manual – save people hunting around the internet and finding the wrong one.
Next step is to sort through the multitude of bags and components – none of which are labelled and most of which bear no resemblance to the pictures in the instruction manual. I have pieces that look kind of similar, extra pieces that aren’t even in the manual, and missing pieces.
The torque arm that is supposed to be supplied with the kit is missing
. Apparently it’s not super important for my kind of bike, so I’ve left it off for the time being.The instruction manual is pretty terrible. It can’t make its mind up whether it’s giving partial unclear instructions, telling me how wonderful it is or just talking about stuff that I just don’t care about. Sure, some background information is nice, but place it away from the instructions in a different section. They need to be clear, detailed and focussed on what they are trying to convey. This instruction manual is the opposite.
Some other issues with the installation:
1. The battery cradle pictures indicate a slot to place the bottle holder nut. The metal casing had no such slot, so I had to drill it out manually.
2. The plastic component of the battery holder is made of ridiculously soft plastic. After a single ride, the bolts had come loose, so I tightened them – making a quite noticeable dent in the plastic. I’ve already had to drill an extra hole in the frame so that the battery is securely mounted at 3 points. The metal component of the battery holder needs to be made a lot bigger than it currently is to remove the need to mount a heavy battery on some flimsy plastic.
3. Because of the heavy battery, it would be nice if provision was made to cable tie the battery to the frame (e.g. an insert or channel in the design to slip some cable ties through)
4. The e-brakes & sensors don’t work with hydraulic brakes – would be nice to know this upfront before purchasing the kit!
5. The controller has a mounting attachment, which is great, however they supply crazy short bolts so it has no chance of fitting around a decent frame. For those of us with hybrids, why not just supply an extra set of longer bolts? In my case, I’ve had to use cable ties that are quite thin so they fit through the bolt holes.
6. The controller installation section looks like it hasn’t been updated for a while, as the photos look quite different (cables coming out of both ends of the housing). With the poor written instructions, all you have to go on are the pictures, and they’re ambiguous too
7. The RPAS sensor that was in the RPAS bag actually was supposed to go on the drive side of the crank, meaning when I installed it on the left side as per the picture, RPAS worked when pedalling backwards only. There was another random bag with a similar looking sensor that worked. Why cause us grief when you could just label the components properly?
All in all, the initial experience for this kit is quite poor. The installation headaches took some of the joy away from building my first kit. A little bit more attention to detail from the ARC folks would help a lot here.
As far as actually riding it, I’ve only been on a couple of short rides so far, its certainly got some speed (~35km/h), but can’t really comment on the range quite yet. Hopefully the poor experience ends with the installation and the actual riding and range will be great!
It would be interesting to hear other peoples experiences with this kit!
