Since this thread seems to be most recently about the Frey CC, this seems to be the best place to post this
A possible reliable direct-from-China vendor besides Frey
Under Covid19 lockdown in my senior community, awaiting the arrival of the Frey CC I ordered last December under the USA group shipping incentive, I’ve had a lot of time lately to contemplate and rationalize this expensive purchase decision. I’ve concluded it wasn’t a logical process at all, but more of a spur of the moment emotional spirit of the Holidays thing based almost entirely on the way it looked, thinking it would fill all the missing pieces the acoustic Fat bike (a KHS 500 which cost about 20% of the Frey) I bought a few years ago for low joint impact aerobic exercise, lacked. While this almost never works out well with women (i.e., judging quality and compatibility solely by looks and gut feel), bicycles and motorcycles are mostly completely different I’m sure.
In the meantime, in perusing the net I see an alternative to Frey as a potentially reliable direct-from-China bike source may have sprung up, namely Leili; See:
https://www.alibaba.com/product-det...etails.deiletai6.8.24d09GCx9GCx2W&bypass=true
who seems to have established a US representative agent called Bikonit. See
https://bikonit.com/pages/about-us
for a bunch of slightly overwrought marketing words explaining who they are. Interestingly though, their flagship US launch product, model md 1000:
https://bikonit.com/products/copy-of-bikonit-md-1000
bears a strikingly eerie resemblance to the WW EBR subgroup committee camel spec'd model with its dual battery Ultra Bafang kevlar belt/IGH drive train. It appears the Bikonit business model is to import and market bikes finished at the factory, while Biktrix and I assume WW, inventories imported parts for local assembly allowing more rapid customization turnaround. I understand Zero motorcycles uses the latter approach as well, but mainly for quality control and maybe multiple supply chain sourcing reasons.
Just as Frey is the house factory for QuietKat/jeep, Leili seems to have similar branded silent partners (who, I can only guess) and now this potential US marketing/service support presence. Frey may also have a defacto US presence in Bolton since the full suspension mountain bikes he recently had in stock were clearly down spec’d AM1000’s.
There is also a very peculiar video on the Bikonit site showing nary a single bike, but a mountain man survivalist guy and his dog, in a cabin in some unknown woods mostly cooking up high caloric but highly healthy meals and working on his cabin with wistfully misty high overhead drone shots. Might be an early warning bad sign.
Hopefully my CC will arrive shortly without any major glitches. Since this will be my first electric bicycle, I'm not sure what my emotional response is likely be to its torque sensor tuning --- I'm guessing probably not hate since with its skinnier tires compared to the Fat bike I'm used to, she's going to handle like a ballerina.
Keep Healthy