Mtl_Biker
Active Member
After waiting for its arrival (like a kid the night before Christmas) my new bike finally arrived. But something had happened during shipping and Canpar totally smashed up the package. So bad that they didn't deliver it to me yesterday as scheduled but brought it back to their warehouse to assess the damage. Only after I raised heck with their customer service did they finally deliver it to me and said that I should open and examine it and if I don't want to keep it, to call them and they will return it to the sender. So there was quite a bit of stress today.
The bike seems alright... the only damage is a badly scratched label on the fork plus deep scratches on the fork itself by the label. I'm not happy at all about that, but I guess I can live with it. Also the headlight has a bad wiring connection right at the headlight (not at the connection that goes into the frame) and that might be because it was just dangling at the end of the wire during shipment. And it must have been a very rough shipment judging on the condition of the packaging. Just touching the wire there causes the light to come on and off. I've pushed the wire up against the headlight as tightly as I could and then used electrical tape to hold it in place. Not a nice or permanent solution though.
Here's my new bike, just before I headed home on my 35km trip.
Besides the user manuals, there were absolutely no assembly instructions. I guess they expect everyone to buy from a local dealer who would do all the setup. Luckily I've had lots of bikes and I'm fairly mechanically adept and I really had no trouble, except for one thing... Believe it or not, I couldn't attach the support arms for the front fender. I finally got them on, but one came off during my ride home and I had to finish my commute with it banging against the fender. At least it wasn't in danger of getting caught in the spokes. Lesson learned... carry some zip ties and my Leatherman multi-tool in the bike toolkit.
This is the arm that came off. I've put it back and tightened it with a zip tie and I think it's going to hold.
The MIK rack came with a dinky little shockcord... what the heck do you do with that? It doesn't come off, and it's so short that it would be hard to get a rain jacket under it. What's the point of that?
I left the manuals at work because I was already carrying a lot of weight (my regular gear, computer, etc. plus the charger) but I've got to figure out that front suspension. It was really weird. I don't know if it's lacking enough air pressure or what, but just getting on or off the bike caused the front end to sort of bounce. I don't have that with my acoustic full suspension mountain bike. I finally turned the control to "lock" and that was much much better. But I'm sure something is needed to be done with the suspension adjustment.
But my biggest issue is that the bike doesn't fit me well. (Note to everyone... don't buy a bike, any bike, until you've actually seen it and sat on it and hopefully test ridden it!) I'd ridden an Explore E+ 3 with medium frame and while riding it felt fine, but the standover height was just too high. So I ended up finding this bike, the very last E+1 with small frame in all of Canada. And had it shipped to me clear across the country. I'd never sat on or ridden this model with small frame. The standover height on it is much better (I've got short legs with a 30" inseam) but even with the seat as far back as possible, I'm very cramped in the "cockpit". At the very least I'm going to have to change the stem to get the handlebars further away, and maybe the seat post also to get the seat further back. That's very unfortunate.
But the motor and all that were terrific! Much much easier to climb hills and headwinds... what headwinds? Once I get the ergonomics right, this is going to be an incredible bike! I was in ECO+ and NORMAL power modes for the 35 km and I used only about 25% of the battery.
One frustration I had was that I kept running into the 32kph assist limit and then it felt like hitting a brick wall. On my acoustic clunker commuting bike I regularly average 24-26 kph so I guess I'm pretty strong. On a couple of straight runs (without headwind) I hit that limit and also on some downhills. I didn't like that at all, and I'm going to have to investigate ways to get past that 32kph limit.
Oh, and this thing is heavy! I tried to lift it chest high to put on my bicycle rack and it was very difficult.
I'll post more in this thread after my ride in to work tomorrow and as I find out more about this bike.[/I]
The bike seems alright... the only damage is a badly scratched label on the fork plus deep scratches on the fork itself by the label. I'm not happy at all about that, but I guess I can live with it. Also the headlight has a bad wiring connection right at the headlight (not at the connection that goes into the frame) and that might be because it was just dangling at the end of the wire during shipment. And it must have been a very rough shipment judging on the condition of the packaging. Just touching the wire there causes the light to come on and off. I've pushed the wire up against the headlight as tightly as I could and then used electrical tape to hold it in place. Not a nice or permanent solution though.
Here's my new bike, just before I headed home on my 35km trip.
Besides the user manuals, there were absolutely no assembly instructions. I guess they expect everyone to buy from a local dealer who would do all the setup. Luckily I've had lots of bikes and I'm fairly mechanically adept and I really had no trouble, except for one thing... Believe it or not, I couldn't attach the support arms for the front fender. I finally got them on, but one came off during my ride home and I had to finish my commute with it banging against the fender. At least it wasn't in danger of getting caught in the spokes. Lesson learned... carry some zip ties and my Leatherman multi-tool in the bike toolkit.
This is the arm that came off. I've put it back and tightened it with a zip tie and I think it's going to hold.
The MIK rack came with a dinky little shockcord... what the heck do you do with that? It doesn't come off, and it's so short that it would be hard to get a rain jacket under it. What's the point of that?
I left the manuals at work because I was already carrying a lot of weight (my regular gear, computer, etc. plus the charger) but I've got to figure out that front suspension. It was really weird. I don't know if it's lacking enough air pressure or what, but just getting on or off the bike caused the front end to sort of bounce. I don't have that with my acoustic full suspension mountain bike. I finally turned the control to "lock" and that was much much better. But I'm sure something is needed to be done with the suspension adjustment.
But my biggest issue is that the bike doesn't fit me well. (Note to everyone... don't buy a bike, any bike, until you've actually seen it and sat on it and hopefully test ridden it!) I'd ridden an Explore E+ 3 with medium frame and while riding it felt fine, but the standover height was just too high. So I ended up finding this bike, the very last E+1 with small frame in all of Canada. And had it shipped to me clear across the country. I'd never sat on or ridden this model with small frame. The standover height on it is much better (I've got short legs with a 30" inseam) but even with the seat as far back as possible, I'm very cramped in the "cockpit". At the very least I'm going to have to change the stem to get the handlebars further away, and maybe the seat post also to get the seat further back. That's very unfortunate.
But the motor and all that were terrific! Much much easier to climb hills and headwinds... what headwinds? Once I get the ergonomics right, this is going to be an incredible bike! I was in ECO+ and NORMAL power modes for the 35 km and I used only about 25% of the battery.
One frustration I had was that I kept running into the 32kph assist limit and then it felt like hitting a brick wall. On my acoustic clunker commuting bike I regularly average 24-26 kph so I guess I'm pretty strong. On a couple of straight runs (without headwind) I hit that limit and also on some downhills. I didn't like that at all, and I'm going to have to investigate ways to get past that 32kph limit.
Oh, and this thing is heavy! I tried to lift it chest high to put on my bicycle rack and it was very difficult.
I'll post more in this thread after my ride in to work tomorrow and as I find out more about this bike.[/I]
