Need opinion and advice (Newgen Bike)

[Oldboy]

Shout out to Oldboy. How are those compass tyres holding up mate? Sadly my front tyre blew out today and not due to a puncture. It was the original slick type that came with the bike and it looks to me like the bead around the rim just gave out and it’s shredded the side wall. I’m guessing those tyres aren’t the best quality but I was still quite surprised that this happened in under one year. Funnily enough I got an email this very morning from urban drive style to tell me they are having a big discount sale at the moment and that includes their range of tyres. I’m quite taken with their white walls and the tan coloured wall ones but hesitant because now we aren’t part of Europe I don’t want to be paying out loads of money in extra taxes and import duties. I had a quick look on eBay and those compass tyres look pretty good value just wanted to know your thoughts.

Hey Dusty, haven’t actually got much mileage in on them tbh, been laid up with back problems... however, they do give more grip on loose surfaces as you’d expect but also take a couple of mph off on tarmac.

I literally just put the originals back on last week as I’m not expecting to off road for a while.

If you still have access to a biker garage to change them, and you expect to off road a little more than not, I’d say go for it, just give serious consideration to how much effort changing them is going to be. Manually, I’ve found that 4 steel reinforced tyres levers do the job with some huffing and puffing but by god they’re hard work!

My next buy will be white walls. The speedsters look super nice!

Glad to see you guys are still active on here after all this time, still the best Newgen chat out there that i can find!

Edit; I’ll check out the urban drive style website and take a look at the ww

 

[dustyaxe]

Hey Dusty, haven’t actually got much mileage in on them tbh, been laid up with back problems... however, they do give more grip on loose surfaces as you’d expect but also take a couple of mph off on tarmac.

I literally just put the originals back on last week as I’m not expecting to off road for a while.

If you still have access to a biker garage to change them, and you expect to off road a little more than not, I’d say go for it, just give serious consideration to how much effort changing them is going to be. Manually, I’ve found that 4 steel reinforced tyres levers do the job with some huffing and puffing but by god they’re hard work!

My next buy will be white walls. The speedsters look super nice!

Glad to see you guys are still active on here after all this time, still the best Newgen chat out there that i can find!

Edit; I’ll check out the urban drive style website and take a look at the ww

Thanks for that mate. Maybe I’ll go for the road tyres after all as I don’t do much off road. Just have to pay a bit more initially, but it’s worth it.

 

[RDtheRd]

Hey riders,

Funny story, I only joined this forum because of this thread! I was scouring the internet for a new ebike and I went through the usual list of suspects: Super73, Knaap, RadRhino, VanMoof, etc. I saw someone on the ebike subreddit mention Newgen and here we are.

Ordering from them was super simple, I even managed to get an engraved wooden panel because I asked nicely. However, I'm a little worried that no one has received theirs yet this year. It's great to see older models still floating around, but I really hope that COVID-19 hasn't totally screwed up the production line of this bike.

I also wanted to say a huge thank you to the people here for their honesty and expertise around ebikes. Without this website, I wouldn't have bought the bike!

 

[Oldboy]

Hey riders,

Funny story, I only joined this forum because of this thread! I was scouring the internet for a new ebike and I went through the usual list of suspects: Super73, Knaap, RadRhino, VanMoof, etc. I saw someone on the ebike subreddit mention Newgen and here we are.

Ordering from them was super simple, I even managed to get an engraved wooden panel because I asked nicely. However, I'm a little worried that no one has received theirs yet this year. It's great to see older models still floating around, but I really hope that COVID-19 hasn't totally screwed up the production line of this bike.

I also wanted to say a huge thank you to the people here for their honesty and expertise around ebikes. Without this website, I wouldn't have bought the bike!

Congrats RD, my purchase experience was similar and the threads indicated to me that orders are placed by Newgen in batches with my purchase seemingly being at the beginning of a new batch. I waited 2-3 months (I think) for mine to arrive but wasn’t disappointed when it did. It was well packaged and not in the slightest bit damaged. When yours arrives, make sure that you go around all the Allen bolts and check for them being nice and tight. I lost one from my front forks on my first speedy downhill ride (clocking at 30 mph) but it was easily replaced from B&Q!

 

[Oldboy]

 

[dustyaxe]

Good luck to you RdtheRd, “patience is a virtue“ they say but it’s also a bit of a bitch I know. COVID may have affected things I don’t know but rest assured you are going to be delighted. While I’m on I might as well tell y’all about what I did after my front tire blew out last week. I have no idea how it happened as the pressure was a bit under at the time but it was a side wall blow out anyway. During my five mile slog back home I got to thinking about what I could do to protect against punctures in the future. My initial idea was to get some 3.5-4mm thick leather strips about 2 inches wide and duct tape it to the internal crown of my new tires. I found a guy on eBay who could supply me with some but before he could get back to me the tires arrived and being impatient to get them fitted I had another idea.
Rather than trash my ruined tire I cut away the side walls then cut across the tread, then cut on my bandsaw the entire thing down the centre line. The two halves end up being slightly curved so l then cut each strip into 3” pieces then I gaffa taped them to the internal crown of both new tires. Fitted the tires with a lot of effort! All the while remembering Oldboys fun and games doing the same thing oh incidentally I did load up the inner tubes with that slime stuff just to be sure. Well it all worked out beautifully. So now I have two tires effectively front and back on the road and the slime so I’m feeling a lot more confident on those long rides. I did in the end buy some of those “Compass” tires OldBoy got as i didn’t want to get slammed with a huge import duty charge from Germany for those lovely “Skin walls” from UDS. The knobbly’s certainly work well on dirt, mud and stony surfaces but you do have to put in a bit more effort, mostly due I guess to the lower pressure needed. Oh well sorry to go off at a tangent but if you guys have had as many punctures as i have you might want to either try the leather strip idea or if you have a knackered tire lying around try that, it certainly works and may give some peace of mind at least until tannus make their 20x4” armour liners available. Once again hang in there Rd you are gonna be so glad you waited

 

[RDtheRd]

Hey gang,

I just had an email from Newgen about my order. Apparently the front forks they ordered to make the new batch aren't up to standard so my delivery has been moved from June to July.

I'm quite impressed by this, given what I've been researching about ebikes. Naming no names, but I've heard of other companies just flinging bikes out of the factories and then ignoring annoyed customers.

It's a good sign (at least to me) that Newgen really want to make their bikes to a good standard. Although, I am a little bummed I won't be able to enjoy all the summer on my lovely new bike

 

[dustyaxe]

Oh that’s a shame RD, but as you say the delay is for good reason and only the best is good enough is a great testament to Newgen quality control. That extra month will fly by mate

 

[HummoHD]

Hey all,

Like 90% of everyone else here this is the only discussion about the NewGen I can find I took both the 250w and 750w for a test ride last week.. what a bike, looked so much bigger than I expected and you can really feel the quality. I wanted the 750w but I need to purchase on the cycle to work scheme and they only allow you to get the 250w so my order is in, think I'm set for a July delivery and it's getting shipped with the new wider display, cannot wait!

 

[dustyaxe]

Good for you HummoHd glad to hear you had a rest ride. Tell us what the 750 was like compared to the 250 please. I haven’t had that experience. I’m perfectly happy with 250 to be honest so I’m guessing the 750 is just faster. I do occasionally watch videos about the Super 73 and the Ruffian Lil buddy just out of curiosity but I have to say I’m sooooo! glad I went with the Newgen. Those other bikes seem a bit puny to be honest and your comment on how big the 345 is made a lot of sense. Anyway do let us know when you get your 345 and I would like to see a pic of that new display. Welcome to the tribe

 

[HummoHD]

Good for you HummoHd glad to hear you had a rest ride. Tell us what the 750 was like compared to the 250 please. I haven’t had that experience. I’m perfectly happy with 250 to be honest so I’m guessing the 750 is just faster. I do occasionally watch videos about the Super 73 and the Ruffian Lil buddy just out of curiosity but I have to say I’m sooooo! glad I went with the Newgen. Those other bikes seem a bit puny to be honest and your comment on how big the 345 is made a lot of sense. Anyway do let us know when you get your 345 and I would like to see a pic of that new display. Welcome to the tribe

The main thing I noticed about the 750 was the acceleration, I think I managed to get up to around 22mph on the 250 and the 750 was achieving around 27mph so not a massive difference in top speed but getting to the 20mph region was extremely quick on the 750.

I spoke with one of the co-founders Maria for a while and she discussed how they're in talks with a lot of companies over customising the bike, things like built in gps trackers, children's car seats, fully customisable cargo shelf, choice of bumpy wheels and road wheels etc. so it seems like a great time to join the club. I've seen the Super73s and they have nothing on the build quality of the NewGen, you got it spot on with 'puny'

 

[dustyaxe]

Thanks for that HD, glad to hear things are happening. I’m always thinking up things that would be helpful for the 345 and right now I think the addition of passenger foot pegs like those on the UDS Unimoke would be a great help.

 

[dustyaxe]

Hi folks, just a little catch up on my on going battle with punctures Maybe I am using the bike more than most or I’m just inherently unlucky, I don’t know but I thought I would share my experiences at least. You may recall I had a tire blow out and I cut the ruined tire into pieces and lined my new tires with them in an attempt at creating a tire liner of sorts. Well last night I had yet another puncture, this time on the the rear tire. After I removed it from the rim and inspected the tube the reason for the puncture was obvious. I found the the pieces of the old tire had made a clear contact Imprint on the tube and right on the join between two pieces is where I got the puncture. I think what must have happened was that I had gone over a bump or something and two pieces of the (liner) had pinched together and popped the tube. Oh well now I have fixed it by fitting another tube. I am going to leave the front tire as it is at the moment as I figure that this pinching action is more likely to occur at the rear given that’s where most of the weight is. Anyway before all that whilst in Cambridge yesterday I asked a guy on the craft market to cut me some strips of thick leather to line my new tires. I thought about it before but never followed it up so I‘ll let you know if I have any better luck with leather. Anyway hope you are all enjoying this nice weather and managing to avoid all those bloody thorns.

 

[HummoHD]

Sorry to hear that Dusty, have you considered products like Slime sealant? You can pick it up from Halfords for about £10, supposedly self repairs any punctures. Could be worth checking out. How many miles does your bike see in an average week?

 

[dustyaxe]

Hi HD I don’t actually know how many miles I do a week. The control unit on my bike hit 999.9km last year and I haven’t bothered to reset it. I never look at it anyway, also I have found that it reads that the battery is at full charge all the time so I always check the charge level on the battery itself. Hopefully that new display might be better on those points. Anyway the good news though HD is that I do know I can get 66 miles out of a full charge. I checked that when I first got the bike. I don’t remember now what that was in kilometres but whatever it was it was definitely 66 miles . A fair bit of which was uphill too. That always impressed me and I love telling anyone interested I use the bike pretty much all the time on level one assist though so your mileage may vary. I have found that the knobbly tires I recently fitted not only require a bit more effort they do also cut back the mileage a bit as I have to recharge a little sooner than I did with the slicks. I think that is due to them being 20 psi rather than 35 with the slicks though.

As far as that ”Slime“ stuff goes, yes I have used it and haven’t found it any help actually. That puncture I got on Saturday proved it as when I finally got the tire off and inspected the tube I found that the slime had partially crept into the hole but was still very liquid and still allowed air to escape. Hmmm? Really not sure what to think about it tbh. At this moment I am going to wait until I pick up those strips of leather I mentioned then I’m going to use new tubes load them with more slime, fit those other UD Chicane tires plus leather liners and see how that goes. I kinda treat all of this puncture grief as a learning experience now and like to share my experiences here. The thing is I suppose is that 20x4” riders whilst being the coolest of the cool are a little bit left out when it comes to puncture prevention and anything I can do to help others avoid the issue has to be a good idea.

When you do get your bike HD just make damn sure you have some spare inner tubes (in fact buy some right now!) , a couple of 18mm ring spanners and either get friendly with a local motorcycle shop (they have the right tools) and get yourself some motorcycle tire irons, preferably four of them. I’m hoping it doesn’t happen but if you do get a puncture you will be grateful for these tips. Please, please, please don’t let my going on about all this make you overly concerned about your purchase. You definitely have chosen the best bike in it’s class it’s just that the tire/tire liner industry hasn’t caught up with us 20x4” guys and gals just yet

 

[Oldboy]

posted on the wrong chat a few moments ago, yesterday my pedal assist stopped working. I was a few miles out but had throttle to return on.
Discovered today that the forks have sliced the cable turning to the right. Check your cables fellas, keep them out of the way of the forking guillotine

edit: logged a call with NewGen and they’ve come come back to me within minutes of contacting them via their website ‘contact us’. I’ll let you know how I get on…

2nd edit; btw I noticed a few new names and purchases on the chat from the last few weeks & months. Hope that you’re as happy with your bike(s) as I am and welcome aboard

 

[dustyaxe]

posted on the wrong chat a few moments ago, yesterday my pedal assist stopped working. I was a few miles out but had throttle to return on.
Discovered today that the forks have sliced the cable turning to the right. Check your cables fellas, keep them out of the way of the forking guillotine

edit: logged a call with NewGen and they’ve come come back to me within minutes of contacting them via their website ‘contact us’. I’ll let you know how I get on…

2nd edit; btw I noticed a few new names and purchases on the chat from the last few weeks & months. Hope that you’re as happy with your bike(s) as I am and welcome aboard

Thanks for the tip OldBoy

 

[Oldboy]

Thanks for the tip OldBoy

Np, this one is a bit of a bugger as it terminates under the seat at the controller. A replacement cable looks about £10 on eBay (blue 4 pin Julet cable) but what I don’t know at the minute is if the other end is male or female, and I don’t want to invalidate the warranty by opening the thing up!

 

[Oldboy]

Np, this one is a bit of a bugger as it terminates under the seat at the controller. A replacement cable looks about £10 on eBay (blue 4 pin Julet cable) but what I don’t know at the minute is if the other end is male or female, and I don’t want to invalidate the warranty by opening the thing up!

I’ve invoked a temporary fix - cut, reconnected, covered & retested to get pedal assist back but I also noted a similar cable routing problem with the front brake which also shows signs of wear

 

[Oldboy]

So, NewGen got back in touch yesterday - I’d let them know I’d put a temporary fix in place - and it seems this is a very important cable indeed and cannot be replaced. They’ve said they will either send a replacement controller or have the bike collected for the controller to be replaced by them

They also apologised for the slow response (! - next day). Love these guys….