Sondors Ebike Review Now Live

Looks like Sondors is closing out his delivery of the First wave to the United States.. Canada next, then the rest of the world.... Keep it up Storm!

He could teach a few eBike manufacters and retailers a thing or too about delivering when you're supposed to.

The ‘Sondors Electric Bike’ team just posted:

1 new Announcement:

Hi Sondors Backers! A few very important updates below as we move to close out this campaign on Friday.

First and foremost, THANK YOU. You are the reason this campaign reached such amazing success!

** For those of you receiving your bikes, pleaseREAD THIS BLOGandWATCH THIS VIDEOon how to assemble your Sondors electric bike and join thisOwners group created by backers for backers.

** For those of you in the next wavewith estimated shipping of October, we’ll be emailing you soon to for color selections and to confirm your shipping address. You’ll still be able to purchase bike shipping, battery shipping and pay your balance through the Indiegogo campaign page, but bike purchases will be turned off.

** Social Media:We’ve thoroughly enjoyed your pics! Send us more … with you in them! Use hashtag #GoSondors on your favorite social media account when you post them.

First Wave Shipping:

** USA Shipping: Just about complete!

** Canada Shipping: Container estimated to arrive at port August 8th and bikes to start shipping shortly after being processed at the port. All colors are on this container.

** Europe, Asia and more: Shipping updates coming soon.
 
EULITTLB said:
Estimated Delivery was May 2015



and JoePah thinks it is clever to state

He could teach a few eBike manufacters and retailers a thing or too about delivering when you're supposed to.

Clearly he just wants a reaction making such wildly inaccurate statements, he'll get no joy from me.
Click to expand...

I noticed on the IGG page, with the campaign closing, that Storm is the only team member. The A2.0 people are gone. Again.

Will Storm go back to China and make another 'wave'?

The statements from GoSo have gotten pretty contradictory, mostly about Europe and Asia.

Not much money coming in. I'd like to know what happens when the money runs out. With luck they take all the pledges that are lying around, send in an order, and then?

Clearly the people who got bikes are feeling the warm glow. Everybody else? I wouldn't touch an IGG campaign under any circumstances. This is the kind of putrid garbage IGG lets people fund:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/crystal-waves-brainwaves-technologies#/story

force.JPG
 
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Sondors closed the campaign, finally.. $6.1 Million. Selling a cheap eBike, one model, one size, nothing new technology..

KISS to the extreme. Thousands are out there having fun. Give the people what they want. Seems like an old American principle.
 
@JoePah --- Somebody would have to write the full story. Like how the partners fell apart so violently. How Mr. Sondors got control of the money and just built the bikes. Was he a hero? A bit of a Don Quixote? The bikes are OK, but the strife to get here is not proportional to the money people saved. He showed how China works, but now we all know, more or less, about Aliexpress or Alibikes. Credit the people at LunaCycles who are trying to match Aliexpress but building here. Credit people like LectricCycles for adding value to the low end of Chinese products. Credit everyone for making costs matter with ebikes. There are no US jobs in the Sondobike, and he seems to have a bunch of unpaid interns doing a lot of work on Facebook, etc. Some people may try to build stuff here.

My assessment is that none of these campaigns have really gone all that smoothly. I think that most of the campaigns misjudged their costs and the difficulty of making bikes, getting them to the owners. If the Sondobike was built with money that is disputed by A2.0, how does that work? How will the lawsuit affect the future of the bike, which isn't really unique enough to be a brand, anyway.

Sondors knows the China game. He could come up with something else, but he may be hampered by his legal problems. He may find it difficult to obtain new partners. IGG and A2.0 are basically joined at the hip, so I wonder if SS has access to IGG for another campaign. Did he shut it down? Did IGG pull the plug?

Why pump this story up any more than it has been? People around the S-bike built a bike that completely changed the way people thought about the low end. But it had to happen. Just look what batteries and motors cost. They cost what they cost. But KISS is the story. Give me a simple bike at a good price, and then get a lot of people involved. I've got a thousand miles on the bike I built, a bike that should cost $1200 or so. It does everything but go fast.

So again, I will credit SS and Co for building a bike that was what ebikes have been, and that is relatively slow. It's an ebike that fits in with regular bikes, and maybe those two groups can move forward, together. He did a lot of things right. A lot of what happened cannot be repeated, and would not be good business practice.
 
Sonders didn't build ebikes with A2.0 money. The bikes were built from the monies collected from the funders. At the end of the campaign or whatever the agreements in place say in terms of gross sales / net sales / somethingElse, Sonders has debts to pay. Those debts have to be paid out of the revenues or profit (whatever the agreements specify) based on the terms of the contract. If Sonders doesn't pay all his debts, that's between him, Agency 2.0, and the courts.

It doesn't change the bike itself and it's not something that each funder has to worry about, assuming bikes get produced and sent out. Funders themselves are not party to any pending lawsuit.

Those who want to look at and consider *the bike itself* at the *price point paid* are not concerned with the drama between Sonders and Agency2.0. and perhaps don't care at all.

I don't know why it's so hard to separate out the campaign itself from the product, but whenever a discussion emerges about the bike itself, comments come in about the campaign and this happens on just about every thread that starts out about the bike.
 
The only US jobs Sondors created were at Agency 2.0. And he didn't pay them, or so they say. Did he defraud them of their labor? I don't know.

If I knew Prodeco hired people, had them assemble bikes like mine, and didn't pay them, I would be bothered by it. Just me.
 
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Agency 2.0 existed long before Sonders. They are a PR/Marketing/Branding type agency, not Sonders' employees. The courts will decide the lawsuit, not the funders and not anyone else on the Interwebs.

Now back to the bike....
 
You don't dispute that Agency provided services to Sondors. Were they paid? Why isn't it an issue? They made a cheap bike largely because of volume. Who generated the volume?

No, I'm not talking about the bike, but I'm talking about CF campaigns. The bike is part and parcel with the campaign. CF is still a real issue. This bike is done. My advice to people who want an ebike is to disregard CF campaigns. They are not worth it. They under-fund and then they find a way to produce something, and stuff like this happens.

Where the Sondo campaign ends up could affect access to parts and any other support. I see problems with a campaign that created the jobs in China, where some US contractors to the campaign claim not to have been paid, and where there is no sense of the future of the bike. Did he defraud people who performed services for him, in the US. If he did, maybe he should have engaged in the same payment tactics with his Chinese contractors, just to be fair?

Yes, this stuff is for the courts to decide.
 
Speaking of courts.. There was a hearing in Santa Monica, scheduled 7/28... and still no news on that???
 
Just got mine this week and assembled with no issues at all! It took me about 30 minutes and I just commuted to work this morning. 13 miles in hilly Tennessee to my IT job. It was really fun! I guess this is my middle age gift to myself.. I turn 40 in Oct.
 

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@Ann M.

I'm confused. The only title for this thread is that the review is now live. There are threads (I started one) to comment on the bike, actual experiences. There is the old and long wasted "due diligence" thread.

For most bikes, people would come here and read reviews and then they could buy the bike. For this bike, right now, there is no way to even buy the bike. You can go to a website and sign up to be informed when the bike is available, if ever.

There are too many threads about this bike, and there are several facets to the bike. I don't see the problem making general comments about the bike under the topic "A Review is Now Live". Didn't Court cover some of the problems with the campaign in his review?

Why don't you guys just move the stuff around or delete it or whatever? There were restrictions in the first post on the 'Due Diligence' thread, but they were ignored. There are no obvious restrictions, from the original post (Court) in this thread. And there are two threads for owners to post about their personal experiences.
 
Agreed there are way too many threads on this bike, could probably delete almost all of them without doing any harm..
 
Math is hard for a lot of people including the author.. If you live in an area that is hilly, just change the freewheel out to a larger one.. That's the downside of a single speed bike, flexibility.
Cost of another freewheel? Less than $20.

I have a single speed road bike, and during the winter I run with an 18t freewheel. In the summer, less wind, run with 16t.

Difficulty? Can you remove a wheel and unscrew a freewheel with an adaptor?

Single speed bikes are not for everyone... Just almost everyone.
 
Well, ignoring the marketing blurb for a moment, it's 20% of the cost of the entire bike.

But, you don't have much choice if you want to adjust the PAS which is a must in my opinion, if you want to peddle the bike at a reasonable pace without the throttle.
 
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