It is not "his" bikes. It is
your bike with an overpowered and heavy Chinese motor and controller as well as an uncertified battery slapped on it. The guy does not understand the specifics of, say, road bikes, that need to be lightweight, safe, and the motor does not need to be powerful but it should be lightweight and the e-bike shall be safe, have a local service and a good warranty.
Do you
@Deacon Blues own any of "his" e-bikes or just got lured by his pictures and hijacking any thread he can to earn his green dollar? Or, did you like his stories of him overtaking road cyclists on one of his contraptions and mocking the hard working roadies with a clown horn? What does that tell you about the man?
I do own one of Pedaluma's bike's, Stefan. I was consulted on every aspect of the build, and let's be clear: you absolutely have no idea what you are talking about.
My bike is a 42-pound aluminum hard tail, the motor is neither heavy nor overpowered nor unsafe. It cannot exceed 26 MPH on flat terrain. There was no markup on most of the parts that I requested, and his fee for the build was quite reasonable. In terms of what his stories "tell you about the man," let me enlighten you with the benefit of my personal experience working with him: He's a great guy, a credit to his community, the kind of person who is instinctively kind to neighbors, children, and animals. We need more people like him in our communities-- and, I might add, more people like you, who have completely different experience bases and "specialized" knowledge. (Pun intended!)
I will remind you that I have spoken sharply to Pedaluma on this forum on several occasions when I feel he has been disrespectful or unfair to you. So I will ask you in turn to confine your criticism to topics which you actually understand (and I have benefited on many occasions from your wisdom and experience, sir) and to speak of other forum members more respectfully.
We are all on the same team, here. Fighting among ourselves serves nothing.
Welp, for anyone interested in this bike, I have this to report. I finally emailed my local Specialized dealer who said that the tan is already "oversold" (not sure if to individuals or bike shops, since it never showed any availability online). The black will be available in September. I don't like that color, am not sure about the Apex mechanical shifters, nor even if the bike will fit me, so I am pretty much ruling this one out. Looks like I may be heading into the custom Zinn after all, even though it will be a lot more spendy. There just aren't many options at my size, and I have looked at them all, I think, and come up empty-handed.
Sigh....
I know this is an incredibly frustrating process, and I speak as someone who owns both a fully-integrated bike with a name-brand motor and parts and a custom-built bike, and someone who has a somewhat unusual body type (over six feet tall and 150 pounds.) I had to make compromises for each bike because the reality is that there simply was not, and still is not, a single eMTB in my price range-- even the price of both bikes
combined-- that meets my needs.
What is particularly aggravating is having to
guess whether a bike will fit me, how it will handle, etc., because I had the same situation: I couldn't ride either of my bikes before I bought them. If I limited myself to only bikes I could actually try before buying, I never would have wound up with two bikes I really like.
And I know what it's like to guess wrong, too. I do have a few guitars I don't play, that absolutely did not work for me. I had to chalk that up to experience-- one I gave to a friend's daughter, who was delighted with it. She's now an accomplished musician and vocalist, and sang with us at a show in New York, so in the end, I don't consider that wasted money. (Another guitar is absolutely useless, even as a baseball bat, though I did play it for one show many years ago.)
Stick with it, keep assessing your options-- calling bike shops, checking specs, doing weird numerical conversions and guesstimates. You'll find the right bike, or a couple of them!
