Negative - Customer service from eLation

Dealing with eLation with the problems discussed on this blog, I found him reluctant acknowledge any possible issue.

Early dealings with him were ok and I thank him for sending replacement parts in good faith. He would normally send parts back quite quickly. The main problem in my case was that he appeared to rarely check his PO Box and my 2 of my items were sitting there for up to 2 weeks waiting to be collected.

In seeking assistance from my local bike shop owner/mechanic, he was very reluctant to have anything to do with the kit. He told me he had some other customers/friends come to him with problems, especially with failures with the free wheel front chain ring hub, but he told them to deal direct with eLation. He said eLation was quite difficult to deal with in these situation. eLation made no mention of existing problems to me. He said i was the only one that has reported these kind of problems.

I read on another blog that "I have waited, and waited...[for his eBike kit] and (along with a blameless but increasingly defensive retailer).... waited". His full review is here.

My experience with eLation, particularly with the most recent problem, to be consistent with these other reported experiences. Being in different cities did not help matters.

His attitude and emails to me in recent discussions was terrible. I have not been treated so rudely and with such contempt by any other business person or service provider. In my life. Alan (Mr eLation) would only converse with me to keep things recorded. When I needed to actually discuss things with him by phone, he refused and hung up on me point blank, then refused to pick up the phone when I called back a minute later. Repeatedly when I asked him if we could keep the discussions polite, I would get flippant, smart arse replies and complete denial that anything might be wrong with his system.

I had no confidence he could fix the main problem (and cause of the conflict with him) or that he was an expert with bikes. He didn't pick up the problem (or maybe not admit to the problem) with the free wheel hub when sent it back or with the replacement. When I took the bike to another professional, it took him 30 seconds to see the problem. I even sent eLation video footage (also posted on this blog) but he refused to believe it. Of course he could be keeping his cards close to your chest and not admitting anything and appear not to be liable. His response to the advice I received was "I look forward to ... make our own assessment, not those of 'armchair' engineers."

He did not acknowledge the rust in the previous hub which was unacceptable for a new piece of equipment. There was an incorrect alignment of the motor on installation, which caused the chain to come of repeatedly. He did not set up the front derailleur in the first place. It was put too high and not adjusted. He could have picked up the hub problem in the first place and saved me (and himself) a lot of bother & time.

I ended up declining to send the whole bike back for him to look at under warranty. It was going to cost me $150-$200 to courier for the hub problem I found out could not be fixed. When I did this, he threatened to renege on any future warranty claims. I questioned this, saying "warranty cannot be void. what happens if something else breaks in the 12 month period? i expect that is not true." He replied in his next email " warranty cannot be void? Try me."

I would recommend being vary wary of dealing with him if something goes wrong. Customer service was not a good experience for me.

Negative - Heavy components

The battery, the motor and the front chain cluster/hub/cranks are quite heavy, especially compared to the bike weight.

The front chain ring hub & cranks are much heaver than a normal setup. This made the normally quite light bike overall a very heavy machine.

However, being centrally located, the weight does not effect the bike's balance too badly. My other bike with a child seat + 2.5 yo kid on the back handles much worse.

The heavy components

Negative - Battery support component is a weak point

The battery support (which attaches to the bottom of the battery) is an off the shelf component or a part from another kit.

The first problem is how it is attached to the frame mount. Because the support has been adapted, the original screw holes aren't used. eLation have placed 4 small metal screws directly into plastic.

This is a ridiculous idea as the weight of the battery and the force caused from bumps on the road will cause a lot of strain on this area.

Screwing metal into plastic means the thread will not last. In fact, when I received my bike, all of the metal screws had already fallen out during delivery and could not be screwed in again (no thread) as they kept falling out. eLation did not believe me, but at least he did send me a replacement immediately.

2 screws in the replacement could not be fully tightened as the plastic thread is so weak, and glue had to be used (as advised by eLation) to help it last. The screws have not fallen out since, but I am not confident on the longevity of this.

The second problem is the metal arms the battery support is attached to. They are thin and weak metal parts (not hardened steel) which bend very easily against the weight of the battery.

The battery came quite loose on one ride to work and not long after the battery failed (the problem ended up being a loose wire, but I'm sure the jolting of the battery when it got loose played a big part in this).

Negative - Front chain ring hub rust

When I took of the hub/cluster ring/crank to return to eLation for the wobble problem, I noticed metal shavings and rust in the hub. This was only 2 months old and hardly ridden.

I don't know if this was a storage problem by eLation with the part before it was attached to the bike or just poor quality. eLation never acknowledged this, but did send a replacement component.

Negative - Front chain ring wobble

The front chain ring hub is a free wheel component, similar to the hub of the rear wheel cluster. At first I thought I had a faulty hub, but after the replacement hub had the same problem and a bent axle was counted out, I just wanted to send the whole bike and kit back.

After consulting my local bike shop mechanic, he told me the wobble is apparently a common 'flaw' of cheaper free wheel hubs. He showed me a rear wheel hub on a cheap bike in his shop.

This means there is nothing I could do about this. eLation would not admit this issue, even on the video evidence I sent him (see below).

This component does not look good quality. Surprisingly, it is apparently made in Australia, not China.

The effect of the wobble
The wobble on each pedal revolution moves the chain a small but significant distance. The result of this was that when the chain was on the middle front chain ring and on the smallest rear chain ring, the wobble caused the chain to rub against the front derailleur shifter. One could not adjust the shifter any more to account for this, as then the chain would not change properly.

Apparently nothing can be done about this. It is a 'feature' of this kind of hub (the replacement hub provided by eLation had exactly the same problem - the axle was swapped and had no effect). This means the smallest rear cog could not be used unless you wanted to hear a scraping sound each pedal revolution - which would not be good for the life of the chain or derailleur shifter. The bike supplied with the system had a 9 cog cluster at the back (ie 27 speed bike). This wobble may not affect a bike with a smaller cog cluster.

Video of the wobble

Postive - The system is very efficient and powerful for the motor size

For the motor size (I purchased a 'legal' 200w motor) the system is very efficient and powerful. This is because  the motor is powering the front chain ring and therefore the power is not limited to the wheel speed (as is the case for wheel hub motors). This means you are using the gears like a car. You don't strain the motor up a steep hill because you can move to a low gear. And the motor can still assist you over 30kmh, say on the flat into the wind, by changing to a high gear.

This is the beauty of the design and why this should be a great system. Unfortunately the components used with the system and the pedal width required to get around the motor are major drawbacks of the compete kit. See the negative review comments for more detail.

The central location of the battery and motor is very good for the centre of gravity. It makes the bike's balance quite manageable despite the added weight, which is quite heavy compared to the bike weight. However, the battery connection components are poor and the motor location also has a major drawback. See the negative review comments for more detail.

Powering the front chain ring, with my assisted pedalling, I could get up to 40-50 kmh speeds on a flat road into the wind on a flat bar road bike. Normally I would be going 30 to 40kmh on my non powered bike.

Up a steep incline I could get up to 28-30kmh with pedalling, compared to about 18-20kmh pedalling without a motor.

Note that if you do not assist the motor with your own pedalling, you will hardly have enough power to get up that hill. But that is the point of pedal assisted power.

My commuting cycle time has actually improved on the harder leg (longer hills and consistent headwinds), trimming my normal time of approx 26 minutes to 21 minutes (12 km distance).

Negative - The pedal cranks are a lot wider than a normal bike

The pedal cranks are a lot wider to prevent the pedals from hitting the motor which is situated just in front of the pedals, low down on the frame. This location is where the system is very efficient, however, the drawback is that the pedal width is actually too wide for me and feels uncomfortable.

I'm a little concerned with this, as it might be wider than my physical requirements. I'm reasonably small (168cm and slim). I hope it does not lead to an injury with poor alignment of my knees and hips.

Left crank thread too tight - When I received the new bike, with the eBike kit pre-installed, I started to set up the components not attached box. I attached the strap style bike pedals to the eBike installed cranks. Screwing in the pedal was quite tight. Later, I swapped the cleat pedals from my old bike into the eBike. Again, the thread appeared very tight to screw. In fact the thread of the crank became shredded, although unbeknown at the time. It was discovered a week or so later when the pedal all but fell off on the way home one day. It could not be unscrewed, although I managed to rip it out eventually.

There was debate with eLation whether it was my pedal, which might have had some damage to its thread, which may have worsened by the tight fitting crank. The pedal was fine on the older bike. Thankfully eLation provided a replacement crank.

I bought a new pedal set and successfully installed it to the replacement crank, however the crank thread was again very tight. Maybe the crank thread is minutely too small.