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Oakland, California
After having it for a couple weeks, I’ve been satisfied with my purchase of the GO++ kit from Swytch, although I would only recommend it to folks with enough patience to go through the months-long ordering, payment and delivery processes. Having the patience and ability to install your own kit helps as well. The installation takes forethought, and possibly some customization that might void the warranty on some parts of your bike, if that matters to you. To be clear, I opted for the longest available delivery window at the time (4 months), which got me a Swytch kit at the lowest price, and I installed it myself. For twice the price, Swytch offers expedited shipping, and you could pay to have a bike shop install the kit on your bike. At that point, the price of a Swytch surpasses some new E-bikes, and would definitely be out of my personal price range. It also goes against my reasoning for getting a conversion kit, which is to augment the bike i already own rather than buying a new e-bike, allaying my home storage concerns and my admittedly more existential environmental angst. Ordering/Payment - Instead of filling out an order form, and paying the shipping and taxes in one day like most direct-to-consumer products, Swytch asks that you put down an initial deposit, a later second payment to complete the price of the kit, and a third payment that includes your local tax fees. Each of these payment requests are sent to you over the span of three months, and if you miss one of the payment request emails, Swytch will skip your order in the production queue, potentially significantly delaying your order’s delivery. The order form for your specific wheel size and any accessories you’d like comes nearly a month after you put in your first deposit. I guess that the timing of the payment requests has to do with inventory pipeline stuff, and shipping details. But it’s frustrating to think that you’ve paid in full for a product in full four months ago, then receive a notice that if you don’t pay $60 within a week, your order will be delayed again. The ordering/delivery process had me checking my email for a notice from Swytch every couple days, for months. Delivery- The delivery process was lengthy. I ordered my Swytch kit in April this year, with an expected delivery window of mid-August, but didn’t receive it until mid-October, after it was pushed back twice. Installation- Installation of the kit was moderately simple aside from the pedal sensor, which took some getting my head around. The thing that took me the most time was routing the cables on my bike in a way that makes sense, but Swytch provides a few examples that you can use as a template for your particular bike. I ended up burning through the zipties that they supplied, and adding some of my own because I kept having to re-adjust my cables. After swapping my disc brake rotor onto the new rim, I had to use a dremel to grind a bit off of my front disc brake caliper to keep the rotor from rubbing. It took me a day or so to adjust the pedal sensor to read properly: if the sensor isn’t properly aligned, the motor will cut in and out. Also, adjusting the wheel size in the menu of the LED display was important to getting the most power out of the motor. Product- The kit works extremely well after it’s installed. It’s a pedal sensor kit - the motor has a delay of almost a full crank rotation before it engages, so don’t expect massive acceleration from a full stop. The motor gradually kicks in and augments your pedaling effort. It feels smooth, strong and is nearly inaudible in the lower levels. My commute has a fair amount of hills, and the Swytch kit makes them a lot easier to manage, as well as making me faster on straightaways. The battery on my Swytch Go++ has lasted for 57 miles of use on the lower 3 levels, which is pretty close to the 60 miles of advertised range. On the 5th gear, I got to 22 mph on a straightway with moderate effort, although i haven’t tried pushing it past that. It may sound like I’m being overly negative about Swytch, but I like the Go++ kit a lot. I feel like once I got the kit properly installed on my bike, it worked exactly as it was advertised. I actually ordered a second kit for my wife after using mine for a week. That said, I think it’s important to properly inform people of what the process of acquiring a kit for a decent price requires, which is a lot time and patience. I think that once Swytch refines their ordering/shipping systems, this will be an industry-disruptive product. I hope they get to that point. Note on bike lights/dynamo hubs: I had a dynamo in my front wheel hub that powered my front and back bike lights. Since the Swytch is a front wheel motor system, I had to sacrifice the dynamo to run it, and now my bike’s built in lights are non-functional. Swytch doesn’t offer a wired bike light solution yet, but it could, since the wiring harness has an unused accessory port in most cases. In the meantime, someone has reverse engineered a DIY solution here: https://blog.shadura.me/2023/04/12/swytch-e-bike-lights/, that requires purchasing around $60 of new hardware. Worth checking out if you’re in the same boat.
10 months ago
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