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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

How was the Stromer reliability wise?

I had my share of controller issues, where the bike would give an error. Removing the battery a few times usually solved it, but somehow the magnetic connector is too sensitive. Worse is that it is really easy to improperly connect the charger, so sometimes it would not charge at work Depending on wind and temperature that would give me a ton of range anxiety. Especially as cycling on a stromer without assist is very very hard. So all in all it was ok, I rode 13k km and it mostly worked. But when it didn't I really hated it.

The €250 travel charger is only 80W, so a full charge takes 12 hours. I ended up writing a script to poll the api to make sure the bike was actually charging when at work.

That is why being able to use the bike as normal when off/dead battery was a primary criterium for me. The bike I have now has a cheap little hub motor on the front wheel, and it lets the wheel spin freely when the bike is off.

A final remark, I used my Stromer ST2 exclusively for commuting. Just not practical in the city, only in between cities. I use my regular ebike for almost all trips, so I get a lot more value from it.

Thank you. I know two people with Stromers and their stories are quite comparable. The gear looks awesome and when it works it works fantastic but it seems a bit fickle and I'd really hate to be stuck halfway on a 65 km ride on a bike that heavy. Which is why I ended up building what I did, the Bosch system is reliable, a bit slower and DRM'd to the hilt but I figured I'd find a way to make that work. Fortunately the BMS is not smart enough to recognize the much larger battery to the point that it will brick itself, it ends up a bit confused about range, as the battery depletes the kilometers get longer and longer :)

It is not the weight that is the problem (though the bike is heavy), it is that the fancy hub drive will not let the rear wheel spin freely when powered off. I have had to cycle home up to 20km with at about 18kmh, so slower than a lot of normal cyclists, while sweating, wearing my ugly helmet and illegally riding on the cycle path. The last time that happened I decided to sell the bike.

Probably electromagnetic drag. I can totally see how you decided to sell it, transportation should first of all be reliable. Funny bit: the bike may be slower than the car but with the car the variance is a lot larger due to traffic variability. I've taken three hours to do a 45 minute trip and with the bike it is the exact same time every time.

Yeah, same for me. I know my commute by bike will be 60-70 minutes, regardless of conditions. By car it is 25-90 minutes, depending on predictable and very unpredictable circumstances. If speed pedelecs work depends hugely on where you live, if there are proper "bromfietspaden" or if you have to go through an inner city. Also in some cities (e.g. Rotterdam) you can take the bicycle path and local law enforcement doesn't care. In others the police is much more vigilant. Being the slowest vehicle on the road is not fun. That's why for my situation a normal 25kmh e-bike works best, especially because mine is accidentally set to the US speed limit of 20mph/32kmh, oops

I cycle Baarn->Arnhem and back twice weekly, that's 65 km one way. A bit much to do on a regular bike. The hard part of that trip is passing through Amersfoort, there is no really good way to bypass it so I just have to deal with it. It is a much more dangerous part than the rest of the trip and I always time it so that I'm never out there during rush hour.

Hehe, what a funny coincidence that your bike has that glitch :)

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