I have ridden my bike to work and back (7,5km each way) for many years. I’m from Sandnes, the western part of Norway and during winter it can be difficult to motivate myself to get onto the bike. We don’t have extreme winters where I live, but it is often windy and the temperature can quickly drop to -10°C, mix this with strong wind and you have the reason I got interested in electric bikes. I studied some electric bikes on various web shops but they all looked like my mother’s bike and way too heavy. I’m an “equipment freak” so these bikes were out of the question for me. Instead I looked at the conversion kits; I wanted a kit as light as possible and it should give me the extra push when cycling against the wind. The Solar bike Swift kit was the one I decided to purchase.
The kit arrived and the packaging was really good, nothing damaged inside. It took me about an hour to install it onto my carbon fibre cyclocross bike. I know that carbon fibre forks are not recommended, but I took the chance. I have ridden the bike daily for two months, everything is working perfectly. The temperature has been down to -12°C and it also managed 10 mm snow. The maximum range with “normal” pedalling is 50km. After one month of cycling in snow and rain I decided to look closer at the inside of the hub. I was afraid that water had penetrated, but everything looked great, no moisture at all. You can feel the extra 6 kg from the Swift kit installaion when riding the bike, but it gives you the extra push and it’s great in steep hills.
Stale from Sandnes, Norway
