I've had my Vintage Electric Café for a couple days so wanted to follow up with a quick review. Bottom line, it's a keeper. It's got some flaws, but it's a special bike whose charms can make you forgive its shortcomings.

It's worth emphasizing how good this bike looks in the flesh. People literally stop in their tracks to stare at it. In just two days I've already had some funny interactions where I basically have to force and end to the conversation by saying "hey, I'm glad you like looking at the bike, but I've got places I need to be." So if you like that sort of attention, this is a good bike to.

Aside from that, the real standout feature is the torque, which is simply amazing. I've ridden a bunch of ebikes and the torque on the Café is well beyond any of them. To say it's "fast" is kind of misleading, because all class 3 bikes stop assisting at 28 mph. The difference is in how quickly you can reach the high 20's and how much effort it takes to stay there. The strongest torque I've experienced before riding the Café was the Stromer ST2, which can get you to 28 mph quickly and without a lot of effort. The Cafe is a little slower off the line, but can maintain top speeds with virtually no effort at all. If you want an ebike that will really cruise at high speeds with very little effort, the Café does that better than anything else I've tried. At the top level of assist, it will shred the steepest hills, again with almost no pedaling effort. It's quite a contrast to the Bosch system, which relatively speaking makes you work rather hard in the mid to upper 20's.

Now for the flaws. The main one is that the frame doesn't just look vintage, it also feels vintage. It's not terrible, but it's not hugely confidence inspiring, and certainly not as sure-footed as one would like to be paired with such a powerful motor. You can get the café with shocks, and could install an aftermarket seat suspension. If you were serious about maximizing the speed potential of the Café, you'd probably want to go that route. But you can certainly enjoy the bike without it if you just exercise some restraint.

More minor complaints: no water bottle attachment points, the battery position rules that out. There is some minor resistance in the rear hub when the power is shut off, which would make unpowered pedaling slightly more difficult. Finally, I personally don't like how the battery charge indicator works. It's "predictive," so it changes based on how you're currently pedaling. I'd rather it just showed me the battery capacity and let me do the predicting.

To end on a positive note, I'm really excited about the Vintage Electric Café, and strongly believe it could be a popular and well-loved ebike if enough folks could try it out.