Elderbear

So it did come with 21 speeds, but there were some surprises: front derailleur was a direct mount (mounted to a flat extension from ring held to the bike by the crank retainer) and of no name, very low quality. Gearing was 24, 34, 42 in front, 14-28 seven speed freewheel in back, Shimano tourney rear derailleur, Shimano thumb shifters. 5 levels of cadence sensor pedal assist, which worked by adding enough motor to get you to five different set speeds regardless of how much power you were putting through the pedals as long as you were pedaling. Lowest assist level pushed to between 10-15mph before phasing out. There is also a R grip twist throttle, which could be used to deliver a controlled speed, IF NOT PEDALING. There was supposedly a setting possible in the display to allow throttle only, without the pedal assist while pedaling, but on my bike, at least, this did not work. Others reported that a replacement display did allow this. There was also a problem with the gearing, in that almost no situation called for anything other than the largest chainwheel if one wished to keep up with the pedal assist power and deliver useful power through the pedals. Many other buyers on the company sponsored facebook group complained about this resulting in "ghost pedaling." Some ditched the entire front crank and derailleur setup for a single 52 tooth chainwheel. There was no way to have throttle only assist until I realized that I could wire a switch into the cadence sensor connection to the controller and cut the pedal assist, but leave the throttle. This helped, as did finding a couple of name brand no longer manufactured direct mount front derailleurs, an SRAM and a Shimano, that could be rigged to replace the original. I also replaced the crankset to give 24, 40, and 52 chainrings, the original crankset not having replaceable rings. These alterations have resulted in my being able to decide exactly how hard I want to work and what speed I wish to go. I see that Cyrusher is no longer offering the triple, and does not reveal what size the single chainwheel that replaced it is. Other alterations from the spec of my October 2021 delivery include dropping the front air fork for a spring unit. The rear suspension was a spring shock on mine and does not seem to have changed. I replaced it, as many others on the company facebook group did, with an air shock, which allows much better balancing of the front/rear bounce rates. The hydraulic disc brakes are Zoom, with 180mm rotors. I have recently replaced the rear pads with Shimano sintered metal ones, since I had worn out the original composites. These pads are still silent and work equally as well as the originals, My bike came with full fenders and a rear rack, both of which are of good quality, though the fenders are short enough to allow a lot of splash onto the crank area, both on front and rear, I modified them with extensions of flexible plastic. The stock rear light is a very small LED coin battery unit built into the seat, and definitely not bright enough to be seen in daylight. Headlight is adequate, but there is no flashing mode and only a single level of brightness. I added a motorcycle 12-60v LED from Amazon with a switch tapping into the headlight wire to use as "brights," as well as a Cygolite metro package of front and rear lights with "daylightning" flash settings. I also added a thumb lever to the handgrip throttle to allow finer control without hand fatigue. The enormous soft seat, which I thought I would want to change, actually works well when pedaling seriously, having a long nose that approximates the shape of a racing saddle, and is quite comfortable. ( I have Sella Italia Q-Biks on two of my analogue road bikes and a Cinelli on the other for reference.) The Bafang 750watt hub motor is powerful and will haul me up Portland's West hills at 10+mph in level one. The freewheel combined with the motor wire coming out of the axle means that one cannot use a freewheel remover because it won't fit over the motor wire connector and axle nuts and even the Area 13 special $50 large hole freewheel remover won't fit without filing off the edges of the flats on the 18mm hex axle nut. This means that freewheels need to be destructively removed, A cassette or an off side motor wire would be better. I added a Grin torque arm on the off side to keep the axle from rotating in the aluminum dropouts, which are only minimally protected by a slotted washer.The 17ah battery is a Hailong, and other than having a USB port that won't power my Pixel phone, works fine, delivering over 40 miles in the hills on a full charge and with generous use of the throttle. I have made a chart that allows me to predict how long to run the included charger to reach a 75-80% charge, which is what I normally use, reserving a full 100% one to once every couple of months to enable the BMS to balance the cells. The bike is very solid, feels strong and seems well put-together overall, though with the noted things that I thought needed modifications.
All in all, I feel that if one is willing and able to modify it, this is a pretty good value at $2700. If you are looking to just get it and ride, it works more like a moped, but at least the model I got can be made into a decent full suspension 65lb fat tire ebike if you spend another couple hundred dollars and a good bit of time at it. It cruises down hills at over 32mph with complete aplomb, feels super safe at those speeds and stops in a confidence-inspiring manner. I have taken it on short single track trails and while far from agile, it can be used for this, and actually works better if you ride it faster than you think is wise, sort of bulling one's way through. I would not say that is it's best use, however. Assist level 2 or 3 will enable one to feel pretty safe in city traffic, maintaining 15-20mph. If you want to use the pedal assist as a sort of cruise control, my added switch allows that, and the revised gearing allows adding meaningful power from your legs at any speed. The customer service is difficult, as you might expect from a Chinese company, but does respond if one is persistent, though not necessarily in providing what one asked. Caveat Emptor, but if you have skills to alter it, a pretty good platform to build on.