Nice step through model. Its modeled after a Raleigh Sports. I like the vintage style.

I imagine its adequate for stop and go urban riding. Priority does sell a front caliper rim brake if you're not comfortable with backpedaling the bike to stop it or you want the safety backup of a front brake.

cool that you won a free bike and your assistant Mechanic looks like he knows his stuff

I can only imagine how the belt-pulley-tensioner combination handles back pedaling and modulating control of the braking action of the coaster brake.

The roller you see under the back pulley is not a tensioner. I think it's just there to capture the belt... the C-Drive website shows some bikes set up without it. Tension is set with screws going to brackets in the dropout slots, and as it came from the factory it is quite tight (spec is 20 kg tension according to the manual). The C-Drive website also shows some bikes set up without the dropout tensioners but I imagine that's a pain in the butt for the mechanic.

The only lash I felt was the action of the brake itself. So far as how well I can modulate the brake, I can't say. I'm still on the learning curve, I think I haven't had a coaster brake bike since I was nine or ten. I don't know what the elongation of a drive belt normally is but I would believe it's similar or even less than a chain. Kevlar elongation at the breaking point is only a few percent and I imagine other fibers that they might use have similar properties.

Thanks for the feedback.

I got some email from Dave at Priority. He had some feedback about what I've written here.

The headset is normally notchy from the factory, he says it will smooth out after about a hundred miles, same with the front hub. The packaging for the fork ends and the wrench design are being changed for the next production run. There's not yet any lower gearing option... they have the medium front and largest rear pulley, and putting on the smallest front would make the drivetrain too long for the dropouts. The hub clicking is normal (confirmed with research elsewhere). The roller is there to keep the belt from skipping at that point under heavy torque. I'm going edit my posts a little, I don't want people to think that what I've posted is what they'll get if Priority is going to change it.

Unasked for, he is sending me the front brake kit. I didn't pay for this bike in the first place so I definitely wasn't looking for any kind of comp for the little problems. But he says with a baby on board or in tow they'd prefer a rider have the extra stopping power. I'm sort of conflicted about this, if I have a front brake I'm probably not going to use the coaster much at all.

Kudos to Dave... now that is what I call customer service.

If only companies delivered it, people would be happy if they stood behind their products.

Run a front brake... you'll be glad you did.. way more convenient coming up to a stop using a front brake and not having to worry about how your pedals are oriented .. in practice, I use the coaster brake to scrub off speed and then apply front brake as needed..

In regards to the belt tension, with the C-drive 8mm pitch system, you don't need to run a lot of tension, on mine, very relaxed tension and proper adjustment of the belt snubber is all you need... your hub bearings will thank you and the bike will have less pedal drag.. nice thing about running 8mm pitch belts, there is a much wider variety of belts and cogs to fine tune your gear inch number.. a couple of my coaster rides..

I installed the Thule front baby seat. This bike rides well with it, the high stack and upright stance keep my knees and sternum from hitting the seat. We did maybe a mile and had a good time. But I still need to make cowboy starts and stops, and with only the coaster, there's essentially no brake while scootering. So I'll install the front brake toot sweet.

Yea I dont see any brake levers, Definitely needs better brakes ..

There's only three of each item listed on the C-Drive site and with the Priority running the largest rear pulley cog and largest belt, there's no combination that allows the use of the smaller front. And I've never seen them for sale anywhere anyhow. Are there parts available from other manufacturers in other sizes?

If you want to run the 60/30 combo and the listed belt isn't long or short enough, you can get 8mm pitch belts in a multitude of lengths from a generic belt supplier .. on my Moulton, I'm running an 80/25 with a HTD 1320mm belt.. off the shelf from a belt supplier.. low cost.. I've also ordered sprockets/cogs from driveline.com in the past..

@BruceMetras thanks, I need to go shopping. But that website appears to be for a trucking company!

The gearing definitely is too high for me. I need about 25% lower due to my heart problems. As it stands, the bottom isn't low enough for my hills and the top is vestigial.

The bike is definitely a size small for me but they didn't have a larger stepthrough, and with the upright posture it's not really an issue most of the time. The swept handlebars are narrow enough they make it a little difficult to stand on the pedals, and they definitely give that "tiller" effect. I think when the front brake arrives that I'm going to change it to a cruiser bar I have handy.

I did about 18 miles total on this bike yesterday and don't feel it at all today. The posture and the seat are great for short rides. On the other hand it's a noticeably longer workout, there was about a 2mph penalty vs my usual commuter, and I'm not quick to begin with. The time is somewhat made up by the get-on-and-go convenience of it. I made a couple of fit adjustments before riding home and was much happier.

I like the seat. It's sort of a medium size for its type. It's got a lot of padding but it's not a giant cruiser seat, its foam is firm, and not memory or gel. The nose on this example is "girl" length, I don't know if the diamond version has a longer saddle.

I also realized something about the posture and comfort. It's not profound but it was outside my experience. With curly-handlebar or suspension-fork bikes we tend to go on a bit about the comfort of the front end, but when you are sitting bolt upright, the handlebars get almost no load and the grips and fork have little bearing on your comfort. The seat and pedals get more important, though!

I still want lower gears, though. My longest evening climb was quite a slog and would have been a problem if my heart meds weren't in full swing, and the steepest part of my morning commute made me get off and walk.

Which sprockets are on your bike now? Maybe I can help.. here's the Supplier I was referring to..

I'll check later to make sure but I believe it's 67t on 4x104 bcd, 30t on Nexus, 1280mm belt.

Cool..

I found the specs for the bike.. so should be 67t/30t .. plugging numbers into Sheldon's calculator gives around 45 to 82g/i .. I can see that being a little aggressive for that style of bike.. first thing would be to get a 60t .. that would bring it to 40 to 74 g/i.. and I think I have a 32t that would fit the Nexus, in fact, I may even have the 60t .. that would get you your 20% reduction at 37 to 69 .. that would make for a much more usable bike.. to find a belt, measure your center to center and input figures into an online belt calculator .. then see if an 8mm HTD belt is in the catalog close to what you need ..

Something else it occurred to me to mention. This bike doesn't give me the "freight train" feeling that I sometimes get from bikes, and which I was sort of expecting. I got such a feeling from my Super Sport and from Velib bikes, just for a couple of very different examples. I don't know if it's about weight or stability, but this one doesn't have an excess of either, it's light weight and has light steering.

I installed the front brake kit today. They're Tektro parts, already assembled with a cable and housing. All the nuts and bolts on the kit were the same sizes as the ones to assemble the bike and therefore used the same tools that came with the bike. The lever is a left side and has a clamshell clamp so you don't need to remove the grip to install it. The caliper is dual pivot and super long reach. The installation was very easy. Once installed it was far out of adjustment, but adjusting it was normal procedure. There was a little plastic S hook on the housing not mentioned in the directions, I used it to hook the brake and shifter cables together.

Progress report.

I probably have somewhere over a hundred miles on this bike now though I'm not keeping track. It's enjoyable to ride! The gearing hasn't stopped me as long as I'm feeling ok, but I still barely use the top and spend probably most of my time in the bottom, telling me it's too high for me. The rear wheel has gone out of true. No broken spokes, I checked. The coaster brake keeps it from being much of a problem. I'm not sure how long to let it ride. I gave up on the Thule front seat (see my whinging in the Rec & Family subforum) and got a used Co-Pilot back seat (like this one but an older color scheme and pretty scuffed up). It's going to work much better for the family, in part because we can install one model of rack on many of our bikes and swap the seat between them, and also because it is just a really solid and well thought out product. This frame size needs extensions on the rack straps in order to mount the rack level. Another thing to make me wish they'd had a larger size stepthrough frame. I've started putting stickers/decals on the frame for fun.

Untitled by Darth Lefty, on Flickr

Progress report...

I got the long brackets for the rack that holds the seat, which moved it a few inches back, a big improvement for both me and kiddo.

I swapped saddles with SWMBO's Rivendell stepthrough. She wanted a padded saddle, I didn't. So now it has a nice short wide unsprung Brooks.

After a solid ride on Weds night to get kiddo from day care, I was getting a lot of clunking and squealing from the drivetrain. I spent some time tonight going over it. The back wheel was a potato chip, I trued it up and evened it out. Finally got to use the Park spoke tension meter I'd gotten for Christmas 2014. The wheel was out of center in the frame too, which was making the belt squeak against the side of the pulleys.

SWMBO and I spent fifteen minutes around midnight putting stickers on it. Some from NAHBS (sort of laughable) and some from a Star Wars sticker book. Where's Rey? Well, she is right there on the down tube. (photos soon)

We should be good for a long haul now without any trouble, touch wood.

Coooool!Great bike!

Darth, that's a great update. Love the photo of your kid in your Feb post. Had to think for a bit about what SWMBO meant. Got it, finally. LOL.

My daughter also has a Priority, and she's been getting out on it this spring now that the weather is warmish where she lives. She likes it a lot, and recently she collaborated with me on an interview-style blog post on it. She had some funny words about her prior bike from Walmart.

I've got one of the new Eights on order. It just shipped yesterday, and I have at least two more days of excruciating waiting before the thing hits my doorstep. I've got a bunch of purple blingy-bits to go on it when it arrives. Found some purple axle-bolts from Dans Comp, and also some other fun parts from other vendors. Anyway, it's a badly needed bike that will enable me to just hop on and ride and get some exercise on days when it's wet out, or when I can't go mountain-biking.

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