So here's how my day has been going.

I've been trying to assemble my Swytch ebike conversion kit. It has not gone well, despite all the glowing YouTube videos about how easy it is.

It is not.

The first disappointment was that the wheel in the box wasn't black, it was silver. I was pretty sure I'd ordered the black rim. The first confirmation email didn't mention what color the rim was, and I didn't think anything of it.

The second confirmation email mentioned that the order included a silver rim, but I missed it.

They sent a third notification, on September 7, while we were in NY and I wasn't paying close attention to email, also disclosed they were sending me a silver wheel. I wasn't expecting the kit until October, so it wasn't high on my agenda in terms of paying attention as we were trying to get the new place set up.

As mentioned, I'm pretty sure I ordered a black rim. But my last long-term bike was a bit of a franken-bike with a fork from another bike of a different color. I'm not that bent out of shape about it, but it was a disappointment.

No printed manual is included. So I was using my iPad in the garage. I tried to download the pdf manual, but for whatever reason, all I ever received was the cover page. There's an "interactive" web thing that purports to step you through everything. It sucks. Out loud. Once again, a company has opted for glitzy web effects, transitions, etc, rather than clear illustrations and straightforward text.

Everything is black, and things have to fit into slots and holes and it's hard to see. If you buy one of these things, you should probably wear a headlamp to see what you're doing. I took both of my headlamps to New York. I don't know why.

I muddled my way through nearly everything, over about three hours. I was at the last step of connecting the wiring harness, and I was stuck.

These connections are supposedly "color coded." That's just a cruel joke.

I couldn't figure out what cable was supposed to connect to the handlebar controller. Do they tell you what each of those connections is for? No. Because why would they do that? It'd just confuse the user! It's color coded!

I went to the support web site, thinking maybe there'd be some document or something that elaborated on the harness, or, failing that, some "chat" support. Well, no elaboration, and chat is with an extremely lame bot.

More disappointment.

So I filled out a support request. Unclear when I'll get a response. This wasn't encouraging:

Our team is committed to addressing your request as quickly as possible. While we typically respond within 48 hours, it may take a bit longer during this busy period. Please know that your request is important to us, and we are carefully reviewing each one.

Well, I wanted to ride my ebike. See that cable that's capped? Why is it capped? I don't know and Swytch ain't sayin'. Bastards.

I figured it was covered on purpose, like "do not mess with this cable." Then I figured, "Screw that, I'm pulling this thing off."

There was my connection!

What a bunch of bullshit.

So I got everything wired up. The two mystery connectors remain... mysterious. I picked the bike up, turned the pedals and the front wheel spun!

Then I did my best to cable tie the miles of excess wiring and took it for a spin.

It works!

I'll do another post about the riding experience later. I just want to conclude this one about the assembly experience.

The documentation and web support is horrible. Swytch has invested far more effort in making the web site "pretty" than they have in good documentation. The YouTube videos are all misleading. I'm a bike "rider." I take it to the shop to have a spoke replaced. About all I can do is put air in the tires. I replaced the inner tubes on Mitzi's bike and managed to put one of the tires on "backward." Since when could you do that???

If you see a bike stand in a YouTube video, then treat all claims of "simple" and "easy" with a significant amount of skepticism. It's doable, but it's not easy.

Work in a well-lighted area. Our garage has a two-bulb fluorescent overhead light and it's just plain dark in there. I have to keep the garage door closed because Florida. So have a couple of flashlights handy. A couple, because you will constantly lose track of where you put one of them.

The nuts on the wheel are 19mm. My largest wrench was 16mm. I don't work on bikes, obviously. 11/16s works almost as well and better than an adjustable wrench, IMHO. The instructions for mounting the sensor to the peddle arm are confusing if they're not outright wrong, and I'm pretty certain they just plain outright wrong.

There's a tiny nut and bolt thing that holds the arm to the sensor disk, and you are almost certain to drop that little nut and lose it, so be extremely careful.

All in all, assembly is a horrible experience, because the instructions are incomplete, misleading and sometimes wrong.

But if you persevere and don't just give up and demand to return it, you do get an ebike. Looks kind of goofy. The battery is big and basically makes the water bottle holder useless. There are miles of cables everywhere.

But it'll make your ride a lot easier.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 11:20 Monday, 16 September 2024