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>> Court: This is the Kalkhoff X27 and the X stands for XION, you can see right there
on the hub motor. And, 27, well it's a twenty-seven speed bike. And this is a really cool mix
of sort of performance, almost like touring. You know, you've got this nice light weight
shock on the front, you can see there. You've got the lights, you've got the fenders and
everything but you've got a wonderful drive system here. And this is a XION system so
that's a gearless 250 watt rear hub motor but it actually performs at a really high
level. I think the peak output is 1,100 watts so it's, it can be kind of deceptive when
you hear that. Front and back disc brakes, because when you're going fast and you've
got a very capable bike like this you want to be able to stop. The battery pack there
is 36 volts with about 12 amp hours of capacity and I love the way it's mounted, kind of mid-frame
like that. It distributes the weight evenly across the bike. So Kalkhoff is a german bike
company and they're actually part of Derby Cycles which owns Focus and a few others,
Raleigh in Europe and they're actually, I'm told, going to rebrand this as a Focus ebike
in 2014. So what you're looking at here is a 2013 version but it's still, you kind of
get the gist of what this bike offers. The lights are actually dynamo powered and that's
a regulation in Europe right now, which is neat because if the battery on this bike runs
out your lights will still work. And they've got a capacitor so when you stop, they stay
light for a little while in case you're pulled over on a road and you know, you don't want
to get hit from behind. Riding in San Francisco, you can imagine there are these big hills
and stuff and a bike like this that offers really good power at a relatively light weight
is awesome. And of course it rains here, it's raining right now, and the fenders and everything
are really appreciated. This bike is like $3,500 USD and considering all of the upgrades,
you know you've got these beautiful ergo grips here, the fenders, everything I talked about
before, the nice shock with lockout. I mean this is just a great bike, I'm demoing this
at the New Wheel and that's what they focus on is these hilly bikes that are capable enough
to take on these hills in San Francisco. And I'm really falling in love with the XION system.
As you can see its got this nice big screen. This was on one of the Focus bikes that I
reviewed a little while ago and it's just great. I mean, it gives you five levels of
pedal assist and this nice break out controller here. As you can see, it actually approximates
how far you can go with the different levels of assist. So, you can't see that real well
but it's 39 miles, 47 miles at the lowest level of pedal assist and then you've got
regenerative mode. Two modes of regen, so if you're going down a hill you can put some
of that energy back in the battery pack. Which is just super cool! And in fact this has like
a speed setting so you can say "I want to regen but I want to regen at 15 miles per
hour" so it's not completely slowing you down which some of the other bikes do. It's smart,
it's a smart system, it's a wonderful bike, it's pretty well priced and it's capable.
So that's the Kalkhoff Connect X27. I'll do a little ride test here, you can try to listen
for the motor but it's just silent. These things are super quiet. Actually... we've
got a car coming here, I'm going to give them their way. Turn it on to different pedal assist
mode. There we go, here we go! [wind noise] And you really can't hear it at all and you
know, we're climbing a hill here. I'm not struggling, not out of breath. That's exactly
what these bikes are designed to do. You know, if you've got knee issues or something. It's
a great choice, I really like it. For the full written review on this bike and other
electric bikes check out ElectricBikeReview.com I'll see you there.