Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
>> Court: This is an older Prodeco Phantom X, it's probably a 2011 or 2012 and you know,
as you can see it's an electric bike. Kind of entry level and the way they've designed
this bike has some unique features. It's a folding frame but the weight distribution
and a couple of other things can cause some hangups. So let me just jump right into it
with the drive system. We've got a 500 watt direct drive gearless rear hub motor. And
that should offer a lot of power, it's smooth, there's no gears in there rubbing around,
but it is a little bit heavier. Okay, and it doesn't offer quite as much torque as maybe
a geared hub motor would but it's a 500 watt motor; that's pretty good. Good power. It's
being run off of this 36 volt 12 amp hour battery pack; it's pretty big. You know, it's
sitting right up here over the rear wheel. Its got these nice support struts and it's
on this kind of rear rack arm coming off of the seat tube there but, it's you know, it's
pretty heavy. The technology that they're using here is Lithium Iron Phosphate, it's
a little bit less expensive but it has good life, it's more stable than Lithium-ion. And
I guess there's some mixes there. So because it's heavy and because it's situated over
that rear wheel with mo shock absorption besides the tire. You know, I've heard people who
own this say, and shops actually say, that they people come in the battery has broken
off and fallen off. And that can just wreck your whole ride which is kind of a bummer.
The newer X3 and some of the other Prodeco bikes have like a couple of strut arms and
I, hopefully they're working on that plastic casing to make it a little bit better. I don't
love that you have to leave the key in the ignition when you're riding. It would be nice
if you could just turn it on and pull it out because if you've got this on a keychain,
you know your keys are dangling all around. I do like that its got kind of a rear light
built right in, kind of small but you know it works. And back to sort of the frame itself.
It's nice that its got water bottle um, mounts here but it's interesting to me that such
a large bike is a folding bike. I can't imagine actually folding this. It's still huge! But
you know, it's kind of a feature. The thing is, that creates, you know it kind of weakens
the frame. It's less rigid. Okay, and that's the same for the pedals here, we've got plastic
folding pedals. When you push down on these they just don't get quite as much energy transfer
from your push into the bike. But again, it's an electric bike so you might not even really
be pedaling too much. The way this electric bike works is we've got a very simple control
mechanism up here. You turn the key on, it lights up and tells you how full the battery
is, and then you just press the throttle. That's it, so there's no pedal assist mode.
If you want to pedal this thing, you can, but it's really kind of like a scooter. And
I guess I would advise being careful because as you can see here, all of the weight is
right there in the rear, you know and that makes it easier to kind of like fishtail or
slide out. Also just parking, and I mean if this thing falls over that's a lot of weight
right there and that plastic case and everything it's just, it's sort of a, it gives me pause
when I'm thinking about this bike. Now, of course Prodeco's are relatively affordable
as compared to some other ebikes and that's primarily because you can buy them online.
Okay, versus in a shop, which means getting service is going to be a little bit harder,
you're going to have to do some assembly yourself when this comes, get the handlebars straightened
out. Nothing too big but just keep that in mind. I mean, you're paying a little bit less
and you're getting a bike that, you're taking some risks there in terms of like the lifetime
of this bike. If you got this, even though its got this huge front shock, I would not
recommend riding it off road just because of the battery pack and the weight balance
issues there. Um, but you know, again it gets the job done and if you're just cruising around
the streets like this, you know it works and the shock is nice because it sort of smoothes
out your ride going off curbs and stuff. So here we go, I'm just going to hop on this
thing and show you the motor in action. So here we go, just pedaling along. And by the
way, that fender is not stock, that's kind of an add-on. [motor whirring] You can probably
hear it activating a little bit there. I'm going to gun it once more. [motor whirring]
Oh! Putting that front shock to use a little bit. So maybe you get the idea. It's smooth,
relatively quiet, not quite as torquey as some other bikes. Heavy battery, interesting
placement there. That's the Prodeco Phantom X. For more info on this and other electric
bikes, check out ElectricBikeReview.com and I will see you there.