Sondors Thin, A review

I finally have my Sondors Thin in my possession and wanted to write a little review about it for the forums members here. I will post pictures and videos of assembly as I can get to it and my impressions of the bike once I get it out on the road. I plan on putting it together this Saturday. I just received it yesterday and unfortunately am too busy to open it. First impressions is the box seems to be in pretty good shape!

Nelson37 said:

That has to be the best and highest-quality cardboard box I have ever seen. It clearly is able to outperform all other cardboard boxes on the market, and if it is available at a reasonable price, they should be able to dominate the global cardboard box market.

Clearly their revolutionary and visionary technology is awe-inspiring.

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A game changer! I may be able to unbox it tonight if I have time. It was quite a large box, Barely fit in the elevator. I am hoping Storm Sondors comes out of the box and assembles it himself.

I am looking forward to your assessment. Thanks for posting...

Alright, so here is my written assessment of the bike so far. The bike came very well packaged, almost too well packed as it took me more time to get all the zip ties, cardboard, and foam wrapping off than it did to actually put together the bike. It looks like a lot of time was spent on packaging in this way. Hopefully as they go into full regular production they can streamline this, which would probably lower the shipping price. The fit and finish of all of the parts of the bike were very nice. The paint or powder coat finish was nice and smooth and everything fit well together. Assembly was very straightforward and simple. I used the included tools and a screw driver and everything went together well. The only issue I had was that the front wheel appears not to be properly trued or maybe the front rim is bent. When driving the bike the front brake will lightly touch the rotor every revolution. I double checked my installation and brake alignment and when you spin the front wheel you can see it is not trued properly. The fact that the battery pack key locks into place is a nice feature that should keep people from walking off with your battery pack. For the price it's a very good bike, the few things I would like to see is maybe a nicer quality throttle with a metal throttle instead of plastic in terms of finish. In terms of performance I think as is it is pretty good in terms of top speed, the acceleration is pretty tame though. This is probably a good thing for most people and will keep them out of trouble. I measured my top speed pedaling at a pretty good pace at 25mph and my all motor top speed on flat pavement was 20mph. I am 170lbs if that helps with point of reference, my top speed may increase slightly after I get the front wheel trued/fixed. I measured top speed using a gps app on my phone. One of my first modifications I will do is get some better brakes. I do not ride bicycles often (I ride motorcycles) so I don't know what good bike brakes are, I just know I would like more stopping power personally. So far I am really liking the bike and I will post pictures/video tomorrow. I will do some range testing during the week and if anyone has any questions or requests feel free to ask.

Ordered my Sonders Thin last week and maybe you could answer a few questions:
Do they notify you when it is shipped?
How is it shipped?
Is black or white shipped first?
How long did you have to wait?
Thanks,
Richard

Champ9669 said:

Ordered my Sonders Thin last week and maybe you could answer a few questions:
Do they notify you when it is shipped?
How is it shipped?
Is black or white shipped first?
How long did you have to wait?
Thanks,
Richard

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Yes they did notify me when it shipped, shipped via UPS with tracking
I ordered it in March through the Indie Go Go campaign
The first bikes they shipped were the black ones.
I waited a while for it, but they had said they were not going to ship bikes out until June/July

Does anyone know the length of the Sonders Thin Crank arm? I think standard is 180mm but I am looking for 160mm due to knee replacement.

Thanks,
Richard

Here are some pictures, I will post links to video on Youtube once I upload those
Packaging


Assembled bike, did not see the point of doing an assembly video, there is a great one on the sondors website that is very straitforward


Motor details


Controller


Inside the triangle

Champ9669 said:

Does anyone know the length of the Sonders Thin Crank arm? I think standard is 180mm but I am looking for 160mm due to knee replacement.

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Almost all OEM cranks are either 170 or 175mm. 180mm are uncommon and usually an expensive upgrade. 165mm is a common size on fixed gear bikes, but not elsewhere.

152mm is a common crank size for kids' bikes.

Champ9669 said:

Does anyone know the length of the Sonders Thin Crank arm? I think standard is 180mm but I am looking for 160mm due to knee replacement.

Thanks,
Richard

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If it is just for one side/knee you could use a crank shortener (example: http://www.dutchbikebits.com/crank-shortener )so your good knee can still pedal full length and the bike stays stock.

I took the bike to the bike shop yesterday and they trued the wheel and the rotor (both were a little out of true) They also adjusted the rear as well so now I don't have any rubbing of the rotor (cost $30 for it all). After that I took it down the lakeshore paths in Chicago and did about 12 miles of riding with a mix of just using the pedal assist and all throttle thrown in. The bike rode very well and my only gripe would be that since its a fixed gear bike you really are limited in your speed to about 25mph with some pretty hard pedaling (but this is probably a good safe maximum speed for most and a good safe speed with the stopping power of the brakes). This might be another thing I change on the bike to get a higher top speed with pedal assist. I will do two tests this week, one will be my range only using the throttle and trying to keep output at an average of 75% of maximum. The second test will be how far I can go only using the pedal assist. I will keep you posted on the results. Also let me know if you guys want me to take any pictures or run any other tests, I am happy to do so.

I would try upgrading the brake pads before upgrading the brakes. Looks nice, i might have to get one. Are you sure the front wheel is correctly seated?

Yeah the wheel was definitely seated correctly, when I noticed the rubbing I pulled the wheel off to make sure it was seated correctly. I think brakes are super important and I like to have maximum stopping power personally. Especially when you live in a crowded area like I do and you never know what can jump out at you. Luna cycles sells a shimano hydraulic brake set for about 90 dollars that I will probably look to upgrade to eventually. I will not do any upgrades this summer though, I will ride the bike as is until it's time to put it away for the winter.

Roledzki said:

Yeah the wheel was definitely seated correctly, when I noticed the rubbing I pulled the wheel off to make sure it was seated correctly. I think brakes are super important and I like to have maximum stopping power personally. Especially when you live in a crowded area like I do and you never know what can jump out at you. Luna cycles sells a shimano hydraulic brake set for about 90 dollars that I will probably look to upgrade to eventually. I will not do any upgrades this summer though, I will ride the bike as is until it's time to put it away for the winter.

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I have had motorcycles and bicycles that could barely stop with the stock pads and good aftermarket pads have always fixed the problem so long as the caliper is strong enough to hold the greatly increased force.

Actually after the break in period on bikes and motorcycles especially cheap base models its a good idea to replace everything considered normal wear and tear items because they are always as cheap as possible.

maydaverave said:

Actually after the break in period on bikes and motorcycles especially cheap base models its a good idea to replace everything considered normal wear and tear items because they are always as cheap as possible.

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Thanks for the advice, I will have to look into new pads. Hydraulic calipers sound very appealing though

Here is a little walk around video, been busy so have not had time to do any tests. I should be able to do some testing tomorrow

[youtube]xEYrO8CsCv4[/youtube]