VelectriX Cruiser Ride Review – Hub Drive eBike

G’day viewers! This is a video review of the 2022 VelectriX Cruiser – Electric Bike. *** This is not a sponsored video ***
On my debut ride of this bike, I put it through its paces over 888 meters of elevation along a 62-kilometre-long route via the Patrick Jonker Veloway and Coast To Vines Trail between Hallett Cove to McLaren Vale and back.
The 250-watt, 45Nm Bafang rear hub drive motor coupled with a 1 x 8-speed drivetrain performed better than I had expected.
I exceeded the 60 km acclaimed range over undulating hills and elevation, so I would assume I could perhaps get close to 80 km on flat terrain?
This all depends on the amount of motor engagement, personal physical endurance and wind factors.
Although the specs on the 99Bikes website state a ‘Microshift’ groupset, my bike came with a Shimano Acera derailleur and a Taiwanese-branded DnP 11-32 cassette. Not 36 as I mention in the video.
The weight of this bike is 21.2 kg.
Overall I am happy with this bike so far, after one ride, but as with any cheap and cheerful bike, the test will be long-term durability. Providing I ride within the capabilities of the bike, and keep up maintenance, I should see 10,000 km or more, as I have seen these figures stated for Velectrix bikes used in hire/rental situations.

Link to ride stats: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/137191385

Bike link: https://www.99bikes.com.au/velectrix22-cruiser-mens-silver (specs and description on 99Bikes are a little sketchy in my opinion)

Oh good day boys and girls check this out mate it’s a new whip it is a uh Hub drive ebike by vectric 99 bikes budget special got it for like 1,200 bucks just under and um 250 W rear hub motor five modes uh or levels of

Assist uh you’ve also got a uh what is it a 46 wat battery so uh not too bad why Mrs has the same brand bike but in a step through and it’s a couple years older the battery on that is the same capacity but it is much bigger so

They’ve obviously uh downsize the cells to a more energy rich energy dense cell all right I’m going to walk in level five here there’s a bit of a pinch climb you can hear it wearing away so far so good this be is always a bit hard but that went all right

Actually H drive versus mid drive on the Bosch it’s no real competition but uh I just thought I’d get a hub drive for um that different kind of ride Vibe all right might whack it in fourth we’ll go fifth again yeah fifth seems to be good just to get out these

Climbs without working too hard it’s only an 8 speed so it’s 11 to 36 I think the blow at the uh 99 Bo reckons that um get get about 50 to 60 K range out of it I guess it all depends on how much you do pedaling over 25k an hour and how

Much uh elevation but it cruises nicely sitting on 43 45 feels pretty stable yeah so you can’t see what level of assist you’re in just by looking at it so you’ve got a kind of all right so I’m in four if you press on

It yeah it takes you up one each time so but yeah levels three to five are pretty usable I guess on the kind of Helo terrains I look they fix this up that’s good it’s to be a big lip there but yeah 27.5 Wheels uh 1.95 tires 60 PSI hard

Tail no Forks oh sorry no no suspension forks right there’s a bit of wind B it’s not too crazy but anyway I’m on the Patrick Yonka valway now um so yeah we’ll just uh stick to the black top and we’ll see how we go for um battery usage

Um well so I’m in five yeah so five is kind of where you want to get get into climbing these Hills in fourth gear so uh for a little Cruiser mate 1,200 Buck um with over 400 wat hours of battery capacity 36 volt too so it’s not

A 48 volt that’s going to chew through it real quick yeah we’re happily cruising along there at about 45 46k an hour going downhill nice and smooth 25ks an hour the motor kicks back in level five and it’s quite quite good to get you up still in fourth

Gear and uh in the fifth now not a massive incline this one but Cadence is quite low couldn’t tell you what it is there’s no wh with this uh bike so it doesn’t tell me how much assistance I’m using Lo the Bosch system and uh yeah level five in gear

Four is quite good for the Patrick junk of laway just going up these little climbs it’s not too bad so uh up here we’ve got the old uh repsa what they should do is get him in here getting all the bloody glass off the track because that’s my worst fear pardon my

French so um I’m finding the Hub kind of sits it it keeps the speed up going up these little clins I think the speed a might be a little bit out it’s hard to say 25 on my phone riding with GPS 27 26 on the uh bike but um it keeps it speed

Going up the hill which is good so the thing I find with these battery indicators it’s more or less kind of like a range indicator because it fluctuates so there’s my battery level indicator it’s kind of G back to full again it was fluctuating as

I was climbing so it’s kind of like a range indicator really not like a battery percentage that you you get on the Bosch you’ve also got um blue green and red lights on the battery itself which kind of tell you where the battery’s actually at as

Well so level two is kind of good for starting off with if you don’t want to you know have a bit of a jol but as you get going it’s probably like riding and Eco on the in the Bosch system level one is level one yeah not that much difference between both

All right so it’s kind of weird then all the way up to level three I didn’t notice much difference until I kicked into level four certainly different uh different system to use you’ve got to always be going through your your levels to uh get the assistance you need it’s not Dynamic

Like tour mode or dmtb and you got to remember to Chuck it down in the first gear because uh first gear isn’t that Bloody easy either it’s 36 not 51 teeth so yeah I think to be honest level five is fun level five feels good feels like emtb or

Yeah it probably feels a bit more than T prob like MTB and you’re really only using it for the climbs and then once you’re going down the hills it’s not too bad when you’re on the flat you’re pretty much over 25 anyway so we’ll just uh leave it in that for

Now see how we go so once again fourth gear level five assist and these Patrick Yona vow way yellow way vow way bloody Hills are quite enjoyable on this thing you’re still putting in some effort but um you’re still having fun nice view of the Southern Veals yeah these tires roll really well at 60 PSI you can this 50 K an hour pretty easily on the downhills and hold it as you come up so we’ve done 16ks and the battery level indicators are still on full so it’s kind of like a range thing I

Guess cuz it does fluctuate as you go out the hills it’ll sort of fluctuate down to like three four and three oh level five took off pretty hard then right back down to three so yeah so far so good quite liking this bike it’s um it’s pretty cruisy tires look like

They can handle gravel pretty well but being a hard rigid bike yeah I probably won’t do too much of that unless it’s Ultra Ultra smooth and I won’t be trying to get up that hill like I normally do on the entb either but uh we’ll take it

Around the uh Wetlands here at um Ona pringo and see how we go eh well it’s kind of effortless I’ve got a bit of a head wind and I’m sitting on 2425 well between 24 and 26 whichever one you want to believe in pretty much six

Gear and it doesn’t feel like I’m going this fast so we’re on the gravel and we’re on 60psi and it’s a rigid frame so be interesting to see how it goes uh let’s go into level five it’s not too bad little a bit of air out I’ll probably be

All right but I’ll just keep it in there for now I won’t do any of the crazy stuff not that there’s much of that here anyway but uh you know hard cornering and those little downhill bits and stuff it actually feels reasonably stable in the corners with these tires and it’s

Um rigid and quite bumpy but 25ks an hour 30ks an hour it’s not too bad so yeah so far with this bike what I found on the Patrick jonka or Yona Bellow away is that uh fourth gear level five assist you could easily get up most

Of the hills there around about 23 to 25 K an hour and um on the downhills when you started putting it into the top gear which is gear in number eight um you could easily hit sort of 50 52k an hour and pretty much carry that moment mum up

With the next Hill which was pretty cool um battery level indicator still on full but it fluctuated up and down on the hills and um I’m just on level five here and it’s not fluctuating at all so it probably only really does it when it’s sapping

Energy up the hills um so there’s a battery level indicator on the battery which is literally just a blue green and red which indicate percentages oh yeah she’s bumpy on this stuff 60 PSI in these tires all right but we’re in level five so should be a to get up all this kind

Of stuff no worries without breaking any land speed records yeah so if we let a bit of air out on these tires for this kind of riding probably wouldn’t be too bad but um just want to see how it goes overall as a cruiser and leaving the tire pressures as they are eh

Just uh just spotted some tiny frog mouth mouths in the tree and adult and two two young on so cool took a photo on the phame but I didn’t want to get too close so probably be blurry as so for for gravel tracks like this spike is

Okay oh there’s this back to all looking back to it’s looking a bit low what’s going on there so I just realized the back tire was feeling a bit low and look at that Bloody big ass piece of twig or something in there so luckily I’ve got the puncture repair kit but I’m

Not going to be able to take the bloody tire off the wheel fully but I’m just going to pop it out there and uh hopefully get ourselves out of trouble massive piece of bloody where did I put it you see that the size of it huge right

Got my little puncture patch on let that sit for a little bit changed over the uh handle grips to these ones that sort of lock on which is good change the seed over um put the bottle Mount and pump mount I was nearly not even going to

Bring a puncture aair kit or anything today I thought I’ll just stick to the black top but um luckily I did because got that big bloody stick man Jesus went straight through the tire so these tubes are kind of pretty thin and I don’t even think a

Heavy duty tube would have done much for it either so at the moment I’ve only got a 29er tube or 700 C tube in there because um that’s on the other from the other bike I did get a couple of tubes to go with this but didn’t bring any but

I reckon we’ll be right just using this uh puncture patch here and we should be able to get out of trouble with any luck it’s the first time I’ve about to use this pumping anger right we’ll get out of this gravel spot LED with little Twigs that can punction my

Tires and uh go to the servo at seford pump the rear tire back up stick to the black top and uh see how much further we can go puncture looks like it’s holding up we’ll see how we go when we put a bit more air in it but I reck she’ll be

Right just these little Parts here where you’ve got all these little twigy bits but that’s why boys and girls you always carry spares or something to repair something that breaks especially when you’re far from home and it’s not fun walking back 15ks 20ks back walking that would

Take a while so found a little ding in the rim too I don’t know where that came from I haven’t hit anything hard so maybe that was already there on the bike I didn’t really insect the rims that closely when I bought it but I should be

Able to bend it out it’s only tiny has an impact the uh tress of the rim or uh you know there’s no tire wobble evident or anything like that so it’s not buckled but I think just with the extra weight on the um the back wheel and being

Rigid kind of makes it maybe a little more prone to punctures because there’s no real give as it Go the bumps tell you what this bike is much lighter than the bloody emtb that’s for sure but I probably wouldn’t be able to ride out of this here especially in one

My own fourth gear so this thing any weighs about Bloody 20 kilos if that so I went to the survey put in put in 50 psi 60 just feels a little bit too hard it would roll a little better but feels kind of bit too jarring range wise we’re all doing good

So let’s see if we can get to McLaren Vil eh thing I like about the Hub Drive is you don’t need to worry about when you change gears putting any strand on the Chain because it doesn’t do that I always try and back off a little bit

With the Bosch system just because you know they say it’s all good we do it but just St put outed wear and strain on your chain and cassette crunching through the gears with power on especially in those high power modes right he what have we got going on here the new Underpass looks pretty good I don’t know why they tell you to Dismount cyclist Dismount what are they think we are one of my favorite bits of this Trail coast of IRS yeah are these magp up for today thought they’re almost finished actually what with the tires mate well

I’ve done almost 28ks and um the battery bars are still sitting on five out of five bars battery itself still on Blue so it’s pretty good it’s hardly touched it from what I can tell at this point anyway right so we’re just on 30ks which means it’s a 60k trip back

Probably just less a little bit less because I won’t go through the uh the wetlands but l in the shop reckons about a 60k range so we’ll see how we go with that all the uh all the lights I’ve only just sort of lost one light on the

Um on the meter here so uh yeah not too bad might just uh spin around and head back before I get too cocky and run out of battery so we’ve got a few climbs to tackle on the way back so without being too cocky let’s just see what I end up

With battery wise at the end of this ride which will be close to 60k might even do a little bit extra around home we’ll see how I feel want to get there but um I’m going to leave it in level five and just see how we

Go so we’ve just gone down one bar we’re on four now which is kind of permanent from this point onwards cuz we’re doing over the speed limit up the motor see here we go still on level five kicking when the hills do well it was just fluctuating in between five and four

Bars so yeah it Stu obviously still on teetering on the on the four so uh so far so good what I’ve noticed with this too is you can literally just turn the pedals going forward without engaging power of your actual chain and the motor still goes is pretty cool it’s like an overrun

Thing so you can just literally just turn the pedals over without actually pedaling the motor still kicks in right so we’re at the end of the uh or the start of the Patrick yon and we’ve got four to three bars on level five let’s see if we can get AIM on this battery

Wise still on Blue so that’s good batter’s on Blue which is still in that top percentage just get down to two bars there on the display but that’ll fluctuate so I’ll expect a little bit of battery suckage now cuz we’re do a fair few climbs to

Get back to where we need to go dropping down to two bars but the battery itself still on Blue so to me that’s like in the top 25% still of uh Power Range so I haven’t even hit over to the green yet just di down the one bar then now

We’re climbing up again back to three back to four still dipping down to two dip down to one bar four then it climb back up again it’s kind of on the one bar now which is I guess kind of saying okay well this is the range you’re going

To have if you keep climbing like this continuously but once we get over the peak here we climb back up again still in fourth gear getting a bit of a pedal on must be doing about 4 100 wat or something all right oh we got the troles on the track now good

Day all right back up the three bars already big climb well this is one of the big climbs I’m in uh second gear doing about 19 and 1/2 20K an hour just hit the green light on the battery now pretty happy with that so far done

About 50ks 48 K I do like how this climbs I’m doing about probably 80 RPM Cadence wise bit hard to say um level five see this track is just getting worse of all the bloody lumps and bumps and uh 25ks an hour going uphill that’s pretty good fourth gear 25k an hour

Fourth gear going up a hill not sure on the grade and look back later ride on GPS but pretty happy with that we’re doing 8090 RPM on the Cadence just guessing that right so I’ve just uh noticed we’re on now the red light on the battery so all

That climbing sucked up a little bit so I was debating whether or not to go all the way to Major roading back but we’re sitting on 52 K and quite a bit of elevation so I’ll head home we’ll see how we go there battery wise all right

So this is kind of the last climb I’m thinking this one might maybe get the red light flashing we’ll see oh well not flashing yet I don’t know whether I need to press it first yeah still not flashing yet I can H this is Bumpy here man Jesus I have to

Get myself a suspension seat post I think right so we’ve done 62 K and we just oh it was actually flashing red before just before I pulled in the driveway but now it stopped on red so it’s obviously getting down to the last 25% so there we go the vectric

Cruiser it’s surpassed it’s a claimed range and I would have done a fair bit of elevation today we’ll check that out on the map put it up on the screen for you but uh yeah quite impressed with it to be honest um for a 1,200 Buck bike ebike can’t

Complain and looks cool too I do like these tirs yes anyway wack it on charge I reckon 4 hours so I’ll put the timer on for that we’ll see how we go anyway cheers for watching I’m cooked