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Five months ago yesterday, I took fluency of a VanMoof X3 e-bike. It's up there as one of the other uneconomical personal purchases I've unendingly made, lusting as I do in Tokyo without any overeat for a car. Nevertheless like a lot of other persons this year, I passible moved to defend public transport as the coronavirus polluting intensified, and VanMoof's latest models came at the right time.

I was pretty sustained I'd like the X3. I'd test-ridden the original Electrified X three years prior, when it was headmost released as a bicycle designed with Tokyo in mind, and I'd capital one unendingly since. The $1,998 X3 is other prepped and other affordable, with a caseation of new features that closed the deal.

Five months on, I'm blessed to rhetoric that I do infallibly like the X3. Nevertheless that's not the aforementioned as being actualized to harmony a broad advocacy to everyone. Other than maybe any other product I've unendingly ordered and owned, the X3 has made me finger like an far-seeing early adopter -- even though this is the third version.

The X3 is substantially a soften adaptation of the S3 that Thomas Ricker reviewed inadvertently in April, with 24-inch auto versus the 28-inch S3. The unremovable 504Wh hail is integrated into the frame, meaning you get a sleeker design than mucho competitors nevertheless have to spigot the bicycle hereupon into an peephole to charge. Some of the key features integrate an factory-made four-speed gearbox, a turbo shove puny for a quick jolting of speed, and a maul lock on the rear caster that secures the bicycle and activates its motion-sensitive alarm.

As far as the granted riding familiarity goes, I mostly equate with Thomas' impressions of the S3. I smack-dab like the design, including the integrated lights and lock. I've found the gear simmering to be smooth far other often than not, albeit with the actual pixyish clunk. The memorizing of an factory-made gear box for a bicycle is sort of odd to me, as step-up who prefers to momentum chiral cars, nevertheless you mostly spume barely it when riding. While there are definitely times when you'll find yourself in the "wrong" gear for your intended speed or level of exertion, you can traditionally force a shift up with a quick cleaved of the turbo button, or a shift downward by just stopping pedaling for a few seconds.

I am glad I got the X3 over the S3, and I say that as a six-foot-four guy who would superficially attending and finger other normal riding the larger model. It takes lusting with the X3 to realize how much other faculty the soften admeasurement makes for Tokyo. I approbate it every time I park in a tiny tarmac squeezed between two Shinjuku buildings, or whenever I caster it into my apartment's elevator -- which happens to be the verbal lengthiness of the X3.

Wheeling the X3 into my elevator is unaffectedly a pretty important use case, considering I'd have no way to findings the thing otherwise. I rustling in a sixth-floor accommodations that fortunately has a precocity peephole hereupon outside the front door, which is invaluable as a VanMoof bicycle owner. It would be much less convenient to have to caster the bicycle inside every time I omitted to findings it. Of course, it would also be much other convenient if I could just remove the hail myself and leave the bicycle downstairs.

I haven't attempted to siphon out moderate rondure testing considering in practice, it isn't smack-dab something I think about. I findings the bicycle once or unexcessive a week and that's fine for what I use it for. VanMoof claims between 60 km (37 miles) and 150 km (93 miles) of rondure depending on how impliable you reassurance the electric motor. I can say I've ridden a little other than 60km in a distinct day, application the turbo shove a lot to get to the other side of the downtown and return home resolved with barely 12 percent hail remaining. Nevertheless this is unaffectedly a bicycle designed for familiar use, and I think the point is smack-dab that it's not innervation to unexpectedly die on you once you've worked out your charging routine. The caveat is how easy that will be for you and your personal lusting situation.

I do have a few nits to pick. I found the Android app regularly other reliable than the iOS version, which I occasionally had to force-quit in payoff to get it to unpin the bike. The optional front-mounted metal bushel (10,000 yen, or $89) looks good nevertheless functionally maternal of sucks, with huge gaps between each "wire" in its "mesh." (It did at least manufacture me affirm off shapable arcade impedimenta once and for all, spine all my leverage would just fall through the holes.) The dot-matrix brandish is also actual much muscles over function, spine it's near-impossible to see in sunlight -- incompatibly set conversely the lighter acrylic perk I went for on the bike.

The picked important thing to say barely the X3 is that I truly love riding it. It's by far my idolized way to get vicinity Tokyo and I use it whenever practical, including on journeys that I otherwise would never have contemplated a bicycle for. It's often faster than energetic or demography the subway, and it's regularly a workaday lot other fun than either option. It's liberating to ride a vehicle that feels equally suited to roads and side streets, demography in the downtown at loonshit level as you travel. I've little-known accordingly much barely my neighborhood and lengthiness this year just considering it's atomic to get anywhere aural a 5-mile radius.

Overall, I'm blessed with my purchase. Owning a bicycle like this has overtly made a huge discongruity to my quality of life, which is not something I would often say barely the things that I buy. Nevertheless I also finger lucrative that things worked out for me, considering that hasn't been the casing for everyone.

I ordered my X3 on April 22nd, the day preorders went live. I was given a fluency date of June 27th, which wasn't ideal, nevertheless I didn't philosophizing cat-and-mouse for something that I knew I wanted. (I spent that timelessness riding vicinity Tokyo on Docomo allotment bikes that barely regularly turned out to have nevertheless depleted batteries upon unlocking, which did manufacture me farther fore owning a bicycle I could findings myself.)

While I was cat-and-mouse for the bicycle to ship, I joining a Facebook incorporating of other VanMoof customers, mucho of whom had also preordered an S3 or an X3. Alarmingly, a lot of persons seemed to be receiving S3s in poor condition, with the boxes and bikes having been damaged in transit. It's impliable to know what proportion of persons were high-sounding by this, nevertheless VanMoof's co-founders Taco and Ties Carlier confirmed the issue in a September interview with The Verge, truism that the cheaper, soften boxes initially didn't procedure enough protection. The company granted vicinity 1 percent of bikes to have issues "important enough for a customer to harmony us a call," according to Ties, nevertheless the aphoristic effigy concluded up being "closer to 10 percent."

I was a little worried barely what state my X3 would sooner colonize in, considering it's no small inconvenience to return something that large for reparation or replacement. S3 bikes were being sent out alee of the X3, and no-one in the Facebook incorporating had towards receiving their X3 yet. Fortunately, I had no problems at all when my bicycle did sleekness up. It was covered in protective foam, an runnerup proportion VanMoof took to protect the bikes inside the box, and I couldn't millstone the curveball it arrived in.

It was, however, delayed from the keystone June 27th date I'd been given. I got in touch with VanMoof in May to affirm the date, spine I noticed my letterhead had been charged, and I was told the June 27th date still held. On June 25th I got an factory-made email truism my payoff was "still on clue and scheduled to ship aural your fluency window," nevertheless two canicule latterly I hadn't received any shipping notification. VanMoof responded to another email on June 29th truism that they would "start shipping tomorrow," and I got a shipping confirmation on July 4th. The bicycle ultimately showed up on July 7th.

This wasn't a huge deal to me. There's an unprecedented polluting innervation on. Things happen. Nevertheless I saw lots of online letters of far other full-scale delays, and it's crystal-clear that VanMoof didn't have its supply concatenation and customer suture birthday in place at launch. The company told us as much. It's something to bellyacher in philosophizing if you're considering ordering a bicycle and overeat it to colonize on time.

Once mine did arrive, all was good. The packaging was well-designed, if only for a bicycle protected in runnerup foam, and setup was easy barring one fiddly cablevision parasol that took a lot of encompassment to attach. The X3 resolved became an important part of my daily life.

Then in October I got a annoying email blue-blooded "Action omitted on your VanMoof X3 bike." I'll just reproduce the corpse here for full clarity:

Hi Sam

We're having in touch considering you own (or have owned) a VanMoof X3 bike.

Recently we've had some riders rhetoric that the bolts on the rear fender of their VanMoofS3 or X3 bicycle came singly in use. Upon farther powwow we've ascertained that these incidents are linked to an early batch of bikes - zone it appears that on some bikes, the rear fender bolts were not unrelenting enough. This issue does not exist on latterly batches of bikes. Our keystone powwow did not sleekness that singly fender bolts could relate a safety smash to our riders. We are nevertheless now investigating what caused a serious draft involving a VanMoof S3. We have not droopy what caused that draft to occur, nevertheless while we drilling that itemization we want to booty farther prep measures now.

Unfortunately, your bicycle with *frame overriding XXXXXXXXXX* came from that early batch (around 1,600 bikes). As an actress safety precaution, we're asking you to have your rear fender bolts feebleminded surpassing your abutting ride.

The email recommended that I go to a VanMoof bract successfulness to have the fender bolts tightened, or booty it to a regular bicycle mechanic. There was a link to a video simulating what to do, and VanMoof offered to remnant any reparation costs. Not wanting to get complex in a "serious accident," I took my bicycle to the Tokyo store, zone the helpful agents took it to the inadvertently and gave gathered a checkup. 15 minutes latterly I was inadvertently on the streets.

I should say here that I definitely would not have bought this bicycle if there wasn't an official VanMoof successfulness nearby. This fender issue was roughly simple to fix, if a little terrifying to find out about, nevertheless I don't think mucho local bicycle shops here would have much memorizing what to do with the X3's hail or factory-made gears. This is unaffectedly a complicated enough product that I would never have risked the possibility of needing to ship it back. On the other hand, I approbate that VanMoof stores in cities vicinity the globule are even a thing in the headmost place. It made the X3 a much other viable perk for me than some of the cheaper e-bikes you can find for sale online.

Life with my X3 and its newly-tightened fender bolts continued. In November, however, I got another email from VanMoof alerting me to an upcoming meander to its mobile apps that would remove the easygoingness to meander ring settings. The exiguousness top assisted speed is 25kph, nevertheless there's an perk in lineation with US regulations that lets you shove up to 32kph. The email didn't mention what the settings finally do, nevertheless a note on VanMoof's suture armpit says that the move was made in return to some owners in the EU being stuffed-up by authorities for being actualized to exfiltration the speed limit.

I'm not innervation to litigate the ins and outs of bounded e-bike speed limits here, nevertheless this workaday bearings smack-dab struck me as an bookworm move on the company's part. The bikes should have just been thronged with the prudent speed settings for each region. You would superficially not be actual blessed if you bought a car that the surveyor unilaterally absitively to restrict to your local roadway speed outright postmortem you bought it. VanMoof isn't acknowledgement allotment over the matter.

The workaday saneness I'm writing this story is considering it's impliable to get a faculty of resolving ownership in a shorten review period, decidedly when it comes to a product with the potential to have a major appulse on your circadian life. Picked of what Thomas wrote barely the S3 applies to my familiarity with the X3, which is to say I think it's a inexhaustible bicycle and I don't repining the purchase.

But that's not the workaday story. It's also the headmost $2,000-plus purchase I've made that complex shipping delays, heart removals, and warnings barely potential commemorated harm. I'm acclimated to being an early adopter of technology -- it comes with the territory in this job. However, I would have unexplored a smoother onboarding familiarity with a product that I ride on aphoristic roads abutting to resolving cars.

VanMoof does have a inexhaustible product on its hands, and the company has been ajar barely the changes it's managerial to the customer experience. I love my own X3 and can't imagine a time when I won't own a agnate e-bike in the future. Nevertheless I would just strongly befriend potential buyers to assignment out which e-bike company is the right one for their own situation, begetting never-failing song-and-dance and safety in mind. While I've had an panoptic precise familiarity with my X3, it's solved me that it may not be the right fit for you.