Before buying the Swift CVT 2.0, my wife and I have non-electric bikes but after a move to an area with a lot of very steep hills with one of the biggest ones at the end of our return trip. My old back injury flared up climbing the hills so I wasn't riding like I used to. A friend suggested an e-bike so I wouldn't have to work as hard on the hills. He let me try his e-bike which had a 500W rear-hub motor and used cadence sensors. On his bike, when trying to navigate a complex turn slowly, full power would suddenly kick in and it felt like the rear wheel was trying to drive over me. However, I really liked the more upright seating position and the boost it gave on hills eliminated irritating my back injury. After some digging I discovered that to get that more natural bicycle feeling I was seeking, I learned I should look to get a mid-drive motor with torque sensors. This would only provide assistance in direct correlation to how hard I was pedalling so it would feel much more natural. A local dealer only carried Specialized and Norco brands that were seriously overpriced for a 250W system but I did like the low maintenance belt drive paired with the CVT system.
In my research, I joined ebike companies' support forums and not only watched how the company responded to clients, but I privately reached out to some clients. Every manufacturer had unhappy clients, but it quickly became obvious that Biktrix stood out as they frequently were going above and beyond even on many requests where clients were unreasonable. I decided to order two of the Swift CVT (1.0) but they had no more large frames in stock. They informed me if I was interested I could pre-order the still unannounced CVT 2.0 model, which I did.
The expected delivery time ended up taking almost 3 times longer than they first estimated. Biktrix was so horrible at communicating this they felt more like scammers than business folks. I almost cancelled twice but we decided to hang in there as I trusted my research.
These finally arrived and are an absolute joy to ride. They feel completely natural where the electric motors quietly assist without getting in the way. When I ride on flat paths, I often have the assist turned to 0 (off) or E (lowest) setting. We had ridden about 100 kms before we even remembered they had a thumb throttle. Speaking of the thumb throttle, I ride with my seat high to accommodate my longer legs, which makes it a bit awkward to get on and get going on a heavier bike. Instead of fiddling with getting my pedals into the right starting position, I now use the throttle to get enough momentum to balance before releasing and then pedalling. No more awkward starts.
The CVT transmission is quiet and easy to use. My only complaint is I instinctively keep turning it the wrong way for the first couple weeks. I never have felt like I have to relearn to ride to accommodate quirks of the motor assist and instead the bike responds as I expect, every time. I'm never dreading the big hill on the way home so I enjoy much longer rides.
As for power, we have one very steep paved path (35% grade for a 50m elevation) that these bikes could not come close to carrying us up on its own power alone. But on regular roads and paths with up to an 18% grade, these bikes are fully capable of carrying my weight with ease entirely on their power.
We did not purchase the second battery so I was worried about range. However, we are getting considerably more range than Biktrix advertised, even when fully loaded with side pannier bags, heavy locks and full water bottles. Keep in mind that other than when climbing a hill, we often have the assist level at the lowest setting and we almost never use the thumb throttle. Even on hills we usually only set it to the 2 or 3 level of assistance. I expect our range is high also because we shift frequently so we don't have to strain ourselves and this means our motor is rarely being strained. Even with all our hills, when I reached 135km, we both still had around 65% battery remaining.
One one trip, we both headed out on a 15.5 km round trip with climbing one big hill at the end (up to 13% grade for 50m elevation) and then a number of very small hills (1-3 meters) along the path. We rode with the lowest level assist, except the final hill on the trip home where we bumped it to level 2-3. We also both had our side pannier bags on although not heavily loaded. We each used only 3% of our battery.
Even though the weight was listed in the specs, the bikes are much heavier than we expected them to be. But at that weight we were also equally surprised that this extra weight didn't seem to be any issue on flat stretches if we had the assist turned off. We definitely noticed the extra weight starting from a stop and when going up hills. My wife really struggles to lift her medium frame size bike, even with the battery removed. This is not something you are going to want to hike up the stairs to your apartm...
