Electric Pino STEPS in USA?

[head honcho]

I saw in another post that Larry Black has a Pino with the Shimano Steps electric motor system.  Are they available in the USA now?   Not quite ready for electric assist just yet but like to keep my options open.  

[larry black]

This is our favorite yet and comes apart unlike the Ti

We rented a battery for $50 for a week on our oregon trip, we borrowed one for the Normandy to Paris , but when we got to Frankfort transferring to Croatia.....we were informed our bike was being held in customs.

Unbeknown to us, our mechanic who packed it left the battery on.

After the trip we mailed the key to alur friends at HP near the airport, they drove over and unlocked the battery, and shipped us the case for $125

Costcto Ship battery was almost

$300

We gave them the battery

Live n learn

We didn’t go to jail and we let the employee live

Too bad TSA didn’t catch it in Washington when we departed!

On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 7:51 PM head honcho <hon...@gmail.com> wrote:

I saw in another post that Larry Black has a Pino with the Shimano Steps electric motor system.  Are they available in the USA now?   Not quite ready for electric assist just yet but like to keep my options open.  

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Larry Black
Mt Airy Bicycle
College Park Bicycle
Maryland, USA
www.bike123.com
la...@bike123.com

[Chris Rust]

We tried the STEPs last year and we're disappointed that it is quite noisy compared to our Heinzmann direct drive. The benefit of operating through the gears so you get more assist on hills didn't seem to be that significant, it stalled on a very steep hill that would have stalled the Heinzmann. On less steep hills both worked fine.

The Heinzmann has not been a complete success for us, too many niggling defects including software faults that took years to be fixed. The system just died on the road too often, not what you expect from a highly regarded big German manufacturer.

By buying one of the first Direct Drive systems and installing it ourselves rather than buying a new electric Pino we seem to have become factory testers. We have been ambitious with it, doing long distance multi day tours and Andreas, the very helpful UK importer reckons that the system was never set up or tested for that kind of use.

It's still working more or less ok and we have just ordered a second battery to ensure we can get home, but we were seriously looking for a replacement and disappointed that STEPs seemed to be a step back. Who wants to ride a bike that whines?

On Wed, 21 Mar 2018, 23:51 head honcho, <hon...@gmail.com> wrote:

I saw in another post that Larry Black has a Pino with the Shimano Steps electric motor system.  Are they available in the USA now?   Not quite ready for electric assist just yet but like to keep my options open.  

[ru...@tandems.co.uk]

Hase have upgraded their Pino Steps model for 2018 to provide a lower gear range, this has resolved the problem of it stalling on a steep hill, it's now an 11 speed system.

All mid engine systems make a noise, because they are running through the gears.

Ruth - JD tandems