My first ebike attempt

If at first you don’t succeed…

I’ve been ebike curious for a while. After all, I’ve been testing electric motorcycles since 2013 and rode one cross country in 2016. Over the years, I’ve sampled ebikes whenever I’ve had the chance and each time has been a hoot. I enjoy my old-fashioned pedal bikes though and had told myself that I wouldn’t get an ebike until I “needed” one, whatever that means.

But curiosity has gotten the better of me. Last fall, I tried turning one of my bikes into an ebike. Swytch is an ebike conversion kit brand out of London that hit the scene when they launched an Indiegogo campaign in 2017 that raised $500,000. Their appeal was simplicity; you can convert any bike to an ebike with a just a handful of tools and a little time, just pick your wheel size, pick your battery size, add to cart! And instead of a hulking black battery sitting in the frame connected to a lumpy motor by the pedals, the motor was built into the wheel and the battery was a stylish thing that either hung from your handlebars or top tube. Swytch was more expensive than the more “high school science project” options, but there was definitely appeal.

Swytch appeared to be a successful company too, with a glossy website, a lot of product placement on YouTube, and a good social media presence. I had heard some grumblings about customer service issues, but brushing them aside, I placed an order last fall. True to their Indiegogo roots, they sell and fulfill in waves, batching a whole bunch of pre-orders together, producing them, and delivering. If a little waiting would result in an affordable price and support a small upstart brand, I was willing to wait.

And so I ordered in September and waited for a couple of months for when my order was supposed to be fulfilled. The leaves turned red and yellow and orange. And then I waited some more. The leaves fell off the trees. The original fulfillment date came and went. Thanksgiving passed. What followed was months and months of “where is my kit?” emails that went unanswered, then “I want a refund” emails that fell into an AI-managed customer service loop that repeatedly put me at the end of the queue whenever I asked, “Where is my refund?”

Spring came, and just as my refund was being processed, the Swytch kit showed up at my door. I had to run out and tell the delivery person that I was refusing delivery. They took it back, and with all that had transpired, I anxiously awaiting my refund. It finally came.

I later found out that Swytch had been in some deep financial straights last year, leading to staff reductions and the problems that I experienced. I think they’re in a better position now, but not sure if they’re in a good position. It’s a clever product and I hope that they find their way. Caveat emptor and all of that jazz.

The bike path to 2026 is littered with high-buzz ebike brands that suddenly went POOF. See Van Moof, Radpower, Juiced et. al. There is still a lot of flux in the market, with a pricing pressure from super cheap ebikes of dubious quality that get shipped to your door in a giant cardboard box. They may or may not last a year before breaking down, and local bike shops don’t have the parts or the training to work on them. There’s a lot of junk out there that’s going to be fun for a short while, then frustrating for a short while, then a dust collector for a long while, and then landfill for a really long while.

Despite this, sales projections for ebikes continue to climb, outpacing abikes* by a lot. There’s a lot of energy in the market, and now that I’ve got my “high school science project” (no disrespect to high school science, they’re probably doing cooler things than I ever did), let’s dive in.

* abikes – I hate that name that I just made up. Hopefully someone will come up with something better.