Velorati Ace to e-bike review: The rare successor

First of all, I apologize: Most readers ledge Can’t get enough of the latest electric bike from Amsterdam-based Veloreti. But anyone living in the Netherlands, Belgium or Germany will have to shell out €3,299… Well, congratulations because you can buy one of the best e-bikes available at any price and my best buy of the year so far. Favorite ride. ,

I recently reviewed the top-of-the-line (€3,498) VanMoof S5, which I wished had a removable battery, simpler belt drive and smoother automatic shifting. this is what you get Veloretti’s new Ace Two and Step-Thru Ivy Two e-bikes – The “two” refers to their second generation status.

Each new Veloretti includes a 250W mid-drive motor and 540Wh battery from Bafang, a robust carbon CDX belt drive from Gates, MT200 hydraulic disc brakes from Shimano, a front light from Osram and a comfortable saddle from Selle Royale. In other words, Veloretti – a company Transport giant bought by Pon Holdings Late last year – using off-the-shelf parts that most bike shops can replace or repair. This is important because on any high-tech commuter e-bike ridden daily in the sun, rain, and snow, eventually things are guaranteed to go wrong.

So, if you’re a fan of premium e-bikes built with Dutch technology but distrust VanMoof’s history of specialty parts and service issues, you’re going to love the new second generation Ivy and Ace electric bikes from Cross . City rival Veloreti.

Enviolo AutomaticQ The shifter and Enviolo City hub fitted to my Ace to review bike is truly something everyone should experience at least once. It’s a very civilized way to ride a bicycle.

Enviolo – a company also headquartered in Amsterdam – builds its automatic shifter around an internally geared (0.55 – 1.7 / 310 percent ratio range) rear hub, which is why it uses belt drive instead of an oily chain. A cassette full of cog sprockets and derailleur, all of which require regular maintenance. With the Enviolo AutomatiQ, you simply choose the speed at which you want to pedal, and all shifting is done automatically, keeping your cadence the same. And because it’s “stepless,” you’ll never feel its gear ratio change, even under heavy load, but you will often hear the sound of an electromechanical one. purr On top of the almost quiet Bafang motor wedged between the pedals.

I tested the Velorti Ace Two e-bike for about a month and have only two very minor complaints with the overall ride. The powertrain can sometimes – though rarely – feel a bit erratic at very low speeds, which is characterized by a slight disparity in pedal assist. And after riding over some good sized bumps, I felt the motor cut out for about a quarter revolution of the pedals – but that’s not something I’ve been able to recreate, no matter how hard I tried . Most of the time, the ride is smooth and downright comfortable.

In general, the Ace Two provided a good torque-y (65Nm) pedal assist up to 27 km/h (17 mph), slightly above the EU limit of 25 km/h (16 mph) but is within the permitted tolerance.

From a full battery, I managed to ride 51 km (32 mi) in max power mode, with the app saying I had 4 km (2.5 mi) left on the empty battery, a 7 percent reading. Thing is, the Velorty starts reducing power by about 20 percent to preserve battery life and warn you when it’s time to recharge. There’s also a toggle in the app to automatically alert you when the battery is low, which all e-bikes should do. At 7 percent, I was riding with so little assistance that I decided to go ahead and plug in; A total range of 55 km (34 mi) is only slightly less than Veloretti’s lower estimate of 60 km (37 mi).

The user experience is built around a 2.5-inch color display surrounded by four buttons: two next to the left grip and two on the right. From left to right, you have the horn next to the on/off/next button, then minus and plus buttons for scrolling through pedal-assist levels and preferred cycling cadence (more on that later).

Press and hold the plus key, and you’ll see a safety tracking countdown that will alert your emergency contract (defined in the app) of your current location. The alert comes via text message with a link to a website that shows your geolocation, retrieved from your paired telephone. This can be useful in an accident or whenever you feel unsafe. Tracking automatically stops after one hour to ensure your personal privacy.

Both the Ace and Ivy feature integrated front and rear always-on running lights. Pressing and holding the minus button near the right grip turns on the bright Osram front light to better illuminate the way ahead at night. The rear light also serves as an LED brake indicator.

I’m not a fan of the built-in display found on the new Veloretis, but that’s only because I don’t think most people who regularly commute with a bicycle need an integrated display – it’s worth the extra cost And there’s one more thing that can break. It’s very easy to attach your phone to the bike using any cheap mount and turn on your favorite mapping app whenever you need navigation. The new Ace and Ivy’s display packs in all the information it needs four pages All this to show.

The page is a condensed overview menu for a stat nerd; Page two shows your five pedal-assist power levels (zero to “superhero”), speed and remaining range; Page Three shows turn-by-turn navigation that you start with in the app; and page four shows the current tempo setting. The current charge of the battery and pedal-assist power are displayed on all four pages.

To start the e-bike, you long press the second handlebar button from the left – no app required. It boots up in about three seconds, showing the last page used on the display. Importantly, the bike also remembers all your previous settings for pedaling cadence and power assist, which can also be changed in the well-designed app. So if you ride with the same settings every day, you just need to start and ride the bike. The same button that turns on the e-bike also lets you pan progressively through each page on the display.

The navigation built into the Velorati app and bike display is based on Mapbox – a leading tool for e-bikes. In my testing in Amsterdam, it’s been terrible. The directions are wrong or are so slow to update that I miss upcoming turns. I can’t see places in the area that have been around for years, and it looks like the bridge near my house isn’t bikeable (it is!). These are all issues I don’t have with Google Maps or even Apple Maps that make me want to mount my phone right on top of that dedicated display. It’s a shame that Veloretti hasn’t integrated Google Maps into its app like Cowboy did recently.

Pedaling cadence can only be changed with the plus or minus buttons on the handlebar when the built-in display is showing the cadence RPM menu. Otherwise, the same buttons will increase or decrease pedal-assist power. The cadence can be set anywhere from 30 to 120 rpm. In flat Amsterdam, I set the pedals for 50 rpm, which I increase to 65 rpm to ease my quadriceps when hitting a series of semi-vertical dunes by the sea. In normal use I rarely had to adjust it, but it will be different if I’m around a lot of steep hills where the 120rpm setting may be needed.

To be honest, a four-button interface, like a four-page display, all seems a bit much, but I eventually mastered the UX. I wish the horn button were raised a bit so that I could find it quickly by feeling with my left thumb in those moments when I suddenly need to warn a tourist who is blindly coming my bike way. Over time we’ll see how waterproof those custom-made (and easily replaceable) buttons prove to be – a common problem on other e-bikes. And though I’m generally not a fan of e-bike displays, as long as its electronics and cabling are robust enough to avoid causing costly support issues down the road, the mere existence of one can’t be a bad thing. Doesn’t matter.

Despite all my minor criticisms, Veloretti’s Ace Two is one of the best e-bikes I’ve ever ridden. at any price, Impressively, this is only the company’s second generation of electric bikes – while it’s been selling stylish city bikes since 2013, it didn’t start selling electric bikes until 2021. and now it is Pon money Backing the company can only make things better. Still, founder Ferry Zonder told me he wants to keep tight control over geographic distribution to ensure a high level of support.

“We’re not looking to take over the world,” Zonder said. But if Velorati keeps making e-bikes like the Ace Two and Ivy Two that prove to be as useful over time as they were desirable at launch, the world probably won’t give it a choice.

All photography by Thomas Ricker/The Verge