T
Taha Akhawala
US
Review
Review of Priority Bicycles
T
Taha Akhawala
US
Aug 20, 2022
Pros and Cons after 400 miles
I've ridden my current for over 400 miles now so here is my initial review. First to start with things I like about the bike: The battery lasts extremely long, especially if you are only using PAS1 and PAS2. I could easily go 50 miles on PAS1. The 28mph max speed is very helpful when I have to take busy roads with no bike infrastructure. It looks cool enough for a commuter and isn't too heavy to bring up/down stairs even with panniers loaded and a 10lb chain lock. The adjustable stem is really nice for changing how you want to ride. The motor is really powerful and can tackle the 7-9% hills with ease. I got this bike for commuting 25miles round trip to work and it does that exceptionally well. I did add a rack so I could put panniers on it to make it a commuting beast.
Now for the issues I have with the bike starting from the biggest.
1) The creaking straight out of the box. The bike creaks on high torque (e.g. climbing a hill) straight out of the box. I believe this is due to the motor mounting bolts being loose. I had to open the motor cover and regrease and tighten these down to the best of my ability (I don't have a torque wrench) which has fixed most of the creaking. I have had to retighten once so far when the noise reappeared. It seems like many people have this issue and I think Priority should take a look at why these are not being properly tightened before shipping to the customer.
2) The front wheel lost spoke tension very quickly and actually fully taco'd on a simple left turn ~150 miles in. Priority recommends getting the spokes tightened after 100 mi, but they should be more upfront about it instead of hidden away in the manual. Priority was very kind and did send me another front wheel. This one also lost spoke tension quickly but I got it trued at the LBS at 100 miles like recommended and haven't had issues since. The rear wheel has been solid and the LBS said they did not need to even tighten it at ~300 miles in. So make sure to get your spokes retightened because the (likely) machine-tightened spokes come loose very quickly and that's a danger.
3. The pedal is very close to the ground. I've hit the pedal on the ground when pedaling through a corner a few times. You can't really do that on this bike which is a design choice to give it better stability but does come with this downside.
4. Seat is comfortable for upright riding but too much stress on the perineum if you want a more aggressive position. Stock saddles usually don't work for everyone so not too surprising here. Not really sure why the nose is lifted on these; I feel like it would be much better for upright and aggressive styles of riding if the saddle had a flat nose.
Overall, I'm happy with the purchase, I would have given it a 3 but Priority's customer service was amazing in helping resolve the first two problems so I will bump it back up to a four. I'm just hoping I don't have to constantly retorque the motor bolts to get rid of the creaking.
Receipt photo:
Date of experiance: Aug 20, 2022