“This is a *great* commuter rig with the potential to positively impact your quality of life. I've been commuting on this every day I've gone into the office now since the end of Feb '24 except for a couple days when it was in for a service, and I've found it to be largely bombproof. I was a little worried that three speeds might not give me a short enough ratio to help with the steeper hills in my area, but it's been fine. And the guards mean that puddles and standing water on the road really haven't been an issue.
Because it's a torque assisting motor rather than the sort of cadence-sensing setup that returns the requested level of power regardless of how much effort goes into pedalling, it feels vastly more natural to ride. Cadence-sensing bikes absolutely have their use-cases, but this is a matter of preference and need for each rider. Once you're off and riding it's helpful to think of the three speed hub as being like a more conventional bike's front mech, and the mid-drive motor as somewhat analagous to a rear mech. Altering the motor's assitance level doesn't alter your crank RPM for any given road speed, but it does alter the reward you get from the effort you're putting in at any given cadence. The motor assist cutting out at 25km/h isn't an issue; the nature of a commuter bike means being responsible for the effort required to maintain speeds above 25km/h seems more rewarding than getting up to that speed in the first place.
I've changed a few things over time, just as a matter of personal taste; different pedals, slightly longer stem and some swept-back cruiser-style handlebars, and a nicer bell and a different saddle. But none of the standard equipment was *bad* - this was just to make it more *my* bike.
Lots of folks are skeptical about the belt drive, but I'm a convert. No grease on my pants or hands, and it's quieter than even a really well lubricated and adjusted bicycle chain. I cover the rougly 26km round trip to and from work in my normal street clothes, having taken the same amount of time as if I'd taken the bus to work. On those really cold mornings I've just kept the motor assist at maximum and ridden wearing the same winter coat I've have worn on the bus, plus a pair of gloves.
Honestly the only issue I've had with the bike was that the teeth on the Dayco drive belt started to seperate from the belt itself after about 450km of riding. I noticed the bike was starting to 'skip' sometimes, and initially started to think I had to adjust the hub's gear selector, but when I took a closer look noticed the belt seperation issue. This was a little alarming, but both 99bikes and Velectrix immediately declared this to be a warranty job, and Velectrix were super prompt in identifying a materials problem from a bad batch of belts. They quickly provided a newer design of uprated carbon belt, and also seem to have changed to these new belts on the bikes they've delivered since then. I'm totally prepared to call that a fluke event; these are the same belt manufacturers who make serpentine belts and pulley belts for automotive machinery, and I'm very confident that the Dayco timing belt on our family car deals with greater stresses than the belt on my bike will ever face. I've put another 800km+ on it since and it's been utterly faultless.
The Brunswick mightn't be 'the one bike that can do everything' but it isn't designed to be. It's a tough, honest, and reliable workhorse commuter solution rather than an aspirational racing bike or downhill rig that you'll never really use as marketed. Because those bikes are great at doing those jobs, but are flawed commuter bikes. If you're paying anything more than $8 per day in parking or public transit and have a work commute of less than, say, 15-20km each way? If you get one of these when they're on sale it'll have easily paid for itself in terms of just saved fares in less than two years. And if you drive and pay for parking? The Brunswick becomes a no-brainer from an economic perspective. Even at full price it's less than a year's parking in almost any CBD. Your biggest hassle might be having to buy a trickle charger for your car's battery while you leave it at home. You'll enjoy your commute a whole lot more, it probably won't take any longer to get to and from work, and probably won't feel so guilty about not having as much time as you'd like for exercise!”
“I love the bike but it makes a loud, snapping sound when I'm in 3rd gear (and sometimes 2nd) if I'm pedaling slightly uphill. Taking it in for a service to see if this is fixable.”
“The first bike I received had a fault with the battery not connecting properly and the "E" part of the e-bike didn't work. I now have a replaced bike that works great now and happy with the ride.
On a side note, I would love the ability to exceed 25km and the motor being that little bit more powerful. I'm not exactly sure at what setting the assist level needs to be, to go 80km (which is advertised) in one change but I know it can't go over 80km higher than level 3 assist.... which is unfortunate and slightly misleading.
I'm using it every day and enjoying the ease to work.”
“Almost perfect. The gearbox can make a loud snap or cracking sound if you put heavy load on it. There doesn’t seem to be an option to change the light strobe mode for the headlight too. The bike is nice to ride and comfortable otherwise. Belt drive is excellent for commuting.”
