Haibike sdurro full 7 LT - Unboxing and initial experience... and it's overall good!
We ordered our Haibike online, and it was on it's way to us within a day. We're in Oregon, and it shipped from California, so the box was delivered to a nearby FedEx location in 4 days. It normally ships to your house, but our situation dictated needing to pickup at a FedEx store in Oregon.
The bike was well packed. Haibike certainly knows what it is up to in this regard, and I have to say I was impressed. Score 1 for Haibike.
Unpackaging everthing in my garage, it's really simple to assemble. The cabling is all routed, everything is good to go. Just put on the front fork, attach the front wheel, add pedals and put the seat in... then you're in business!
Here you can see the Haibike nearly complete. I've built many abike and swapped many forks on bikes, so it was a breeze. Even if you haven't, it's not that complex of a task. Here's a good video on just what to do.
With the bike nearly complete, a few things caught my eye worth commenting here. While much of the build was legitimate, a few glaring issues stood out. Above, you can see the cable for the speed sensor. It's quite exposed there for snagging on something. I'm not sure it's a huge risk, but I will just say I'm not all that impressed by this form factor.
Another issue I discovered was shortly after plugging in the battery. The crank arms, when rotating around, will contact the plug for the battery. This is RIPE for accidental destruction. Forget your battry is plugged in and wheel along... SNAP! Price quotes for these batteries range dramatically, but the least I've heard is $500. Talk about an expensive vulnerability! Score -1 for Haibike on this aspect.
The last little bit I hadn't captured was the pedals and reflectors. I've already lost the reflectors, because... who cares. The pedals though were surprisingly bearable. If you want to save yourself a few bucks, these would do for most beginners for a while. Kudos to Haibike for not just tossing in some plastic garbage, and for including pedals at all while most people do not.
The seat is also another fairly legitimate piece. It's got good padding and comfort, and is pretty legitimate overall. I'm a big fan, and I imaigne my fiance will be as well.
So here comes the largest blow to this bike, that initially left it's fate uncertain with us. We purchsed the bike in the 40cm frame, IE: Small. My Fiance is 5'4". The seat post that came with the bike looked suspiciously short and... that's because you can't get over 150mm of post insert. Know what that means? It means you will struggle to make ANY never fit a dropper into this bike, as the shorterst dropper I could find upon initial research was 197mm. So that's 50mm sticking out, and 100 of drop. That may not mean a lot to you, but with the bike in front of us with a 125mm dropper and around the rest of those dimension... it was too tall for even me at 5'10".
I contacted Haibike about this issue, and the response was clear:
There are no full suspension bikes that can accept a dropper at full drop... which when you consider the height of users on these bikes, it just doesn't really make sense.
Salvation came in the form of an obscure dropper post, the Brand-X CX 85mm dropper. Brand-X CX Dropper post is a Cyclecross dropper post apparently. I don't know why they need one, I don't care... it's just got 85mm of drop and an ultra short length of 150mm or so. Turns out this dropper fits PERFECTLY, and while 85mm of drop may seem laughable to a male at 5'10"-6'2"... it's everything a 5'4" lady seems to need!