WAVE 2.0 Electric Bike

I had the opportunity to put a Wave electric bike together for a customer last week. Over All I don't hate the bike, although there are a few things I would do differently building a bike for the same price.

First, I would use a hub motor that is laced inside and outside of the motor hub. WAVE laces it's wheels to the motor from the outside only. The 12ga spokes bend on each other this way where they cross one another.

You can see from the above photo how all the spokes are inserted into the motor from the outside. It would be better, especially when using such large spokes to have them alternating one in, one out. My photo doesent show the extent of the bent spokes due to this lacing. Ideally, they would also use a single or double butted 13/14 spoke for more flex and durability. It took quite a lot of truing just to get the wheel straight and true enough to adjust the rear rim brakes.

The above photo shows the Shimano TZ derailleur. This is probably the cheapest derailleur they could of used on this bike. Sometimes you get lucky with the TZ's, and sometimes you don't. I find that most of them are about impossible to tune nicely. Don't expect smooth quiet shifts with one of these on your bike. Expect to hear KLUNKs when shifting, skipping gears and or riding up on gear without going into gear.

The bike uses a 6 speed freewheel. Not bad, but with such a heavy bike a 7 speed would be nicer. The motor and rims look decent from the outside.

The seat tube has had an extra chunk of metal welded to it to hide the wires. This adds some weight to the bike, but looks nice. Overall the frame and rack appear to be sturdy, although I do have an issue with the BIG hole they drill in the chain stay to run all the wires threw once exiting the extra chunk of aluminum they weld to the seat tube. It's a big chunk of metal, but the hole is 1/2 the size of the tube! I warned the customer to check for cracks in this area along with frayed wires from passing threw the BIG hole.

 The packaging was pretty good, although not as through as other brands. It had some pretty deep dings in the frame and neck from shipping.

Not the greatest welds on this frame. I consider an aluminum weld like this to be a sure sign of the bottom of the barrel in Chinese cheap manufacturing. Many Chinese manufactured brand specific frames have nice welds, but this adds to the cost of the bike.

The battery. I didn't have any time to really check it out, but it does have a Samsung sticker on it. Assuming that they are real Samsung batteries instead of the fakes cheaper Chinese manufactured ebikes use, this would be a positive point for the Wave bike.

Over all would I buy or sell one of these bikes?
 Much better bikes can be had for little more money. For $1200 don't expect to get a nice color LCD display. You'll get the cheap LED display like the one the WAVE 2.0 has. As I mentioned above, you won't get a hand laced wheel with 13/14 double butted spokes. You'll get 12ga, but at least you should get them laced in and out instead of all from the outside. In this price range you should also expect to get nicer welds on the frame. So my answer is no, I would not spend money on a WAVE 2.0 bike.