My first impression of Bakcou eBikes was when my good friend and fellow eBike enthusiast invited me to go on a ride with him in the Sierra National Forest near Bass Lake. We started out on a paved road going up moderate climbs for several miles. I was holding my own on a 750W rear hub drive eBike. We then took a ditch bank dirt road towards a local reservoir. This road had several steep inclines. As I was huffing and sweating to get up the hill, my friend who is 13 years my senior was just motoring along like it was flat ground. I thought “wow he’s in great shape”, and when we stopped to rest a bit he began to tell me about his bike.
He had wanted an eBike for hunting he told me, and after much research had decided to go with a Bakcou Mule eBike, due to how well built they are and how powerful the mid-drive motor is! We went for another 12 miles that day on mostly steep dirt roads and that Bakcou was making the steep terrain look easy. I was a sweaty mess and he had to stop to wait on me numerous times. At the end of our ride I asked if I could take his bike for a quick spin, and to my surprise he said “sure go ahead”. Since he has a pretty steep driveway, I decided that would be a good tryout for this bike that was leaving me in the dust all day on my eBike. So down the hill I went, to the main road about a 1/4 mile away and turned around. As I started back I began to pedal up that hill, the bike was in assist 3 and, Oh My Goodness, I could not believe the torque that bicycle had! It pulled like a motorcycle!
The Bakcou Mule Makes an Impression
Getting my Own Bakcou eBike
When I got back up to his house I had a huge smile on my face. He knew that I was in love with that bike. I asked him a lot of questions that day and wrote down things I liked about that bike. Things like the mid drive Motor and the gearing was lower than my bike. Also, the brakes were so much better and it seemed like it was just made for off road use! Well I’ll tell you it took a couple years of looking at those bikes and saving up and researching but I finally found a retailer that sells the bike I wanted (the Bakcou Storm) for less than Bakcou was selling them for! I found eBike Generation online and took advantage of the Black Friday sale and finally pulled the trigger on the Bakcou Storm E-Bike.
The crazy thing is that the day my Bakcou eBike showed up, I couldn’t even help the Fed-Ex driver unload it! It showed up the day after I had a double hernia surgery, which meant I couldn’t build my bike for a week when I was released to normal duty. All I could do was check the outside of the box for any damage (there was none) and watch videos about assembling the Storm from out of the box. Finally after a week of letting my body heal up and much anticipation I was really ready to see the inside of that big box marked Bakcou!
Assembly Process
To prepare I turned on the heater in the garage, got out my razor knife and some tools and opened that big box to see my gleaming new Bakcou Storm packed in nice and securely. I found a nice bonus gift of a super nice hat with the Bakcou logo on it, and the extra 25ah battery after opening up the box. I took my time with a sharp razor knife and opened the box the way the video showed. Following the directions, I was able to unpack and build the bike in less than an hour.
There are Lots of Goodies Inside that Box Marked Bakcou
I found the manual, tools, and all the paperwork right away and was really too excited to do much, but I did put the battery on the charger. After I put on the front wheel and the handle bars, which was easy to do by the way, I checked the tires and aired them up to 20psi. After the rest of the assembly and looking it over, I was ready to go for a ride! But I was suddenly tired from my exertions of assembling the bike, remember about that hernia operation.
First Ride
I decided to only go for a short ride up my neighbors driveway. I first looked the bike over from front to back and checked torque on all visible bolts and fasteners, then installed the battery. It does take a bit of a pop with your palm to get the battery to lock into place securely, they tell you about this in the assembly video. Once it was installed, I turned the battery on and then the bike. The Bafang display was bright and showed all the pertinent information on the bike.
My First Impression: This Bike is Awesome!
After watching several videos the past week I had no trouble setting up the Storm to where I wanted it set. I set the clock and personalized some settings to my liking and after that I set the bike on pedal assist 3 and green or eco mode, gingerly stepped over the bar, and took off. The motor began to pull immediately and it made pedaling this big burly bike a breeze. I went up my neighbor’s driveway about a 1/4 mile then I checked the brakes, they worked like a charm, stopping me and the bike with little effort on the brake levers. The bike was amazing, it went as fast or slow as I wanted up a pretty steep driveway, I only had to push the plus sign on the handlebar control and it went almost faster than I wanted.
I decided I’d had enough for my first ride since surgery and headed home. As I was parking my beautiful new bike in the garage it began to rain, very fitting for a bike named Storm! I was ecstatic after my first ride and couldn’t wait to finish healing and for a nice dry day to ride a lot longer and truly give the Bakcou Storm a real workout. But for now I was super happy with the Storm and have even named her “Thunderbolt”.
