In 2015 I went to Hull City Cycles. Stu told me the best bike for road use was a hybrid. So he gave me a Volt Alpine mountain bike to test ride. This was a complete pain to ride. He would not give me the Volt Pulse hybrid bike to test ride. He said the battery was on charge and he could not be bothered to use a battery from another bike.
All shops say that a hybrid bike would be best for road use.
So instead of getting the Pulse I ordered a Volt Pulse X. It was a hybrid, it went further and the battery lasted longer. Stu ordered the bike, but the money was paid directly to Volt, Axe & Bottle Court, 70 Newcomen St, London, SE1 1YT.
I got the bike at about 5.05pm. I had to be somewhere so had only ridden the bike for about 25 minutes on that day. The bike was hard to pedal in all power levels. But it was a brand new bike and the sort I had never actually ridden before (except that few minute test ride). So I wanted to let the bike set in and to get used to it for a few days.
After riding the bike for a few days, the bike was very hard to pedal in power level 0. But what do you expect? The motor is not on at all. I tried the power levels of 1, 2 and 3. It was still very hard to pedal in all 3 power levels. Power level 4 was easier, but still a lot harder than it should have been. Power level 5 was the easiest but I still felt resistance. A lot of people say this is ‘like riding in treacle.’
After a few weeks every single power level was a complete pain to ride in. I told Stu at Hull City Cycles. His exact words were “AHA! (yes, he really did shout very loud) I’ve found the problem! Yes I’ve found the problem. Why the bike is so hard to pedal is because the bike is too efficient.”
Seriously!? How can a bike be hard to ride because it’s efficient? I knew I should not have got a bike from Stu at Hull City Cycles. Months before he opened Hull City Cycles, he worked at Bob’s Bikes. I went and said about riding a bike easier. He told me to pump up my suspension to 180psi and my max psi tyres of 65 to about 80psi.
Because of this I asked Volt if they could send the bike to a different shop. They said no!
This was never sorted out. The front light was loose. This was not a fault of the light, but a design fault in the bracket itself. It was designed to move freely. So when I stopped and was level with the left hand kerb, the beam was in the middle of the road. Then the light eventually fell off because Volt damaged a screw when they fitted it.
After 5 months the bike started falling apart. 5 spokes snapped while riding, even at about 5mph on a smooth road. The 6th spoke snapped as the owner of Bob’s Bikes checked the spokes by hand, the same way everybody does. The bottom bracket came loose. The back wheel rim split. The nuts on the back wheel started to come loose while riding the bike. The last time I rode the bike, in 13 minutes the back wheel nuts came loose 3 times. This caused the cones to come loose and bent the disc brake.
I say the rim split, but technically it never. The wheel was about halfway to splitting on the join. I saw a lump on the rim which I’d never seen before and there was not the same thing on the front wheel. Stu at Hull City Cycles said it was just the normal weld. Anyone who looked would have thought the same thing. I did.
But while Stu was telling me it was just the weld and it was normal, he rang Volt and told them. Volt then said they’d send a new wheel. Both Hull City Cycles and Bob’s Bikes replaced the spokes as they snapped. I told Bob’s Bikes about the bottom bracket which he replaced.
I never even thought of respoking any wheel at all. Stu told me he would respoke the full back wheel. A few months afterwards (again, without me even thinking about it) Volt told me they would send out a full set of spokes to respoke the back wheel. While the bike was at Bob’s Bikes being fixed again, Volt rang me being aggressive and just about shouting, saying that I never wanted the new spokes put on. When I told Volt that I never knew anything about it, he said he would “ring back and apologise” if I never said anything about the spoke not being fitted. I actually thought someone might have seen me take the bike to the shop and pretended to be me to try and nick the bike. So they said they didn’t want the spokes, so they could nick the bike.
I rang Bob’s Bikes and he said “Volt only sent 4 silver spokes. I will not fit silver spokes on to wheel with black spokes because customers don’t like it. I said I’d talk to you first. I told Volt that I won’t fit them.” Volt never did ring back. This is when the full wheel was respoked for the second time.
Since the bike was not being sorted out as it should, I went to Trading Standards. They said to have a report done by some bike expert, like a bike shop or someone who really knows about bikes. The person cannot have anything to do with me, Volt, Hull City Cycles or anyone that sells Volt bikes. The report had say what caused the faults on the bike, not what any faults are. And the report was to be paid by the person or company who did actually cause any of the damage to happen. So if Volt never made the bike properly, they paid. If the shops never built or fixed the bike properly then they paid. But if I damaged the bike then I would pay for the report to be done.
Trading Standards said that “Volt have agreed to have the report done by Bob’s Bikes.”
The report said that there was a warped disc brake. The Hull City Cycles owner (at this time Hull City Cycles had shut down) told me there was nothing wrong with the bike at all except for a warped disc. They never replaced it. He said the bike was perfectly safe to ride, even to ride normally on a road. For years I’ve heard bikes shop workers to never ride a bike with any sort of damaged, bent or warped disc since that something could happen and you could get killed.
Since the report on the bike was supposed to say what caused the damage and not what any damage was, this report then was fraudulent in their claims they were right about me damaging the bike. Trading Standards actually accepted the report. When I told them, they didn’t care.
I got the bike back with a warped disc brake and a loose back wheel. It was the cones inside that were loose.
The reason why there are 3 companies is because:
1. Hull City cycles supplied Volt bikes.
2. You pay the money directly to Volt, not the shop.
3. When Hull City Cycles was closed I had to go to Bob’s Bikes.
What actually makes the report on the bike fraudulent is:
1. Trading Standards said it had to be done by someone who has nothing at all to do with me, Volt or Hull City Cycles.
Both Volt and Trading Standards wanted the report done by Bob’s Bikes. Bob’s Bikes sold Volt at that time. Both the owners of Hull City Cycles and Bob’s Bikes are family. I told Trading Standards this weeks before the report was done.
2. The report had to say what caused the damage, not what any damage actually was.
The report said what one piece of damage was and not what actually caused any of it.
Trading Standards accepted this report. And when I told them all of this, they became aggressive and almost shouted at me and told me that I should have another report done by someone else.
So with the two-faced, aggressive Trading Standards not doing their job, I went the small claims court. Which Volt outright insulted me by defamation of character directly to the courts. I still have the written proof! I got letters saying about some things that were being done.
One day I got a letter from the courts saying the case had been struck out. I rang the courts to ask what that meant. They said the case was closed because I did not turn up to the hearing.
THE COURTS NEVER TOLD ME THERE WAS A HEARING!
I went to Citizen’s Advice. They told me to pay £115 to re-open the case. The courts sent the cheque back saying it was more than that. They then sent that cheque back and said another different amount.
When I got to the hearing, I found out it was not to re-open the case. It was only to see if the judge wanted to re-open it.
District judge Beevers then decided to tell me that Volt asked the courts to post-pone the hearing. But they never turned up to that hearing, this hearing and never even said whether they can go to a hearing or not. I had to be there in person. Volt only had to ring up.
Volt even admitted bad manufacturing to the courts. “Volt has said about the damage in almost the exact same words as you did.” Even the way he said it, this is District Judge Beevers even admitting himself that Volt sold me a dangerous bike by saying that.
District Judge Beevers then insulted me!
This is about how much it cost me:
Volt Pulse X: £1,949.00.
Security (fixed to bike and cannot be removed) £30.
Bus fares to and from the bike shop and some others things for the bike £85.
Court costs: About £300-£400
The insult:
“Volt sent us an e-mail asking us to post-pone the hearing, but we did not charge them for the e-mail.”
District Judge Beevers said he will not re-open the case because the bike lasted a reasonable amount of time.
District Judge Beevers even gave me free advise on how to kill myself. “If the wheel nuts come loose, just tighten them up.” Now and again I saw the typist person in the room and he looked at the judge as if he knew that judge knew that I was right but would do his job.
Yes, so with tight wheel nuts that come loose while riding a bike up to 15.5mph, to be safe District Judge Beevers says just tighten the wheel nuts up.
The bike was not worth having at all. So the judge said that the bike, being hard to ride in the first place (which was a ride of about 25 minutes) was a reasonable amount of time for a brand new bike to last.
So District Judge Beevers was outright condoning accidents and suicide. He is also incompetent at his job, does his job with serious misconduct and knows nothing of the things he judges.
I reported District Judge Beevers and told them I was a refund. They said the court hearing was set at a date, so I cannot get my money back. I when I complained about this, they then changed the excuse to that “I cannot have a refund from the courts because that’s how much it costs.”
This is a complete pathetic excuse in which the courts have (by saying this and changing the excuse) that I have the right to have my money back from the court fees. But they still haven’t given me a refund.
All of the damage happened within 5 months.
These are the facts that Volt sold me a dangerous bike:
1. Every single time a spoke snapped it was replaced under warranty.
2. Hull City Cycles took it on himself to respoke the full back wheel under warranty.
3. Volt took it on themselves to have the full back wheel respoked again, under warranty.
4. When the rim split Volt replaced it under warranty.
5. When the bottom bracket came loose it was replaced under warranty.
6. When the light snapped it was replaced under warranty.
7. I went to the Ombudsman Service. They said “We cannot do anything because Volt will not answer us.”
8. Volt said “We’ve started having problems with that model. It will be the heavier battery and the extra torque in the motor that’s causing the damage.
9. This is very important - as above, who caused the damage pays for the report - Volt paid for the report!
VOLT, STILL, WILL NOT GIVE ME MY MONEY BACK!!!