I didnt read any of the previous posts. To be honest i dont care about them at all. I work for the company in Ottawa Ontario that actually assembles CT's bikes, both regular and electric. Yes, they farm that work out to another company if they can. They pay about 7 bucks a bike on peice work basis, the laborer sees 3 of those dollars per bike. An excellent rate of assembly is 8 an hour for regular bikes. The average 18 year old kid that does this job does about 3 an hour. When building electric bikes you get 10 dollars per bike. So, think about how careful we are when we build these. I have an EXCELLENT work ethic, and I will admit i tighten everything and adjust everything as much as needs to be safe and thats it. Thats all im paid to do. If the person buying the bike wants it adjusted, i am happy to help for as long as they want till its perfect for them, but i get paid for that at that point. If you dont ask for the technician to go over it before you take it home your setting yourself up for trouble.
The bikes are kept in piles in corrugated cardboard boxes, generally outside in the garden centers of CT's. CT has this thing where they sell overstock internally to their own stores in auctions, and so a store will sometimes get 100 overstocked bikes just cause its a good deal. They are out there in all winter and summer, in the rain and snow, for up to three of four years, to the point where the boxes are rotting away. Many have rust coming out of the box. The electrics are especially at risk since the batteries are in the box and are lead acid for the most part; they are normally kept inside, but it is definetly not unheard of to find one outside. The warranty on the battery is 30 days. They are generally 24v 10ah batteries. Two 12v 10 ah inside a cheap plastic container and fyi it is molded to the shape of the rear rack and also is brittle in cold canadian winters and will still shatter on a summer day if dropped from waist height. The reason the warranty is so terrible is because the controllers are generally rated for 500w or more out of the batteries which are rated for 2c peak, 1c continuous; they are designed to fail pretty much. Keep in mind that they are also old and have been in box for at least a couple years since they reached Canada, let alone how long they sat in asian storage (yes they are all made in china).
To replace the batteries which all have custom molded cases preventing both their "removal" from the bike as well as keeping you from using anyone elses batteries, CT takes forever, replaces them with ancient shelved batteries of exactly the same quality, and if your out of warranty they are like 300 dollars per battery to replace, while a well stocked CT sells the same 12v 10 ah batts for small vehicles in the store for like 10 bucks a peice.
People who come into CT haven't done their research but they have a bunch of money. They usually want an electric motorcycle without a license, not an e-bike, even if they don't know it. They want to hammer the throttle from a dead stop and accelerate quickly to at least the legal speed and not pedal. When testing these bikes at the store they seem fast and powerful; the reality is that the motors on them are fine, if waaaaay overpriced since they are sold online for about 30 bucks. The thing that will kill you is that you are buying the fuel tank equivalent of a rusty, corroded old fuel tank that is way to small for what you are doing and in fact was originally built for a chainsaw. The other thing is stuff like the hub rim which for the curry style motors needs a left hand freewheel drive sprocket to accept the motor at the back of the bike. These hubs and the freewheel are notoriously terrible; they WILL brake during the lifetime of your battery, and getting replacements is almost impossible. The plate the motor attaches to bends over time too; it is also replaceable once in a blue moon if your friends of the store manager.
Don't do it. Don't buy them. Don't support CT in this trickery when they could be selling Canadians good quality merchandise instead of only keeping their bike section at ALL to compete with Walmart as a super store; that is the truth from the top management of the company who were here overseeing renovation plans for the bank and heron store last august.