Reviews

The bike is not worth of that price. Charging the premium price but with rather cheap components. And riding the half bike is actually like standing to bike the normal bike, which actually hurt the knee a lot, but not as what advertised. Not mentioning you have to use the comparative high gear ratio to maintain the stability (momentum), would that means more hurting your knee on that.

I wonder why there are no back brakes. The design puts the center of gravity in an awkward place and if a very gradual stopping isn't possible, accidents can occur. I took it easy and learned how to ride the Halfbike over a period of time. I got good enough to leave the long driveway and ride at the end of my quiet street. Then one day, I hit the brakes and went right over the handlebars. It was a pretty hard fall and it cooled my enthusiasm. I wanted to try a Halfbike, so I bought one, so I'm not complaining now. But I was asked for a review and so here it is.

Very difficult to drive…don’t see a future with current design

Bike never rode properly. I turns to the right but not to the left. Tried to have spring replaced but didn't help. Only thing that would satisfy me is a full refund. Just seating in the garage, unusable.

Unusable, not possible to assemble the jumble of parts.

I had my chilli red HB3 delivered in October 2021. I love my Halfbike, I really love my Halfbike. It developed a problem changing gears beyond gear no.2. The issue resulted in a false gear position which meant no pedal resistance at all. This is dangerous on a Halfbike, it creates huge instability and could result in a fatality if riding in traffic. I had several email interactions with Halfbike, who were helpful with suggestions, to try to resolve but nothing worked. They eventually said to return the bike to them for their engineers to assess it in January 2022. Because I didn’t keep the original delivery box, they refused to cover return shipping costs from UK. Cost to ship would be approx 20% of the total cost of purchase. They do not tell you to keep your shipping packaging! I can’t trust a company that doesn’t honour it’s 12 month guarantee and costs associated with it. So the learning is: HB3 is a fantastic concept and brilliant when it works, reliability is a significant issue, keep the box, I can’t trust a company that penny pinches when dealing with a significant product safety issue.

Giving this 1 star based on my experience assembling. Assembly videos do not include any voice over (which is frankly just lazy). I understand this is an international product, and I'm not an American who assumes that everyone knows English, but even offering copies of the video with captions in various languages would have been more helpful. The order of the instructions in the written manual also do not correspond with the video, making it difficult to cross-reference the two sources. Additionally, this is NOT a single-person assembly job, unless perhaps you have prior experience assembling bikes. My partner and I are currently nearing 2.5 hours in trying to assemble. We're a good team, but it is really unfortunate I would not have been able to do this by myself (or at least not have done so adequately enough to ensure my safety). The truly frustrating thing is that, with different packaging, Halfbike could have easily sent this product partially assembled, significantly cutting down on the time needed to interpret their shoddy instructions. It's just not fun to spend $700 and then to have to do so much more work. This also wasn't my first choice product, and I am actively questioning whether I should have just paid the extra money to get an Elliptigo, which is not only more popular in my country, but has a much easier assembly process.

Do not like the half bike. Very poor design. Attempting to sell it at a used sports store.

CURVA DE APRENDIZAJE: Buena tarde, disculpen por no escribir pronto. Necesitaba practicar y así, escribir mi experiencia. Espero no se molesten con lo que escribiré. El video de las personas manejando la Halfbike es motivante, sin embargo la realidad acá en la Ciudad de México es “cruel” en calles transitadas por autos, personas, triciclos, bicicletas, “diablos de carga”, es muy difícil; en avenida grande varía, hay pocas avenidas con ciclo vías. El riesgo en las avenidas tanto son los automovilistas, el transporte público y/o privado o peatones distraídos, todos consideran que “la calle es suya”. En ese video no se ve cómo es el inicio: pisar el pedal para impulsarse; cómo dar las vueltas. Bonito video donde la persona en su Halfbike avanza tranquilo, se balancea a la izquierda o a la derecha para dar la vuelta, TODO en un lugar recto. no como lo acabo de escribir en el párrafo anterior. ¿Cómo iniciar? ¿Cómo lograr al pisar “x” pedal, lograr el equilibrio? Como lograr que tu cuerpo, pies, piernas, columna vertebral sincronicen el peso corporal con los pedales. Columna vertebral, vaivén izquierda-derecha. Creo que lo logre, pero inclinando hacia atrás. En una ocasión pedaleando, me incline hacia la izquierda, pero escuche el roce del pedal con el suelo. Acostumbrado a la bici entera, mi instinto “busco” el asiento que auxilia en el impulso. Logre otra vez pedalear, pero no logre equilibrarme, iba de izquierda a derecha. De lo anterior al no lograr la estabilidad y a punto de llegar a una zona verde con obstáculos, frene, consecuencia la caída (acumule 5 caídas). En una sexta vuelta que logre pedalear, observe que frenar leve permite que pueda dar vuelta (aunque no equilibrio). En esa sexta vuelta, note-capte que el equilibrio está en mis piernas y columna al inclinarme hacia atrás lado izquierdo o derecho puedo dar la vuelta, claro si freno leve o un poco. Sin embargo, me parece contradictorio tener el freno al frente (lo que provoco mis caídas y golpes) ¿Por qué no mejor en la parte trasera o frenos adelante y atrás? En otro hecho, también note al pedalear en la calle, escuche como si la cadena “derrapara” como que no entró luego el diente de la estrella en la cadena. Desde esa fecha, martes 13 de julio, no he vuelto a practicar, esto se mezcla que por acá en la CDMX ha estado lloviendo, si en bicicleta es un riesgo, imagínese con la Halfbike. Y para el colmo compre accesorios que sin guía o instructivo, no sé dónde colocarlos en la estructura de la bike. El guardabarros hubiera sido de metal no de plástico, ya se rompieron. Como observan son más pesares que el gusto y deseo de algún día gritar: ¡Wow! De parte de yo: Hugo Rosado Lagunes.

This half bike can be handled ONLY on smooth surfaces. No way you can ride on a dirt road or similar. Marco

I have hesitated to write this because I keep thinking the halfbike will work out for me. I thought that because it has three wheels it would be better for somebody with terrible balance; it is not. The instructions for assembly are by video. For somebody who is not a visual thinker, the steps are not clear. I did not get the brake cable correctly connected because the thumb thingie was not in the right position when I threaded the wire through. Even for someone with great balance who has no trouble assembling it, it does not seem to serve any purpose that could not be better served by a scooter or bike.

So far, I have not been able to ride the Halfbike. It looked so easy on the videos, but obviously is very hard to do. I will keep trying, but might sell the Halfbike soon.

I wish oh as read the 1-star reviews before I bought it. It is just way too difficult to ride. I’ve ridden elliptigo, street strider, memover, and others and I just could never get this to work. I am hoping to return it because the time it took to build it and try it out was within 2 weeks. Waiting to hear back...

Hi, I was extremely excited to get this product. Your video was great and I was counting down the days to get my bike and start riding it. I just was surprised how hard it is to ride. I am athletic and in good shape but this is not something I could ride comfortably in public with cars and people on the road. I wish you gave a disclaimer how hard it was. Unfortunately it now sits collecting dust. I hope you can make a version easier to ride for the general public.

Want to Buy USED HalfBike...kent_mitchell@twc.com or 812-225-0255

I’d ask for a refund if I could. It’s way too hard of a learning curve.

I'm sure this is a really cool way to get around--just not for me. It looked easier than it is, but I am past my prime and it would probably be a better fit if I knew how to skateboard or something like that. If I try this much more, I'm likely to break something :-) Would like to sell mine though--any way to facilitate those kinds of transactions would be of interest. It's brand new for the most part.

Hard to learn to ride than a regular bike.