This review was published in February 2004. The Bliss has long since disappeared, and electric bikes have changed a great deal. Interesting historical item though!
Sooner or later, someone will produce a practical folding electric bike. Unfortunately, the Bliss isn’t it, but intriguingly, we think this dog’s-breakfast of a machine points the way to the future.

The Bliss

The Bliss is a dumpy little aluminium 305mm (16″) wheeled folding bike with a central frame hinge, and fold- down bars, producing a relatively compact folded package.Whatever its dynamic qualities, (or lack thereof), it’s a cute-looking little machine, sold – rather absurdly – in City,Touring and Extreme (ie, off-road) versions. Unusually, it features full suspension and a relatively state-of-the-art electric drive system. At 22.9kg (50lb) it’s extremely heavy by folding bike standards, but a clear leader amongst folding electric bikes, which just goes to show how impractical these machines still are.

With a height range of 64cm – 98cm, the standard saddle stem (there are alternatives, apparently) provides a reasonable adjustment range, and thanks to a rigid alloy frame, the front end of the bike is quite solid. Unfortunately, the handlebar stem is tall and flexible, an effect made worse on our sample by a poorly-machined and wobbly hinge.

For these reasons, you wouldn’t want to pull on the bars, so gears are important.The Bliss has gears, but the 6-speed Shimano SIS derailleur is the sort of dodgy equipment fitted to cheapo children’s bikes, so most eight-year-olds would sneer at the 29″-58″ ratios.That’s neither low enough nor high enough to make any sort of sensible progress. Fortunately, power-assistance lends a hand up hill, but the motor is geared to give a top whack of only 11mph, and with a 58″ top gear, human power tops out soon after.Yes, 14mph is attainable, but 12mph is more realistic. Incidentally, one Bliss owner has fitted a slightly more realistic Sachs 13-21 tooth gear set (with some machining), giving a 62″ top gear – a small increase, but a transformation in terms of practicality.

Rolling resistance is so poor that higher gearing doesn’t give the benefit one would expect. A combination of wide, squidgy 16”x1.95” low-pressure tyres, tight bearings, wonky rims (causing binding brakes), and a strange friction-box movement sensor on the crank, combined to give a non-result on our test hill. In other words, it failed to complete the descent, the first bicycle ever to fail.

Looking rather desperately for the positive, the rack looks quite solid, and the dinky front suspension forks work rather well, although without damping, so watch out for motion- sickness. On the other hand, the rear suspension is virtually immovable, and the width of the brutish rear frame forces you to ride with a bow-legged gate. Suspension is largely unnecessary anyway, because the squidgy tyres wallow cheerfully through most road shocks.They’re rated at 35psi, but 36- spoke, deep section rims mean it’s a bit of a wrestling match getting air into them.

Folding

We won’t dwell overlong on folding, because it’s a dismal affair.With the saddle stem removed and plonked in the middle, the Bliss makes a package of around 52cm wide, 57cm tall, and 75cm long. Much of the width is caused by the handlebars and suspension forks failing to come together.

Given the short wheelbase (yes, it’s prone to wheelies in the lower gears), it hardly seems worth folding the Bliss at all. Any other grumbles? Well, the VP112 folding pedals are years out of date and positively dangerous, and there’s no securing strap, so this ungainly 22 litre (7.8 cubic foot) package has to be held together as you heave it into a car boot, for example.

Get the feeling we don’t like it? The problem is that we know folding bikes rather well, and this simply isn’t a good folding bike.The Bliss appears to be designed in China to appeal to overweight overly- wealthy Westerners who want something to chuck in the car boot – all shiny alloy and go- faster coil springs, but a functional disaster area. If you have very low expectations of folders (or electric bikes, for that matter), you might be happy with something like this, but if you’ve ridden something better, you’ll be extremely disappointed.

…If you have very low expectations… you might be happy with something like this…

The Drive System

This is the neat bit.The brushless DC motor measures only 130mm in diameter, and 100mm in width. So if the engineers at Pashley, Brompton or Dahon are reading, yes, this sort of thing could be squeezed into the front wheel of your folding bikes. At a rated output of 180 watts, it’s not particularly powerful, but the peak power of 288 watts at 8mph is useful enough, and combined with the low gearing, gives the Bliss a capacity to climb just about anything, albeit at a fairly sedate speed. The motor doesn’t so much buzz or whine, as emit a pleasantly high-tech harmonic, just like state-of-the-art Millennial machines are supposed to do.

Speed control is switchable to avoid the legislative morass. In ‘pedelec’ mode the bike cranks gently up to full power when you pedal, but the ‘e-bike’ mode is much better, providing full control via a sensitive and responsive twistgrip throttle. As is so often the case, we tested the pedelec mode and never used it again, so if we were buying the bike, we’d dump the friction box straight in the bin, Euro- regs or no Euro-regs.

Elsewhere, the battery box is claimed to contain a Nickel-Metal Hydride pack of 192Wh, 216Wh, 240Wh, or 312Wh, depending who you believe. Our test equipment suggests a true figure of 170Wh or even less, making the claims look a bit naughty.With a range of 11 miles at a rather lethargic 10mph, overall fuel consumption (including charger losses) comes out at 19 watts/mile. That’s one of the worst figures we’ve seen, but it’s probably not the fault of the motor – most of those watts are being absorbed by the tyres, the wonky wobbly bits, the see-sawing suspension and so on. If pedalling isn’t your style, the Bliss will motor for about seven miles, provided you keep clear of hills (it won’t quite climb a 10% gradient). We should point out that the manufacturer claims the bike will climb a 10% gradient without assistance, and run for 20 to 30 miles. These claims are clearly as inaccurate as the battery capacity.

The battery includes a multi-LED fuel gauge, but you can’t see it when on the move, and it’s pretty useless anyway, zipping up and down the scale according to throttle position. When stationary, it gives some useful data – the 1st light goes out at three miles, the 2nd at 4.5, third at 5.7 and forth at nine miles. As the battery conks out two miles down the road, the remaining half dozen LEDs are superfluous. The good news is that the battery weighs only 3.8kg (8lb 6oz), and a full charge takes less than three hours, after which the charger maintains a safe ‘trickle’ charge.

If you’re thinking of buying any electric bike, always test ride it with the power off for at least a kilometre to make sure you can get home with a flat battery. Riding unassisted, you realise just how unpleasant the Bliss really is – pedalling is a bit like treading treacle.

The way Forward…

Now, we must apply a bit of imagination. Let’s take an ordinary Brompton or Dahon, costing £250-£500. As standard, the bike might weigh 11kg or so, and be capable of a good 15mph cruise on the flat and reasonable progress in mildly hilly country. It’s a good compact folding bike, but not really up to 600 foot ascents.

Now factor in a decent NiMH battery pack, Bliss-style brushless motor and a few other bits, and you have a bike weighing about 17kg, that folds well, nips along at 15mph on the flat, but can also climb gradients of 10% with relative ease, and much steeper hills for short periods. Bring all these elements together and you’d have a viable machine.

Conclusion

We’re told that the Bliss is selling well to motorists evading the congestion charge. That’s great news, of course, but we still think it’s a poor purchase. Electric bikes dwell in a fairly well defined viability envelope – step outside it and they cease to serve any purpose.The best are light enough, free-running enough and efficient enough to thoroughly outclass their non-powered equivalents, but the Bliss simply cannot compete with a human-powered folding bike. In other words, you really would be better off buying a conventional Dahon (a third of the price) or a Brompton (anything up to the same price, but faster, lighter and a sheer delight to ride).

The Bliss costs £700, and to be perfectly honest, we wouldn’t recommend buying one if it cost half that. If you can live without the fold, the far superior Giant Lafree costs about the same to run, because it goes further and faster on a charge. Are there any better electric folders around? In a word, no, because most of the alternatives are heavier and even cruder. If you really want one, go for a Heinzmann-powered Fold-it or Brompton.This option is expensive, but you’ll have a proper folding bike with decent equipment and a near 20-mile assisted range.

Specification

Bliss £699
Weight Bicycle 19.1kg (42lb) Battery 3.8kg (8lb) Total 22.9kg (50lb)
Gears Shimano SIS 6-spd
Ratios 29″ -58″
Batteries Nickel Metal-Hydride
Estimated Capacity 170Wh
Maximum Range Pedelec 11 miles Motor-only 7 miles
Fuel Consumption Pedelec 19Wh/mile Motor-only 30Wh/mile
Full charge 21/2 hours
Running costs 7.5p per mile
UK distributor Bliss Bikes tel 0870 241 8446 web www.blissbikes.co.uk mail sales@blissbikes.co.uk