Not to put words in the guys mouth but I will try and answer a few of your questions. First of all in his post he states that a friend has the kit which is how he can judge the kits performance and I have spoken to this person. Secondly, his statement about not pulling hills is misinterpreted or perhaps unclear. The shift kit does make it so you can climb hills and climb them faster and with more power than with stock gearing. However, these engines in stock form only put out so much horsepower so although you can climb hills you could have never done before it won't be at a very high speed - but certainly above 12 mph! For example Pablo and I both live in quite hilly areas. We both just buzz up the BIG hills well over 20 mph. Again - the engine just doesn't have enough horsepower to go 30+ mph up steep hills but with just a few easy mods as we well know, more speed is available. Some people to maintain a higher speed climbing hills without getting a more powerful engine or modifying the engine, would like to be able pedal assist the bike in any gear at any speed. As he points out due to the arrangement of the gears and the tendency to drop into lower gears to keep the RPM's up, it is difficult to pedal fast enough to assist the engine unless you are good at shifting to a higher gear than one would expect on a hill. So it is more about increasing engine horse power with human power than a gearing issue. We are currently working on altering the arrangement of the gears to allow easier pedal assist but since we have only had 1% of our customers request this it is not something we will integrate into the kit but may be made available as an aftermarket or option. Most people just love torquing up hills in lower gears and not having to pedal at all.
