Total Motorcycle Community Forums

I voted: Cool

As I think any Cleveland CycleWerks bike would get quite a bit of attention (good and bad) at any bike night. I haven't seen a CCW in real life so I can't comment on it's quality, fit and finish or value, but at $3000, that's quite inexpensive for something unique. Unique can be a good thing or a bad thing and what I have seen of Chinese bikes, it usually is a bad thing. Chinese bikes just have the worst reputation for build quality and part quality but I'm hoping CCW is different as their attitude and style is quite different. CCW says the following about that:

We are American, we build bikes using American parts, we also build bikes using Chinese parts and Chinese labor and if you do not like it, don’t buy our bikes, we are honest and forthright about our production, beliefes and values. We treat all of our people the way we want to be treated, this is the real American spirit.

About the 2013 Cleveland CycleWerks (CCW) Heist or "Tha Heist". It's not really my thing but it does look neat and thankfully CCW hasn't graphed on large engine covers just to make the engine look bigger than it really is. But overall, it does look quite spindly and sparce and I'd like to see a bit more body work "filler" on it. I've read it makes around 16hp, which for a 250cc is low but for city use shouldn't be an issue and should keep up with most traffic. I've read on their website that their "Ace" bike (same engine) can do wheelies. I think the Heist is one of those grown up "pocket bikes" for a short cruise around the city or just to have fun on. I doubt it would make many rider's only bike but it's fun, light, unqiue and cheap and will deliver great smiles per mile value.

So who knows, maybe CCW will turn out to be the KIA and Hyundai or even the Honda and Suzuki. It wasn't too long ago that KIA and Hyundai cars were horrible and before that Honda and Suzuki were in the same camp. It take about 25+ years for a country to really get it's act together and produce something of quality, maybe China will be that in the future for motocycles.

Till that time, at least in CCW we have another USA motorcycle company and that's a good thing.

Mike

I voted Awesome. I have owned one of these bikes for almost 2 years. It is fast, reliable, goes 85mph and get 70mpg. It's easy to customize, and easy to ride. 5 speed transmission, and lots of power. I don't use the freeway a lot, so speed is not necessary for me. I do take my heist to bike nights, and always get compliments. I have never had an engine problem, and have logged over 15,000 miles on my bike. Can I ride it to Sturgis? No. Can I commute to work daily? Yes. Personally, I don't need a 1200cc bike. I have a Harley, and rarely ride it. Only when the wife wants to come along, which is rare. To each his own, I guess.

I voted fail. Why? Because I own one. Correction: I own a weaver built "marine" heist. I purchased the last one from the dealer for 2900$ who could not get rid of it fast enough! The build quality is mediocre, the welds are terrible, and there are many inherit problems with the design, mostly due to shoddy workmanship and design. I am lucky, considering that I Bought a bike modified as new from weaver, so the power increases were already done, and many of the problems of parts falling off or failing were addressed. What broke within about 200 miles (I say about because the bike measures speed and distance in KMH, not MPH) was the speedometer cable and the cush drive bushings in the rear wheel assembly. Being an ASE certified mechanic, I am able to repair what breaks, but how many riders are? I will say that the earlier poster is correct: It turns heads, and is a show stopper at bike nights. It looks damn good. But no matter how much CCW represents it as an american bike, My title lists it as a chinese manufactured ride. There are many former owners who have had a plethora of issues, all easily searchable on the internet. Oh, when you DO have problems, they will point you to aftermarket "solutions" which are upgrades...That void your warranty, and push the cost thousands over list, and puts them in the same pricepoint as many great new bikes. To get your bike to where mine is, you could own a new 250 CBR, Ninja 250R, Vstar 250, et cetera. I will keep mine because I like problem children and I don't honestly think I could in good conscience sell it to someone, just to have the cush bushings fail and have the rear wheel lock up. BUYER BEWARE! Oh, one more thing... Want neutral? Won't happen on this bike.

I bought a 2010 Heist as my first bike, I was pulled in by the looks and styling, and being a first bike the smaller engine was nice. I had read reviews from other owners glorifying this bike and adoring it, sadly I did not have near the same experience. I almost stopped riding all together due to the frustrations with my bike. From the moment I left the "dealer" the bike died several times on me on a 55mph rode, why you ask? Vapor lock, a HUGE known issue with them once I started to do research. Secondly shifting was nearly impossible up or down, and finding neutral was an absolute nightmare, I was told I would need an "upgrade" to fix that issue, same with the chain it was cheap, needed to buy a better one, along with a pre-vented gas cap too. Problems continued to mount from there as the front forks started to not rebound after hitting a bump in the road, they would simply collapse and not rebound until I tugged up on them. Finally the last straw for me was when the foot pegs rolled off on me at 40mph, they are barely attached, and vibrated right off, so having no rear brake for several miles was awesome. I was very very disappointed with my purchase of 4k plus, my dealer was 75 miles away and barely available at all. The saddest thing is that I had to find out about all the issues on Facebook in their group, facebook people, no recall letters, no dealer calls, nothing. If I hadn't looked for others with issues I never would have realized this was happening to other owners as well. I eventually sold my ride and felt very very guilty but I did not want it and neither did my wife, we happily now own an '07 Harley and a '77 sporty also, none of which have ever had any problems anywhere near these bikes. "The more you know" as they say.

Wow... there were only about 40 votes on here this morning. Tops.

Glad to see some current and former owners show up to put a vote in.

storysunfolding wrote:Wow... there were only about 40 votes on here this morning. Tops.

Glad to see some current and former owners show up to put a vote in.

I think the owners voted fail. The extraordinary number of awesome votes are probably from the manufacturer.

HYPERR wrote:I think the owners voted fail. The extraordinary number of awesome votes are probably from the manufacturer.

I was sorta thinking the same thing. There seems an awful lot of voter turn out compared to the amount of comments left. It always makes me curious when brand-new members show up to vote on out-of-the-ordinary bikes like these. It's possible they're long-time lurking 'guests' who only chose to sign up because a bike they've owned finally came up -- more likely someone on whatever owners forum they belong to on some other site tipped them off that we've got a contest going. Either way, that's a hell of a lot of votes.

This bike is a major fail. The out of the box problems are almost too many to list. From wiring shorts, failed ignitions, brakes glazing prematurely, cush drive and drive chain failures, brake light mounts vibrating to pieces, shift linkage issues and an endless list of upgraded parts they recommend right off the bat to make the bike safe and road worthy. It's not an issue solely of it being from China. The quality is just not present. As others have stated, they have a cool look and a low price but that's about all they offer.

Just registered myself, and I'm wondering: do all their bikes have reliability issues, or is it just this one? I ask because the Ace looks more like my kind of bike, assuming the build quality issues have more to do with a failed attempt at making a factory "chopper" and are not indicative of the manufacturer's overall quality. Scratch that, I guess I meant "tha Ace". Poor literacy must be a stylistic thing now.

I actually only found out about this forum through this posting. I plan on definitely checking out some of the other posted articles on here. A friend mentioned that CCW was putting up a review for the bike they knew I wanted to get rid of so badly and suggested I look into it. Whatever people consider "negative" or "experience" based is absurd. I have done nothing but speak the truth about my experience, and it just so happens that a chunk of customers have had identical issues with their bikes, that to me is evidence of the need for a recall of the bike. Replace the parts that suck with the parts that should have been on their in the first place. I understand that when you buy a 4k bike your expecting some goofy little nuances, but none of the issues I had were funny little things, they all impeded me from enjoying any type of ride on it whatsoever. I finally sold my bike for a mere 1600.00 just so I could have the sigh of relief, only to hear the bike stall about 20ft from the point of sale, awesome.
This isn't about being made in China either, half the crap I own is probably made there or was at some point, but the fact is the base parts are SO cheap and just laughable, just spend the extra cash to make the bike decent enough for average joe to be able to ride without worrying about things falling off, breaking, or burning out.