I love the S6
Hit 2,500km yesterday as one of the earlier adopters (picked it up Oct ‘25). Going to write an overview of my experience. This turned more into an emotional account rather than an objective matter of fact review, because everything surrounding VM is inherently emotional to me due to the incurred losses and broken bikes after bankruptcy. Don’t ask why I decided to buy the S6 again after that – let’s call it a momentary lapse of judgement. I should seek professional help for that sometime, lol.
I remember feeling really mesmerised by this bike the day I got it. It was just there in my living room and I was looking at it like it was some precious sculpture. It was similar to the feeling you have when you get the newest iPhone. The difference is that the new iPhone feeling fades after a week, but I still feel it for the S6 after 9 months.
Given my history with VanMoof (owned 8 different S3’s and S2’s), I was very apprehensive and sensitive to faults in the beginning. I really, really hoped that they got it right this time. The S6 didn’t immediately give me that trust. The tick sound that the motor produces when engaging really pissed me off for example, just because that’s something that the S3/S2 didn’t do, thus it just didn’t sound right to me. But when I drove a few other S6s and realised that this tick is by design to allow for greater throttle, it wasn’t an issue anymore. Also the fact that the disengaging of the kick-lock is very loud made me feel uncomfortable. We all know how fragile the S3 was engineering wise. But given that the kicklock has worked for all this time now without fault, I’ve really started to believe in the quality of the bike. Where the S3 always felt like a fragile bike to me, the S6 doesn’t at all.
As I kept putting more km’s on it during the winter, my trust grew. And it genuinely rides like nothing else. One highly underrated aspect is the new pedal sensor. It allows for such a smooth and natural experience when cycling. Power delivery is exactly what you want it to be. The S3 is such a terrible bike in comparison because you’re not even cycling at all, and you can’t put pressure on the pedals because of the horrible shifting system (saying this as the biggest S3 apologist ever). So the pedal sensor and reworked gears (they work amazingly too) makes it feel like a real, proper bike again.
If you’re used to an S3 perhaps you’ll think that the S6 is slow, but it’s genuinely far from that. In fact, the S6 is quicker/faster than any other regular e-bike, except for S3’s with 32km/h. If you pedal normally in lvl 4, you’ll cruise with 27km/h easily.
Of course there were some hiccups: one of my grips kind of melted off my handlebar during a heatwave, but it was replaced for free & within 10 min. And the bottom bracket was replaced once because there was a teeny tiny bit of ‘slack’ (?) when pedalling backwards. Nothing impacted functionality and I’ve had zero errors with the motor/computer/battery/gears.
Love this bike! And I’m also really impressed by the partner network, it works really well. After 9 months and extensive experience I feel like I’m qualified to say that this is a well-built bike & definitely better than its competition. I’ve seen some other people having issues and I sympathise with them, but I also believe that no bike can be without faults. We definitely can conclude though that there won’t be a mass recall or breakage event like the S3 had with the gears and socket. Thus, overall, I’m very content with this bike & would recommend it!