Yes, a very useful summary of your comparison thankyou (and I read your original review a few weeks back too).
Now, cards on the table:
- I absolutely do not have the depth and breadth of your bike/ebike experience and apart from a brief period of ownership of my wife's hub motor (which I installed a KT controller on which improved the ride from the Pendleton original but at that stage I didn't have the TSDZ2 to do a side by side comparison), I have nil experience of hub motors .
- I fully appreciate that different folks want different ways to use their ebikes and how they have the power delivered - I so happen to want to ride as though I'm on an unassisted bike but with a level of help that assists in a way that is akin to having 'bionic legs' (not my term but one often used to describe the way the TSDZ2 and other torque sensing middrives deliver power in proportion to one's own efforts). Thus at hills I change down gear rather than up the power - I still enjoy a bit of a work-out albeit at a reduced level.
Your experience of the TSDZ2 differs in some respects to mine and iirc from your first review you have yet to try the Open Source Firmware. For instance:
That's strange, I don't experience the power delivery like that at all. The level of assistance from the bike seems to be in direct proportion to my own efforts. I wonder if the torque sensor in your motor is not right. I know on Endless Sphere there is a number of posts talking about 'calibrating' the torque sensor but it's not something I've felt the need to look into but obviously some folk have.
True enough to all of that - one of my TSDZ2 it noticably noisier than the other ones in my 'collection' and it does seem from what you read on ES and here, that some are indeed noisier. Being in the right gear all the time - yes indeed but for my type of riding as in 'like riding an unassisted bike' that suits me fine, but that doesn't suit a lot of ebike riders which is fair enough.
I will at some stage be looking to fit a front hub to our tandem should I ever get around to pumping up the tyres. I can't fit a rear hub as it's a Rohloff IGH and hence both bottom brackets are eccentric, so no mid drive either.
I do wish I could get up to Telford as I'd gladly take you up on your offer (and thanks for that) so I can make an informed choice about which front hub and controller I should go for (fave at the moment is a Bafang G370 or similar with KT controller/display). And finally, I wonder if the OSF on your TSDZ2 would give you a better ride experience although from your obvious preference to hub motors, and I can see why that is the case, faffing with OSF might well not be on your to-do list?