Big brand vs lesser known?!

[Fluxing83]

Thanks in advance! I have a budget of between £1800 and £3000 on the cycle scheme and I’ve been looking for months at possible ebike options! I am swaying between something like a Big Game Bike/Radbike type rear hub or spending more on a touring cube of some description. I’ll be commuting 15 miles each way (or jumping on the train leaving about 2 miles each end).
My main question is - should I spend £1000 more for a cube crank drive or go for something cheaper with a hub drive? I am tempted by the throttle options of hub drive ebikes. Are the less well known brands as reliable and powerful in people experience?

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[Bikes4two]

Hi @egroover - thanks for you comments - anecdotally it is often the case that providing you change the chain when needed (at 0.7 or earlier), you'll get 3 chains to one cassette, so maybe save yourself some money? (And 3 cassettes to one set of chainrings).

You'll soon know if the cassette (or chain rings) are worn out as when you fit a new chain, the chain 'skips' the worn sprocket/chain ring teeth.

And some poo-poo the chainwear gauges - I've used a Park Tool for the past 15 years and have no reason to doubt it's accuracy (as in I change at the .75 point and my cassettes seem to last for ever as do the chain rings)

 

[guerney]

I can compare before mid-drive conversion to after - my chains last about half as long, I replace them at 0.7... after which they skip for a short time till they wear into the cassette, which is worth waiting for and a good tip from @georgehenry And @Nealh 's suggestion of using Hypoid 90 was also very useful, therefore patience and superior chain lube sorted out the initial slipping, after fitting a new chain to my old cassette. Thanks to both

Changing cassettes and chains more often, is no big expense. The upsides are well worth it IMHO

 

[Woosh]

View attachment 48593

On your chart, the blue plot (3m/s) seems surprisingly good. It causes little wear up to 125N compared to 0.8m/s and 0.2m/s. Then the wear goes above the other two as predicted.
Do you have an explanation for that?

 

[saneagle]

On your chart, the blue plot (3m/s) seems surprisingly good. It causes little wear up to 125N compared to 0.8m/s and 0.2m/s. Then the wear goes above the other two as predicted.
Do you have an explanation for that?

Centrifugal force becomes more significant as load decreases. Centrifugal force increases with the square of chain speed and has not much effect at 0.2m/s. At a fixed speed the centifugal effect is constant and slightly negative on wear so the graph is similar to Y=mX -C. C is very small at 0.2 m/s and very much larger at 3m/s.

Also measurement errors are proportionally larger when the rate of wear is small, so absolute values at the bottom left are not trusworthy but are good for comparison with higher values.

 

[Bonzo Banana]

Chain wear - I see the points you make and no arguments there, but at the end of the day I've got 3700km out of my chain (I'll probably change it at 4000km to be on the safe side). It could be that if I'd had that same chain on an unassisted bike, I'd have got 7000km out of it, who knows?

Clearly a hub motor will give less drivetrain wear, especially if used in whole or in part for ghost peddling.

The point I wanted to get across is that drivetrain wear is often quoted as a bit of a no-no for going for a mid drive but the wear is a small additional cost for those wanting torque assist power in a mid drive versus the alternative hub drive systems.

I don't seem to be as good with words as I used to be so I'll put my argument another way:

• let's say in my younger days I used to put 100w power through my drivetrain on my unassisted bike but now that I'm older, it's only 50w
• So I buy a mid drive bike/motor (TSDZ2 kit in my case) to make up the difference so I can get back to riding as I used to
• So 50w from me and 50w from the motor
• The above is pretty much me and the way I use my ebike and is probably why I have the experience whereby drivetrain/chain wear seems no different to my unassisted days.
• Of course, as is rightly said above, if the ebike is now by virtue of the motor being driven harder than the unassisted bike was, then drivetrain wear will be proportionaly increased, but not excessively so as maybe implied by the way some comment about mid drive drivetrain wear.
• And of course the first time cyclist (or someone coming back to cycling after a long break) and taking on a mid drive ebike, won't have anything to compare with anyway.

Obviously price is a huge factor. I've seen forum postings where someone bought two 11 speed Connex ebike chains for their mid-drive ebike and that was £120 for both. They were serious off-roaders and that is quite an investment in chains. You see the cheap and nasty £300-400 ebikes and they have chains I have never heard of that probably sell on aliexpress for $2. The importer knows the drivetrain will be under less load due to the hub motor and they simply have a very low budget for parts so they fit the cheapest option the factory in Asia offers. Even a basic KMC 7 speed chain would stretch their budget. Looking on alibaba you get basic 7 speed chains for about 70p factory door price. So probably an order for 200-500 cheap ebikes probably pays about that for the chain. Of course when you replace the chain later with a decent chain like KMC it lasts 3-5x as long and even that basic chain may last the 3-5 years of the ebike's life before the battery is toast anyway. It's down to how many hills, weight of rider, how much assistance the rider uses etc. You can fit pretty much garbage drivetrain components to a hub motor ebike and get away it because they get a relatively easy life mostly. I mean when you get a ebike selling for around £400 like these basic 20" wheel folding ebikes you know there is no budget for a decent chain, freewheel or even decent bearings in the bottom bracket, headset or wheels when you have whole ebike motor system and battery to pay for.

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