Ok so i went and demo’d a legal ebike today from a local shop. My first time on an ebike, it really was not the best bike to compare to my carbon SS but did give me a feel for how controls work and what it can do. It was a hard tail Cube mtb mid motor with full knobbly tyres.
I rode my current commute 7.5mile commute in both directions. I only cut about 10% off the journey time but doing both there snd back so 15miles in total felt about as tiring as normally doing one leg. Obviously the hills were where i mostly noticed the help, it was certainly an experience going up at 15mph with hardly any effort. Downhill has fine, bowling along and as you can imagine the flats were terrible, hitting the 15mph limit after a few pedal strokes then hitting the wall that was a heavy knobbly mtb on the road....it was harder to ride on the flat than up the hills.
So a few questions to translate this into how i might set up an ebike for my needs.
The motor seemed to cut off dead at 15mph no feathering out, i assume this a software set limit for the legalities. What happens with a diy q100c or q128c when it reaches its max speed, does it cut out or feather out.
I really did not need as much help as i was given on hills, it was fun in turbo mode but not necessary, if i ran a less powerful motor like q100c would that be like going up hill in eco mode on a q128c
This thing was mid motor, i am not sure i either liked or disliked the ‘feel’ of the power. Will a hub motor feel different
I keep jumping back and forth between q100c and q128c in my mind (i may well buy both as the cost of the motor is relatively small), the weight and physical size saving of the q100c is a big draw. I understand that both 36v 201rpm versions can be overvolted to 48v which would see an improvement in top speed, can they reach the same top speed? 20-25mph? i didnt follow the 260rpm bit is that on q128c only?
I used around a quarter of the 400? battery on this demo bike, i did lots of the hills on turbo mode for fun but i guess most of the flat bits i was doing 18-20mph on so would not have been using power. With a motor capable of 20-25mph i guess i would have been using more juice on the flats, but then i didnt need to use as much on the hills as i did just for fun. Batterywise i was looking at the 10 or 11.6 amphr one on BMS battery, does that sound feasible for max 40miles (most likey 35miles)
The 48v dolphin battery can come with 20a controller inside, is this a good idea (certainly neater), is it the same as the kt ones often recommended
Anyway, an interesting day