You can easily get that if you do it yourself, but you have to buy the parts from China, which is no problem. You can get a motor weighing from 1.5 to 2.2 kg and a bottle battery that weighs about 1.5kg, then install them on any aluminium framed road bike. Cost around £400 for the electrics and around £250 for a reasonable road bike.
Orbea Gain e road bike
- Thread starter Inveral
- Start date
Where did that come from? Wisper and Freego have been using the small 2.2kg Aikema motor for years. Now Juicy and others have joined them. How many have failed? I've never heard of a single one. Have you?
I tell a lie. I just checked my records and found a Freego that I had to repair because it fell in a canal. The motor was full of rust as you'd expect from a bike that had been completely immersed, then left for a year before someone decided to get it fixed.
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For the record we first tried Aikema motors nearly four years ago and have had really good response from customers.
Here's a third party review of the motor on hills around Bath...
https://ebiketips.road.cc/content/reviews/electric-city-bikes/juicy-bikes-ticket-1759
agreed. That's what I suggested to vfr400 earlier on.
I have now deleted my posts that are not relevant to this thread - hope others will do the same.
It's probably more like higher power/torque needs a heavier motor.
The weight of their drive + battery is apparently 3.5kg.
It uses a 250W/hr battery and unless they have come up with a way of packing more power per kg into a battery than Bosch that accounts for c.1.3kg (a Bosch 500 is 2.6kg).
So they have 2.2kg left for the drive (and sensors/controller)
The 3d gen Bosch Activeline drive is only 2.9kg (and the Activeplus 3.2kg) so for +1 kg you would get a drive that could boost you up pretty much any hill.
So I'd imagine that competitors will be on the scene soon with a better motor in the same price bracket and the same weight - give or take 1kg.
The weight of their drive + battery is apparently 3.5kg.
It uses a 250W/hr battery and unless they have come up with a way of packing more power per kg into a battery than Bosch that accounts for c.1.3kg (a Bosch 500 is 2.6kg).
So they have 2.2kg left for the drive (and sensors/controller)
The 3d gen Bosch Activeline drive is only 2.9kg (and the Activeplus 3.2kg) so for +1 kg you would get a drive that could boost you up pretty much any hill.
So I'd imagine that competitors will be on the scene soon with a better motor in the same price bracket and the same weight - give or take 1kg.
Like the Cannondale Synapse NEO SE:
https://www.cannondale.com/en/Europe/Bike/ProductDetail?Id=a9095cd2-bda6-4434-be51-1b5e706d1c9f&parentid=undefined
Only just found this, bosch AL+, 500Wh and ~18kg.
Nice find Deno this is getting much closer to what I would like. If it was 12 kg and not 18 I would buy one right now. My guess is that in a few years e-racing bikes will have this kind of spec but a weight or around the 12 kg mark.
I wouldn't hold your breath.
Both motor and battery technologies in general are pretty mature. Its not like these are 1st gen prototypes and have never been designed before. If you want to save weight, then you have to sacrifice things like battery capacity and motor size. Which is exactly what they have already had to do in something like the Orbea Gain.
Its highly unlikely that there are going to be any major weight savings anytime soon, not until some radical battery technology emerges anyway, and it isn't as if that is something that's only just being investigated!
OP has titled this thread Orbea gain, but he was asking about whether it would meet his requirements, so it's very right to discuss the alternatives, especially as Nev is also asking for alternatives to it.
The thread would be very boring if everybody just wrote "badly" to his question, which is the correct answer for his circumstances. He has a dodgy knee, is unfit, 15st, has steep hills and wants to do 50 miles.
He started by saying that all the reviews are from fit regular cyclists and he wanted to know what it would be like for regular unfit guys like him, so there was absolutely no point in saying how fitand light you are and what a great bike it is for you as he already has that from the other reviews that he's read.
Yes, I make no claim that I was trying to reply to the originals posters question. Pretty new here and I saw the Thread " Orbea gain e road bike" and assumed anyone looking for information on this bike would stop and read ? hence my post would belong in this thread. However some of the posts I read (some have been deleted now) seemed to be 'Trade' members arguing the toss about the best motors. I guess I failed to realise that no-one was 'banging their own drum' they all had the original posters best interests at heart. My faith in human nature is restored. 
It's natural that everybody tries to promote their own products and way of thinking. We all do it. But that's why we have a forum and people have the chance to discuss and challenge what's written to firther everyone's knowledge.
An update for interested parties.
The fine weather recently (long overdue) has allowed me to put some miles on my Orbea Gain.
Todays ride is the biggest test it/we have had so far:-
Distance: 40.15 miles
Time: 2:33:16
Avg Speed: 15.7 mph
Elev Gain: 2,697 ft
I still remain very impressed, with the exception of the way you have to 'cycle thru' the assistance levels.
i.e Low > Medium > High > Off > Low etc. Yep ! you after go thru Off.
The roads around here are 'undulating' with constant little 5/6% short climbs and the occasional 10%+ longer climb.
The entire ride was in assistance level1. I find I can 'spin' up decent hills 15% ish if I get in my 'granny' gear and keep a high cadence.
It is comforting to know there is power in reserve should I (when I ) need it.
The battery was showing 51% full when I got home and I am very happy with that.
On flat ground I do not find the weight of the bike much of a drawback, I spend a lot of the time above the 15.5 (ish) assist level
which of course is what allows me to get good mileage (imo) from the battery. Downhill of course the bike weight propels you (me)
faster than I'm comfortable with so I'm thankful for the powerful brakes.
I have 'fallen out' with the ebikemotion app that tracks my ride on my phone. It crashed 3 times during this ride and the 1st two times
I lost the ride data. I probably shall not bother with it until they iron out the bugs. The above data comes from my Garmin 130
which gives me everything I need really.
Nothing much else to say really. This bike is exactly what I wanted. This is by necessity a very personal view and I appreciate we all need
different things from our bikes. Hopefully someone will find some relevance here.
Roy
The fine weather recently (long overdue) has allowed me to put some miles on my Orbea Gain.
Todays ride is the biggest test it/we have had so far:-
Distance: 40.15 miles
Time: 2:33:16
Avg Speed: 15.7 mph
Elev Gain: 2,697 ft
I still remain very impressed, with the exception of the way you have to 'cycle thru' the assistance levels.
i.e Low > Medium > High > Off > Low etc. Yep ! you after go thru Off.
The roads around here are 'undulating' with constant little 5/6% short climbs and the occasional 10%+ longer climb.
The entire ride was in assistance level1. I find I can 'spin' up decent hills 15% ish if I get in my 'granny' gear and keep a high cadence.
It is comforting to know there is power in reserve should I (when I ) need it.
The battery was showing 51% full when I got home and I am very happy with that.
On flat ground I do not find the weight of the bike much of a drawback, I spend a lot of the time above the 15.5 (ish) assist level
which of course is what allows me to get good mileage (imo) from the battery. Downhill of course the bike weight propels you (me)
faster than I'm comfortable with so I'm thankful for the powerful brakes.
I have 'fallen out' with the ebikemotion app that tracks my ride on my phone. It crashed 3 times during this ride and the 1st two times
I lost the ride data. I probably shall not bother with it until they iron out the bugs. The above data comes from my Garmin 130
which gives me everything I need really.
Nothing much else to say really. This bike is exactly what I wanted. This is by necessity a very personal view and I appreciate we all need
different things from our bikes. Hopefully someone will find some relevance here.
Roy
Nice report Roy and that's a good avg speed considering there was a fair bit of climbing involved. Seems a strange idea that if you want to drop down assistance levels from say high to medium you have to go cycle through off and low first. I can well see why that must be annoying, seems a strange way to have designed it.
Hi Nev, yes the avg speed surprises me. The outward part of the ride contained the biggest portion of the climbing and a pretty strong wind more or less against me for 19 miles, it was hard work and I was pretty pleased to have Gain 'assist under me. I used 20% of the battery in the 1st 10 miles ! and when I turned back towards home at 19 miles I had used 32% battery. The return leg of 21 miles only used a further 17% of the battery. This was down to less gradient to battle and that horrible wind was now my best friend. Max speed on the return leg was 34.1 mph. Here is the 'speed' graph from my Garmin.
as you can see from the 'peaks' my avg speed over the out and back tells it all.
As for the "strange" way of 'cycling' thru the assist levels, it doesn't bother me too much at this time as I'm predominately in level1 assist but if you really need to use all levels, and God willing if I stay fit and healthy I will need them sooner (or later) it will be bl**dy annoying.
I don't know how Level1 relates to the previously quoted Low,medium,High, but assuming its not 'High', don't forget that this is the mode some of us are interested in you repeating your initial experiment with - and also, hear rate figures as well so we can also compare effort as well as time.
Cheers!
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