That bike is a seriously awesome piece of kit, looks very nice! I’m curious to see how you like the nuvinci, i’ve read it is a cvt transmission, how do you operate it?
So it's quite responsive indeed almost too responsive really, because there's a fairly limited range of turning between lowest and highest gear on the handlebar. It's a little hard to make small enough adjustments to suit. You have to grip the turn shift hard and move it a very small increment to stay in the suggested cadence on higher modes than eco. Maybe that will loosen up with time? I don't know.
Also, the power of the motor will often lock the balls and oil inside meaning you have to stop pedalling for a second to change up - down is much happier to carry on - but I find out later that that applies to the rohloff version too,
but also that is prone to slipping internal gears if pushed too hard, and that's not a problem with the nuvinci. Also if you think of it as a moped you'd have to engage clutch between gears anyway - and that idea helped me get used to it. It's only a matter of about half a second cutting pedalling to switch gear
Another thing I am just about used to now, but it took a while is that turning up gets you easier pedalling and lower speeds, down is more resistance. I'm not sure if that's against the norm or not since I had a click shift for 10 years.. but it felt weird to me and I was for a long time expecting it to be the other way - though I find out later that the rohloff works the same. Might just be a personal oddity.
If you don’t mind, i have a question about the dual battery system. Can you take one off and fully charge it and put it back on the bike with the other battery at only half charge? Or do they need to be at the same level of charge?
Yes. The batteries will once back on the bike self balance. So if you want to go out with only one for convenience eg not lugging two around with you when shopping or meeting people etc once you get back just put the other one back on they will self correct and you're good to go.
Did a 35 mile ride lately, nice big hill too.
I'm pretty heavy, around 22 stone. I mostly used turbo. And there was 32% charge left between the two batteries from a full charge setting off. One thing I definitely noticed was this bosch system requires more from you than my old Eezee kit.. I had a harder time getting up that elevation! But really though that's a good thing health wise. On turbo I still seem to put in around 32% of the work. My choice of speed. And torque sensing I guess.
I ran the speed up to around 36mph down that hill you can see below - the full suspension really is something on average roads. It just gives a lot more stability and confidence it really does. No more watching the road directly in front looking out for potholes - I mean there's still a few you'd want to dodge but if they're big enough to dodge they're big enough to catch without much observance.
I went down the same hill on my old kit bike, hardtail, at around 30mph with normal disc brakes and that was pretty scary, decided not to do that again
while I got a little rush this time I didn't feel like I was pushing my luck on the R+M.
