Today, I did the shakedown ride - about 35 km at an average speed of 20km/hr. It was down Ironbridge Gorge and back, mainly on trails, some exceptionally steep bits. Here are my thoughts, but please bear in mind that I'm comparing it with my normal bike, which is the best legal ebike you can get for normal riding on roads and trails.
The lasting impression is that it's underpowered compared to my hub-motor bike even though my hub-motor bike has a 14A controller and this one has 15A. The main difference is getting access to the power. The hub-motor bike gives the power you want whenever you want it. This one requires you to pedal harder to get the most power. You can see the difference in the battery usage. After 35km, the 20ah battery was showing 51.4v. That's about half the consumption of my other bike. The reason is because when I relax the pedal effort on my other bike, the motor still gives the same power and keeps the same speed, while as this one immediately slows down because the power goes right down. The end result is that I used more of my own energy and went a bit slower.
Hill-climing: Bear in mind that I'm 100kg and not too sporty, but am generally cycling fit. Somebody, who is generally unfit and not pedalled a bike for years would struggle with this crank-drive motor system. The hub-motor can manage all the steepest hills in this journey, of which a couple of short ones are around 30%. Again the crank-drive bike was noticeably slower for the reasons above. The main difference is that on the very steep ones in bottom gear required less pedal effort than the other bike, but on gentle hills, it required more pedal effort to keep up a reasonable speed. If I pedalled in cruise mode, I found that I had to keep shifting down until I ended up too slow compared with what I'm used too.
Gear shifting wasn't too bad. I expected worse compared with other CD bikes I've ridden, but this bike does have Shimano XT gears. Maybe that makes a difference or maybe its the way it delivers the power that makes a bit of the difference.
The noise was a bit annoying for me. It wasn't excessive, and I think it's below most people's expectations, but my other bike is silent by comparison. On the uphill paths, people were getting out of the way without me having to do anything. That never happens on my other bike.
There is a slight surge from the torque sensor. You can feel a threshold of pedal pressure that steps up the power. It's not a linear relationship. That's not so noticeable on other torque sensor systems that I've tried. The disadvantage is that you can feel the power switching up and down when you think you're pedalling constantly at constant speed. The advantage is that you can easily step up the power, probably to maximum, by pedalling a bit harder.
I didn't notice the 25km/hr cut off. It was very smooth.
In summary, I think this motor system is very well suited to people, who have some cycling fitness. If you have ridden a normal bike a lot and this was your first ebike, you'd love it. You hardly notice it's there, you just feel a bit of extra power from your pedalling. None of the things I've mentioned are deal-breakers. I only see it because I'm comparing with the best. IMHO, the hub-motor at 48v with a KT controller trounces it for general riding around, mainly because everything is smoother, more relaxing and less effort. The hub-motor with cadence sensor can make you a bit lazy, but sometimes you want lazy. It gives you more choice. You're always in control of how hard you want to pedal. The penalty is more battery consumption. The crank-drive bike will now be my main bike for the forseeable future until it completes its special purpose, so it can't be that bad.
I can see why people want to use the improved (for them) open source software. I need to do a lot more miles and think about it more before I go down that route.
The lasting impression is that it's underpowered compared to my hub-motor bike even though my hub-motor bike has a 14A controller and this one has 15A. The main difference is getting access to the power. The hub-motor bike gives the power you want whenever you want it. This one requires you to pedal harder to get the most power. You can see the difference in the battery usage. After 35km, the 20ah battery was showing 51.4v. That's about half the consumption of my other bike. The reason is because when I relax the pedal effort on my other bike, the motor still gives the same power and keeps the same speed, while as this one immediately slows down because the power goes right down. The end result is that I used more of my own energy and went a bit slower.
Hill-climing: Bear in mind that I'm 100kg and not too sporty, but am generally cycling fit. Somebody, who is generally unfit and not pedalled a bike for years would struggle with this crank-drive motor system. The hub-motor can manage all the steepest hills in this journey, of which a couple of short ones are around 30%. Again the crank-drive bike was noticeably slower for the reasons above. The main difference is that on the very steep ones in bottom gear required less pedal effort than the other bike, but on gentle hills, it required more pedal effort to keep up a reasonable speed. If I pedalled in cruise mode, I found that I had to keep shifting down until I ended up too slow compared with what I'm used too.
Gear shifting wasn't too bad. I expected worse compared with other CD bikes I've ridden, but this bike does have Shimano XT gears. Maybe that makes a difference or maybe its the way it delivers the power that makes a bit of the difference.
The noise was a bit annoying for me. It wasn't excessive, and I think it's below most people's expectations, but my other bike is silent by comparison. On the uphill paths, people were getting out of the way without me having to do anything. That never happens on my other bike.
There is a slight surge from the torque sensor. You can feel a threshold of pedal pressure that steps up the power. It's not a linear relationship. That's not so noticeable on other torque sensor systems that I've tried. The disadvantage is that you can feel the power switching up and down when you think you're pedalling constantly at constant speed. The advantage is that you can easily step up the power, probably to maximum, by pedalling a bit harder.
I didn't notice the 25km/hr cut off. It was very smooth.
In summary, I think this motor system is very well suited to people, who have some cycling fitness. If you have ridden a normal bike a lot and this was your first ebike, you'd love it. You hardly notice it's there, you just feel a bit of extra power from your pedalling. None of the things I've mentioned are deal-breakers. I only see it because I'm comparing with the best. IMHO, the hub-motor at 48v with a KT controller trounces it for general riding around, mainly because everything is smoother, more relaxing and less effort. The hub-motor with cadence sensor can make you a bit lazy, but sometimes you want lazy. It gives you more choice. You're always in control of how hard you want to pedal. The penalty is more battery consumption. The crank-drive bike will now be my main bike for the forseeable future until it completes its special purpose, so it can't be that bad.
I can see why people want to use the improved (for them) open source software. I need to do a lot more miles and think about it more before I go down that route.
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