Which bike for hills for a heavier person?

[Woosh]

The phrase 'you don't get owt for nowt' was never more true than with batteries.

Barrelling up 30 per cent climbs on a throttle will use, to use a technical term, lots of juice.

Given that two Bosch batteries will barely do 100 miles, with twice the power you would need four/five 'standard' size batteries to get one of these 1,000w contraptions to do any distance.

A petrol moped would be a far better solution.

RobF, these Bafang BBSHD kits only use more battery than your Bosch if the riders of those bikes put in less leg power than you do. The amount of required energy going up the same hill is practically same with both bikes, pro-rata of the total bike + rider weight. There is no need for a huge battery with modern cells like Samsung 30Q.

 

[ianboydsnr]

One can just spin without pedal effort to keep it running. That complies with the law, there's no specification that torque force has to be applied to the pedals.
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I thought the limit was 250w of assist and 15.5mph top speed

 

[Sutty86]

Right I don't know much but I have one of those direct drive motors cheap on ebay .(1000w)
Made own battery 58.8v 20ah and I manage all the hills around me, yes I have to pedal but I'm not shattered up my local hill
I'm nearly 17stone front wheel hub uses peak 35 amps sending me up an hill

 

[anotherkiwi]

• 0%: A flat road
• 1-3%: Slightly uphill but not particularly challenging. A bit like riding into the wind.
• 4-6%: A manageable gradient that can cause fatigue over long periods.
• 7-9%: Starting to become uncomfortable for seasoned riders, and very challenging for new climbers.
• 10%-15%: A painful gradient, especially if maintained for any length of time
• 16%+: Very challenging for riders of all abilities. Maintaining this sort of incline for any length of time is very painful.

25% is not a hill it is a ramp! "Alto de El Angliru. The closing climb of 12.5 kilometres comes with an average gradient of 9.8%, while the steepest ramps are 23.5%."

That stage of the Vuelta was described by pro riders as pure horror... I have seen 25% coming out of underground parking. The other day in the mountains I found a short stretch of 18-20% which was a challenge in the car. So I'm calling BS on a 25% hill in the UK!

 

[ianboydsnr]

Honister pass near me is 25%, and it’s not the steepest.
Edit, the steepest is Hardknott pass upto 33%

 

[flecc]

I thought the limit was 250w of assist and 15.5mph top speed

I was only replying to the need for pedalling aspect. Of course it's illegal in other respects, but not so visually obvious as powering without pedalling would be.
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[GLJoe]

So I'm calling BS on a 25% hill in the UK!

Devils Staircase.

But I agree, 25% is exceptional.

 

[ianboydsnr]

When I am cycling up Honister, on the steep bits, the front wheel is hovering slightly off the ground with each pedal stroke, I can’t imagine riding at 33%

 

[flecc]

So I'm calling BS on a 25% hill in the UK!

Come off it! There's plenty of 25% in the UK and I have some I've ridden in my immediate cycling area. My steepest is just over 30%, I only managed it once and it nearly killed me. And I have accurately measured their gradient, see this link and the image below which is no longer in the original post:

But they aren't long of course, only taking a few minutes to climb.

Continental standards are very different of course, the roads usually much better engineered. It always amuses me when someone speaks of Alpine climbs as being steep, when in fact 7% is commonplace and over 10% rare.

Our more recently built roads are similar, but much of our minor road network is little better than surfacing what was once tracks and sometimes ridiculously steep. Here's a couple of local map images with contours I rode regularly, typical of so many UK lesser roads. Three climbs in these two maps are described in this link, together with a short 25% example.

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[RobF]

Several 20-25% climbs in Yorkshire - Park Rash, Sutton Bank, Boltby, to name three I know of.

Then there's Rosedale Chimney, which some say is the steepest road in the UK.

It's certainly one of the steepest.

As flecc says, all of these climbs, particularly the steepest bits, are short.

On the continent there are lots of multi-kilometre climbs, but they are not steep.

A rare example in this country is Cragg Vale in Calderdale, said to be the longest continuous upwards stretch of the road in the UK.

It goes on for more than five miles, but the average gradient is only 3% and the maximum is 7%.

I've ridden it two or three times with a mate who lives nearby and is up and down it several times a year.

He reckons it goes ever-so-slightly down for a few metres after about three miles but you'd need a theodolite to confirm it.

https://cyclinguphill.com/cragg-vale-hill-climb/

 

[tommie]

There isn`t a mix up here between `percentages` and `degrees`?
??

 

[tommie]

Degrees Gradient Percent
14.04° 1 : 4 25%
15° 1 : 3.73 26.8%
26.57° 1 : 2 50%
30° 1 : 1.73 57.7%

 

[ianboydsnr]

Degrees Gradient Percent
14.04° 1 : 4 25%
15° 1 : 3.73 26.8%
26.57° 1 : 2 50%
30° 1 : 1.73 57.7%

Roads are marked in percent, not degrees,

 

[flecc]

There isn`t a mix up here between `percentages` and `degrees`?
??

No, see my post on this link, and particularly the first link in that post on measuring gradients. Percentages are the norm for hill measure, the degrees range to close for usefulness.
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[Crockers]

Porlock.

 

[anotherkiwi]

So OP how long is your stretch of ramp really? If it is 1600m long there would be a long line of lycras trying to get KOM on Strava all day every day (lycras love pain and suffereing). 25% over 1600m is a 400 metre climb. Unfortunately none of these are over 22% max gradient: https://roadcyclinguk.com/sportive/ten-best-cycling-climbs-devon-cornwall/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardknott_Pass the steepest road in the UK except on the Google Gradient map it is given for 21% maximum. Are you guys talking in Imperial % or metric %

I found this the power usage and speed are quite interesting for 20%+:
https://www.strava.com/segments/1639004

A 10 speed wide range 11-46 cassette matched to a 50-34 road compact double will climb anything with a 500W motor.

 

[Jonah]

This is the steepest I’ve cycled, 30% in places. Page from Simon Warren’s excellent Another 100 Greatest Cycling Climbs.

 

[anotherkiwi]

And when you read the text you see 1015 m long and 100 m gained. On my calculator that is an average 9.85% climb. Yes of course you have 30% ramps in the corners... Oh my! 5 metres at 30%...

 

[JonE]

I bought a Carrera Crossfire ebike from Halfords about 3 weeks ago, and since then I've taken it on hilly outings in the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales. It has coped admirably - I found the Eco and Tour settings absolutely fine for the less challenging gradients, and I only pushed up to Climb when things got a bit steeper. I'm a similar weight to you, Evoke, by the way.

The bike had a price label of £1250, but I pointed out that it had been £1000 the week before and they said they could match that. It then turned out that the day of purchase was '10% off Sunday', or something like that, so it came down to £900. Then they said that there was also an offer to choose £100 worth of kit from the shelves, for free - stuff I was probably going to buy anyway. All in all I thought it was a very good deal, but maybe I just got lucky.

As others have noted, the Crossfire ebike does have some cut out problems. So far I've done 170 miles and it has done this on two occasions. Each time it was solved by re-seating the battery, a matter of a few seconds. A slight nuisance, but the rest of the performance has been excellent. The most recent battery charge gave me 52 miles of travel, and that was with quite a few Yorkshire hills to contend with.

Anyhow, maybe one to test ride?

 

[Deleted member 4366]

They're excellent bikes when working properly, especially if you don't mint the legal 15mph cut-off.

Have a look at the LCD to see how tight it is (if you have the removable one). If it can tilt a bit sideways, stick something in the gap so that it can't move. The only other thing to look out for is the pedal sensor, which is optical, and it can become dirty if you use it in dusty or wet conditions, then you have to clean it somehow.