Which bikes are now the best ?

[Leonardo]

Hello Mitty,
We have a few Swiss Biketech Flyers around in Italy. It is without doubts the best pedelec one can buy in my country but they are very expensive. In comparison to the now discontinued Giant Twist, it has better a range (60 km and more with the new 10ah battery), better assistance (the Premium Panasonic motor of the new models states an assistance ratio of 1:1.3 instead of 1:1) and a better overall cycle quality. It seems to be very reliable as well: I’ve heard of only one problem with the battery of a very hard used bicycle (have a look here) and the battery was replaced immediately under warranty (it has two years warranty on the batteries as well).
Anyway, if the crank drive Twist was still around the price difference would make it still very competitive (for instance, the sophisticated lithium battery of the Flyer leaves no hope of recelling): I have a Twist, by the way.
If you think to buy a Flyer I wouldn’t advice you the S-series for your use: it is a model conceived for high speed and more expensive than the others. In my opinion you should choose between the C and the T series. The first has a 26” wheel and it is may be easier in urban areas (it is also available both with the Plus and the Premium motor: the fist one, with a smaller 7.2 ah battery is far less expensive than the new one with the 10ah battery). The second one has a 28 wheel and it is better suited for not so crowded areas and for touring (it is available only with the Premium motor and the 10ah battery: performance is the same of the C Premium series).
If you can read Italian you are welcome on our pedelecs forum, where you can find more direct experiences of those bicycles. Other ways, if you have questions I can try to answer you.

 

[mitty]

Thanks for the all the info guys, I will try and test both the flyer and swissbee and maybe a torq to for comparison. I will let you know how I get on

cheers M

 

[mitty]

I found a foreign site which has the specs of a lot of new e bikes and saw one which looks a bit like the diavelo or schwinn shaftdrive bikes its called "he flying crane" here is a link NewRide
anybody know about these as I have not seen them mentioned before ?

 

[Leonardo]

one more question

I was wondering:

Which is the reason why a crank drive motor goes fine with 24 Volts and the hub motors require generally 36 Volts?

And why a crank drive motor allows a better range with few Watts than a hub motor? Only because of a bigger human effort involved? For instance: the 24v x 6.5 ah = 196 W battery of the ancient Twist seems to give a range not very different from the 36v x 10 ah = 360 W battery of the Torq…

May be flecc did already answer to similar questions, but I don’t find where.

 

[flecc]

It's because the crank drive systems like the Twist have less power Leonardo, so only 24 volts is needed. The main reason for them having less power is the strength limitation of cycle gear systems. Also driving through the gears means less power is needed in a lower gear to get up a hill.

My Torq's peak 576 watt motor would completely destroy the average hub gear or derailleur in a couple of trips if feeding through the gears, even by itself, and if I added my 300 watts or so, it probably wouldn't even complete the first acceleration!

Even the Twist with peak power of 390 watts can destroy gear systems eventually, and did so with many of the Nexus 4 speed hubs before Shimano discontinued them.

This is the main reason why there are no new systems like this. Today's customers want more power, but that can only be given with a whole new drive and gear system. The costs of design and production with small overall sales for such an expensive thing rules it out.

On the range, the Twist gets better range due to it's light weight and better software that feeds in power carefully only according to need. A less well designed crank drive system would not give such a good range, so it's not the crank drive that gives good range by itself.
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[Flying Kiwi]

No-one is likely to bring one out I'm afraid Mitty, the market for quality bikes is too small to justify the investment. Giant reputedly only sold 20,000 of the Twist series worldwide over six years, and almost certainly lost money overall, hence them discontinuing it. I have broached this subject with other manufacturers, but in each case it's a firm no.

I don't think it'll continue to be a firm no if potential customers become more informed and only buy the better non hub-motor powered designs. It's only by customers settling for second best that manufacturers can continue to take the easiest and simplest option for themselves. In the end the manufacturers will only sell products if they listen to whats actually wanted, it sounds like you've found one unwilling to act on your, obviously technically well informed opinion. It's the customer who has the power to dictate the terms here, if they don't listen then you go elsewhere, simple.

There are similar (on paper at least) bikes to the Original Twist. One is the Gazelle Easy Glider and the other the (differently styled) Swiss Flyer. Both cost more than similar hub motor bikes but I know what I'd rather have without any hesitation at all.

The only complete bike solutions are the more powerful hub motor bikes like those from eZee in particular,

I disagree, see above. Both of these can be bought in the UK.

There is a Swiss Flyer type that uses the Panasonic unit that the Twist uses, and I'll try to find a link to that for you, but again, support might be a problem, and if you're going that route, you might just as well buy one of the remaining Twist series. The money you'd save buying a Twist instead of a Flyer would pay for two complete replacement power units, thus taking care of any possible support problems.
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Swiss Flyerr here: BikeTec - Startseite. Willkommen
Gazelle Easy Glider here: Gazelle - Collectie - Collectie 2007 - Stad Comfort - Easy Glider (both in their native foreign languages). The local UK based dealers can find out further info though.

 

[Leonardo]

Thank you very much flecc, the conclusion is very interesting.

About the range issue, I presume the reason is that hub motors are more powerful, so that they consume more energy even though their nominal wattage is the same, am I right?

So it is not correct to estimate the range of a pedelec just on the basis of the power figures: the 360W battery of the Torq doesn't allow a +85% range compared to the 196W of the Twist battery not only because of the higher human contribution required by the latter...

 

[Leonardo]

@ Mitty: I'm afraid that the one you have seen on NewRide it is available only on the Swiss market at the moment

@ Flying Kiwi: the Dutch Gazelle is reported to be a very pleasant pedelec (as the Helkama in a different way) but not as good uphill as the previous Giant Twist and the Flyer

 

[flecc]

That's right Leonardo, the nominal powers of 200 or 250 watts are rather meaningless, it's the total power consumed that counts. The Twist at 390 watts maximum for example, against the Quando/Torq at 576 watts.

It's not lost energy though, the Quando/Torq power increase over the Twist is very obvious, the Torq as speed potential, the Quando as hill climbing ability without driving through gears. For example, in it's normal gearing, the Quando ridden by me can climb 14% towing my large trailer at 10 mph. Towing the trailer with the Twist, I'd have no hope of achieving that in it's equivalent top gear, I have to change down to first gear of five and tow up there at 4 to 5 mph, barely half the speed.
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[Flying Kiwi]

I was wondering:

Which is the reason why a crank drive motor goes fine with 24 Volts and the hub motors require generally 36 Volts?

And why a crank drive motor allows a better range with few Watts than a hub motor? Only because of a bigger human effort involved? For instance: the 24v x 6.5 ah = 196 W battery of the ancient Twist seems to give a range not very different from the 36v x 10 ah = 360 W battery of the Torq…

May be flecc did already answer to similar questions, but I don’t find where.

There are a few things to get straight here:

1. Voltage is not the same as power
2. Motors can be more powerful running from either 24 volt or 36 volt designs - beware of hype claiming that a 36 Volt motor is more powerfull than 24 Volts!
3. The higher 36 Volt power supply used on many hub motor powered bikes helps to compensate for the higher resistive losses due to the long cable runs required.
4. Crank motor driven bikes don't tend to suffer these losses to anywhere near the same extent because the motor tends to be right beside the battery and controller. It's a bit like how the long distance transmission voltages are much higher on the national grid than local voltages. The same power in watts can be transmitted much more efficiently and cheaply (through thinner cables) over a longer distance at a higher voltage.

I've not calculated what the resistive losses are but aside from that issue, the comparitive inefficiency of having a compromise single gear wheel hub motor trying to operate under all speeds via electronic control vs a motor which can run in it's powerband more of the time via the bikes drive gears helps to account for the much better efficiency often found with crank motor designs.

 

[Flying Kiwi]

Gazelle Easy Glider

@ Flying Kiwi: the Dutch Gazelle is reported to be a very pleasant pedelec (as the Helkama in a different way) but not as good uphill as the previous Giant Twist and the Flyer

Do you have a review/source please Leonardo? Other than the slightly higher weight and price tag, I cant imagine why the additional features such as more gears (wider range) wouldn't result in a net positive benifit.

 

[flecc]

There are similar (on paper at least) bikes to the Original Twist. One is the Gazelle Easy Glider and the other the (differently styled) Swiss Flyer. Both cost more than similar hub motor bikes but I know what I'd rather have without any hesitation at all.

I disagree, see above. Both of these can be bought in the UK.

What I posted was in the context of my comment on this earlier in this same thread:

"There are no mainstream crank drive bikes on our market now, following the sad loss of the old Twist series".

The ones you quote aren't in any sense mainstream, few can afford them and even fewer will ever buy one. We're in a world in which many see £1000 as far too much, hence the flood of new models around the £500 mark.

We've had this discussion before, but my position remains that it's an unrealistic wish, no one in the commercial world is likely to follow Giant in such a mainstream venture, given their poor experience. If the world's largest manufacturer could only manage 20,000 total worldwide sales across all models over six years, and lose money in the process, which they certainly did, no-one else is likely to take the plunge.

Look at my comment on the Quando towing in the reply to Leonardo above, and there's another very good reason why they wouldn't bother, and that's not the only hub motor bike that can do similar. These are the reasons I say it won't happen, not the reaction of the manufacturers I've communicated with, though that supports my position.

I agree with you absolutely on the engineering principles and the desirability, but differ in the likelyhood. I think to ask for mainstream bikes like this is tilting at windmills.
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[Leonardo]

thanks again for your answers

about the Gazelle, I'm not able to find technical reasons... some doubts about the uphill assistance were expressed by the extraenergy test, if I remember correctly, and by some users of the French pedelecs forum who tried the Gazelle... I'll try to find the page later if you want

 

[nigel]

Nigel

Hi everyone
you never no one day a small company might give it a go a again we might see something like the twist one day i live in hope flecc as you say £1000 is to much for a electric bike as they become more popular maybe the prices will come down. nigel.

 

[flecc]

about the Gazelle - - - - - some doubts about the uphill assistance were expressed by the extraenergy test, if I remember correctly, and by some users of the French pedelecs forum who tried the Gazelle

That's interesting, given my comments on the Quando and Twist above, and it shows that crank drive doesn't necessarily deliver it's promise, and I know that to be true with the Twist as well, where lack of power is a concern against the competition, despite it's many other qualities.

 

[mitty]

As I said at the beginning, great forum ! What are main differences between the nexwave, nexus and the ALFINE Premium all 8 speed, these are the options on the 2007 flyers

cheers Mitty

 

[flecc]

Nexus is the standard Shimano hub gear and fittings, Alfine is the hub gear plus some very fancy looking streamlined profile bits, the chainwheel and cranks, rear changer, even disc brake etc. A sort of deluxe version.

The other is Nexave, not Nexwave. This one is a derailleur gear system, the other two hub gears and less work to maintain.
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[Flying Kiwi]

What I posted was in the context of my comment on this earlier in this same thread:

"There are no mainstream crank drive bikes on our market now, following the sad loss of the old Twist series".

Not mainstream YET but never the less it's available and people should be aware of that in order to make an informed choice.

The ones you quote aren't in any sense mainstream, few can afford them and even fewer will ever buy one.

Depends whether you'r talking mainstream here or mainstream in their countries of origin. It takes time and open-minded dealers to develop international sales links. This doesn't mean the bikes are any less worthy of being sold here.

We're in a world in which many see £1000 as far too much, hence the flood of new models around the £500 mark.

Aint that the truth, were drowning in a glut of £500 "machines".

We've had this discussion before, but my position remains that it's an unrealistic wish, no one in the commercial world is likely to follow Giant in such a mainstream venture, given their poor experience. If the world's largest manufacturer could only manage 20,000 total worldwide sales across all models over six years, and lose money in the process, which they certainly did, no-one else is likely to take the plunge.

We have had this discussion before. There are quite a few unanswered questions if you follow Giants original story (through AtoB) though, most notably how come their replacement sells for higher prices but is clearly of simpler design (other than a second battery). I would have thought if low demand for the higher priced models was the real reason for the discontinuation, then they would have put more of their electric bike marketing efforts into the Suede! I think any manufacturer is going to explain the reasons for discontinuing a product in a way thats going to try and maximise sales of the superceding model, people considering such explanations should take this into consideration!

Look at my comment on the Quando towing in the reply to Leonardo above, and there's another very good reason why they wouldn't bother, and that's not the only hub motor bike that can do similar. These are the reasons I say it won't happen, not the reaction of the manufacturers I've communicated with, though that supports my position.

Irrespective of what it's like at towing, it still has the "efficiency issues" to contend with that I referred to in my reply to Leonardo. Putting a more powerful brute force motor in there isn't really good design in my opinion but is merely a "Top Gear" Clarksonesque style solution.

I agree with you absolutely on the engineering principles and the desirability, but differ in the likelyhood. I think to ask for mainstream bikes like this is tilting at windmills.
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I think you're giving up to easily then, certainly I'm not going to spend on a hub motor powered device and I'd be extremely unlikely to recommend such a machine to anyone, even the budget strapped who live on top of a giant windless pool table! If money is that tight, they'd be better off with a second-hand Twist.

 

[Flying Kiwi]

about the Gazelle, I'm not able to find technical reasons... some doubts about the uphill assistance were expressed by the extraenergy test, if I remember correctly, and by some users of the French pedelecs forum who tried the Gazelle... I'll try to find the page later if you want

Yes please, a link would be ideal, especially if it appears to be independant. Did the source mention anything about reprogramming the software profile in the Panasonic unit to address any such hill climbing concerns? It seems strange that the Gazelle which uses basically the same Panasonic Lithium Ion unit as some of the Swiss Flyers would have issues not present in the Swiss Flyer..

 

[flecc]

Irrespective of what it's like at towing, it still has the "efficiency issues" to contend with that I referred to in my reply to Leonardo. Putting a more powerful brute force motor in there isn't really good design in my opinion but is merely a "Top Gear" Clarksonesque style solution.

When those living near me and everywhere else for that matter have a minimum of 15000 watts available when driving their way to the tip, I'm not going to worry about the miniscule difference between the charge costs of a Twist and Quando. One penny or two on a full charge maybe?

If money is that tight, they'd be better off with a second-hand Twist.

Not when the only motor assembly repair possible is a replacement unit at £450, as three users have currently found out to my personal knowledge. Only this morning another has cropped up who may also face this. For this reason I'm usually no longer recommending people buy them secondhand, I don't wish to be the cause of their dissatisfaction if this happens to them.

Maybe it's a bike age thing, but there's a mini wave of these problems cropping up now, and with virtually no support it's not a nice situation. As I said to Mitty, it's worthwhile in lieu of one of the exotics at £2000 plus, since the price difference will cover a couple of replacement units, but not for most customers.
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