Wisper: SO hard to pedal without power

[flecc]

Hi Tony,

... and sorry but I have to strongly disagree with you at this point. The drag provided by Suzhou Bafang motors is minimal and the nylon gears are not engaged with hub shell when moving without power.

Sorry Andrew but this is just not true as Harry says, The nylon gears are always engaged with the hub shell and when the bike is propelled forward the gears have to turn. The freewheel only disengages the internal motor so that doesn't have to turn wen not under power.

If the freewheel free direction allowed the orbital gears to remain stationary, the motor could not propel the bike forward when under power, it's as simple a mechanical fact as that.

No matter how many tips you give on setting up the bike for optimum riding, these SB motors have increasingly serious drag as speed increases. Take it easy as some have said and the fittest riders can cope for a while at moderate speeds. I can just manage up to 13 mph on the flat unpowered for a very short period, but it's a miserable experience. The amount of perceived drag varies according to the internal gearing ratio, the nylon gear wheel widths and diameters, and the riders fitness. For anyone though, swap to a normal bike even when heavily loaded with panniers full of load and it's a revelation on the flat.

On my Panasonic unit Lafree cyling was much easier, and I never switched on power until the first hill, which in one direction was over three miles. I could never have dreamed of doing that on any of the SB equipped bikes I've owned or tried. The later Panasonic units are even more free running.

A fully freewheeled hub motor is possible with a larger diameter hub shell, the old Powabyke motor is like that, the freewheel disengaging the entire gear train including the hub toothed rack, but that comes at the expense of freewheel pawl clicking when not under power.

I do wish suppliers would stop peddling the myth that these motors have no drag and their bikes as easy to pedal as normal bikes. It misleads customers who so often end up very disappointed as Allen has been.
.

 

[Oxygen Bicycles]

Sorry Andrew but this is just not true as Harry says, The nylon gears are always engaged with the hub shell and when the bike is propelled forward the gears have to turn. The freewheel only disengages the internal motor so that doesn't have to turn wen not under power.

.

Sorry Tony if I did not express myself too correctly, I meant actually what you just said that free-wheel disengages with the internal motor but posting at nearly midnight isn't too good for me. The drag is always there in any hub motor and the one on SB is not as big that makes the bike impossible to ride. I can easily ride my one and I agree that speeds are not as great as on the push bike but anyone can easily make his/her journey back home without power. I can ride my one with 13mph easily without making special effort on the flat so I don't think that this is so slow.

The whole point I wish to make is that SB motors are very good in terms of power, efficiency and most importantly reliability which is crucial. As from the previous posts I rather got a feeling that SB motors are so drag affected that bikes that use them are nearly impossible to ride. I really think this is exaggerated. If the SB motors were so bad then there wouldn't be so many satisfied owners of those motors. Wisper bikes got their great reputation with those motors, I think there are good reasons why so many brands is actually using them.

Yes you can get a Panasonic drive but only if you have X ££££ to spend
Yes you can get a Tongxin motor but you won't get reliability as SB


The fact is guys that SB is probably offering the best value for money with great reliability, quality, efficiency and power available. These motors allow many of us to get on the electric bike ladder and provide great experience that is affordable to thousands of users who simply could not afford a bike with Panasonic or Yamaha drive.

IMHO I don't think SB should be compared to the high end drive systems as Panasonic as it's just like making a comparison of Vauxhall with Jaguar. Different price tags, different targeted audience

All the best

Andrew
Oxygen Bicycles

 

[Oxygen Bicycles]

And neither do I think that all of us who experience the problem have soft tyres, binding brakes, and I'll ignore the 'high stem' as being irrelevant to the sort of measured, slow riding that many of us here do.

Also, it seems to be Wisper owners who are reporting this problem, not Oxygen riders, as yet.

Allen.

Hi Allen,

I'm just trying to advice those who find them quite difficult to ride to actually check other bits as well. I know from own experience that the tyres with 20psi make the life a lot more difficult comparing to those with pumped up to 60PSI.

Minor drag on the brakes might also make the life harder and if we sump all those together then it makes a huge difference

All the best

Andrew

 

[Mussels]

my 2009 model is rideable but slow "out of the box" but I think the chainrings may have been changed from 52T on the 2008 model to 48T on the 2009 (mine says 48T on the chainring)

I changed my chainring to 39 teeth and got rid of the megarange freewheel, I ended up with the same bottom gear but it made the rest a usable set of ratios instead of a huge jump from 1st to 2nd gear.

Sorry Andrew but this is just not true as Harry says, The nylon gears are always engaged with the hub shell and when the bike is propelled forward the gears have to turn. The freewheel only disengages the internal motor so that doesn't have to turn wen not under power.

The nylon gears are always engaged with the hub and rotate with the hub, however if they don't rotate around their own axle when power is off then they shouldn't be adding any drag themselves.

 

[flecc]

The nylon gears are always engaged with the hub and rotate with the hub, however if they don't rotate around their own axle when power is off then they shouldn't be adding any drag themselves.

They do rotate around their axles on the overrun so the drag results from the axle and gear tooth friction. The key to understanding this is that there has to be a static element on the bike to drive against. If it freewheeled the motor and the orbital gears in the forward direction, there would be nothing static to drive against.

The old type Powabyke motor has the hub gear rack freewheeled by pawls just like those in a bike's freewheel, so the whole assembly is detached from the hubshell on the overrun, the clicking of the pawls exposing that. Therefore it spins freely with no drag.

The photos below may help:

 

[flecc]

The drag is always there in any hub motor and the one on SB is not as big that makes the bike impossible to ride. I can easily ride my one and I agree that speeds are not as great as on the push bike but anyone can easily make his/her journey back home without power. I can ride my one with 13mph easily without making special effort on the flat so I don't think that this is so slow.

They can be extremely difficult to pedal without power for those who aren't as fit as they once were, and at 74 I'm one of those Andrew. It should be borne in mind that the e-bike market is still dominated by the older age groups. Also many much younger find similar too, Mussels for example with this where even modification still left it slow for a regular e-biker who is very much younger:

"I found the 905 near impossible to ride unpowered until I reduced the gearing and then it became possible but slow."

The whole point I wish to make is that SB motors are very good in terms of power, efficiency and most importantly reliability which is crucial.

The fact is guys that SB is probably offering the best value for money with great reliability, quality, efficiency and power available.

Fully agreed on all this, and the low cost Andrew, but when one struggles to pedal home any distance without power and has to give up and walk, these facts don't impress at the time. I'd love to be under 40 and suitably fit again, and so probably would the more than half the forum who are the wrong side of that age. It's no accident that so many of them go Panasonic, despite those actually being a bit more work overall than a hub motor bike.

I'd just like to see the trade stop saying they are as easy to ride without power as a normal bike and instead admit they are more difficult but say the degree of that varies by individual.
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[Caph]

Your Galileo uses the same type of motor but lower powered (180 watt) and probably with a different internal gear ratio and gear widths, so less drag. Those can make quite a difference. Your Alien probable uses the full 250 watt power SB type motor which does certainly drag.

That makes a lot of sense. My Galileo tops out at 10.5mph in pedelec mode and 13.5mph on full throttle. This means that when I'm riding pedelec only I'm pedalling under my own steam most of the time (hills excepted). If there was any noticeable drag then the entire pedelec mode would be rendered a miserable experience and would reduce me to pedalling along at 10.5mph! So is it fair to say that the Galileo (or any lower powered bike) is designed from the bottom up to be ridden without power (i.e. lower drag) since it's almost by definition that that's effectively what you're going to be doing most of the time? This is why I was struggling to understand the problem, because on my bike it's effectively like I'm pedalling with the motor off most of the time (i.e. > 10.5 mph), which makes it the norm for me rather than the exception, and I just assumed this was a quality issue rather than a motor power issue.

So, following the converse of this, does that mean that even in pedelec mode, most people on a Wisper spend most of their time being assisted by the motor and rarely exceed the max speed of the motor (what is that in pedelec mode on a Wisper anyway)?

One thing I don't get is that the Alien GS1 generates more drag (and noise) as the speed increases. At 25mph it is like someone has applied the brakes. This definitely isn't the case on my Galileo which consistently has no noticeable drag at all speeds. I have hit about 40mph downhill on it almost silently apart from tyre noise whereas the Alien GS1 motor sounds like it is going to explode at about 27mph. What explains this different behaviour?

Sorry for so many questions in one post.

 

[flecc]

So, following the converse of this, does that mean that even in pedelec mode, most people on a Wisper spend most of their time being assisted by the motor and rarely exceed the max speed of the motor (what is that in pedelec mode on a Wisper anyway)?

Yes, the same is true for the previous eZee models that used this motor. Both brands are limited to 15.5 mph, but some Wisper models like the 905se can be derestricted to give about 18 mph.

One thing I don't get is that the Alien GS1 generates more drag (and noise) as the speed increases. At 25mph it is like someone has applied the brakes. This definitely isn't the case on my Galileo which consistently has no noticeable drag at all speeds. I have hit about 40mph downhill on it almost silently apart from tyre noise whereas the Alien GS1 motor sounds like it is going to explode at about 27mph. What explains this different behaviour?

The same was true of the Synergie Mistral, and since Synergie have been taken over by Alien, probably it's the same motor. I can only think of two possibilities to cause this. One is that there is no freewheel and the motor is easy to spin up to a point, but beyond that the self generating that all motors are capable of starts to act as an electrical brake on the motor windings. That's the most likely cause.

Another possibility is that the ball and ramp freewheel design means it's free up to a certain spin speed, but beyond that the centrifugal force starts to jam the balls against the freewheel halves, creating increasing drag, crushed balls being such a pain.
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[tangent]

The Sunlova (8FUN motor) folder I tried out definitely exhibited motor drag. Absolutely nothing to do with increased weight or poorly inflated tyres. I was quite surprised at this, coming from a Panasonic based bike. Is the drag more pronounced for smaller wheels? If the reason for the drag is the friction from the internal gearing, then presumably this must be more at a given speed for smaller wheels as smaller wheels have to spin faster.

What is it about the Tongxin motor that reduces drag? Could the design be applied to the SB motors and others?

Motor drag puts me off the hub based bikes, despite advantages such as lower prices and increased power assistance.

 

[allen-uk]

does that mean that even in pedelec mode, most people on a Wisper spend most of their time being assisted by the motor and rarely exceed the max speed of the motor (what is that in pedelec mode on a Wisper anyway)?
Sorry for so many questions in one post.

I'm a Wisper rider (905se, 2010, bought new 2 months ago).

In order NOT to be constantly ferried around by my motor, I often drop to 'middle' power (of 3, low, middle, and high), and when I really do have to put in the leg work (up hills, for example), I still try and stay in middle as much as I can.

When you're bowling along at 13-14 mph, depending on the conditions, you can turn the power off and still propel the bike, but inertia (and possibly a slight downhill road) lend their hands, too.

The 905se cuts at 15.5, the legal limit, and as Flecc says, is fitted with a button (strictly for off-road use) which derestricts it up to 18-19 ish. I often 'forget' to turn it to its legal mode, because otherwise you get to 15.5, pedalling away (with assistance), and whoosh, all of a sudden you are pedalling away WITHOUT the assistance, and the difference is very noticeable.

So in answer to your question, THIS Wisper rider spends more time in motor-assist mode than he'd like - and I raised the issue originally because turning the power off completely, even on a slightly downhill stretch of road, made me think I'd hooked up a caravan by mistake, so hard it was to pedal.

(Weight etc. be damned - Boris's bikes in London are 23kg, have a high riding position for the bars, and the tyres are probably in all sorts of degrees of inflation, and I haven't heard too many complaints about THEM).

I like my Wisper, but would swap it for a pedallable bike with the same sort of motor (and a Wisper-type throttle).


Allen.

 

[fishingpaul]

The Sunlova (8FUN motor) folder I tried out definitely exhibited motor drag. Absolutely nothing to do with increased weight or poorly inflated tyres. I was quite surprised at this, coming from a Panasonic based bike. Is the drag more pronounced for smaller wheels? If the reason for the drag is the friction from the internal gearing, then presumably this must be more at a given speed for smaller wheels as smaller wheels have to spin faster.

What is it about the Tongxin motor that reduces drag? Could the design be applied to the SB motors and others?

Motor drag puts me off the hub based bikes, despite advantages such as lower prices and increased power assistance.

The sunlova is not a panasonic based bike,only the battery is claimed to be from panasonic,the 8 fun motor is a suzhou bafang motor.

 

[tangent]

The sunlova is not a panasonic based bike,only the battery is claimed to be from panasonic,the 8 fun motor is a suzhou bafang motor.

Yes, I did not express myself too well there! What I meant to say was that I had ridden a Panasonic crank drive bike for many years and was quite surprised at the amount of drag I experienced with the 8Fun motor on the Sunlova folder.

To claim that the drag is due to increased weight or flat tyres is just nonsense. The drag was most noticeable when freewheeling down a 10% hill, when bike weight was irrelevent. Panasonic based bikes exhibit no additional drag when freewheeling because the motor is not being turned.

I frequently nip out locally (up to about 3 miles) on my Giant Lafree or Technium Privilege without the battery. I would not feel happy to do this if I had to push a motor along.

 

[Old Timer]

After reading this thread I tried out the Aurora today. I often switch to throttle and pedal on the flat without actually opening the throttle. Well on the flat provided I go fairly slow I can easily get the bike home( and as you know I`m not really up to it at present) but the strange thing is that if I turn a corner or hit a slight incline then I really struggle( a lot more than you would expect seeing as I`m trotting along nicely before) it`s as if putting more pressure on the pedals brings in the drag and from reading what flecc says about the hubs then that shouldn`t actually be the case. What I did notice today was my wife was catching me up on downhill coasting on her Brushed Synergie Breeze.

 

[tangent]

What I did notice today was my wife was catching me up on downhill coasting on her Brushed Synergie Breeze.

This is interesting. How do you find the Cyclamatics for riding unpowered?

 

[flecc]

I frequently nip out locally (up to about 3 miles) on my Giant Lafree or Technium Privilege without the battery. I would not feel happy to do this if I had to push a motor along.

This exactly mirrors my own experiences of years with both these types.

but the strange thing is that if I turn a corner or hit a slight incline then I really struggle( a lot more than you would expect seeing as I`m trotting along nicely before) it`s as if putting more pressure on the pedals brings in the drag and from reading what flecc says about the hubs then that shouldn`t actually be the case. What I did notice today was my wife was catching me up on downhill coasting on her Brushed Synergie Breeze.

There are variations between versions as I've said above Dave, but my contention is merely that there is always more drag from these geared hub motors, they are nowhere near as easy to cycle without power as normal bikes.

As for the individual changes you notice, hitting a slight incline suddenly brings the weight of your e-bike into play with more effort needed, weight having virtually zero affect on cycling on the flat once acceleration has taken place. The increased drag you feel on turns is interesting. It could result from you perceiving a greater effort needs to be made when you are slightly banked rather than vertically balanced, our balance organs being less than perfect in our later years. It could also result from some lateral play in the shimming setup of the motor allowing the gears to run fractionally off the well worn line of the hub shell rack, thus increasing the drag.
.

 

[Bob_about]

Yes, the same is true for the previous eZee models that used this motor. Both brands are limited to 15.5 mph, but some Wisper models like the 905se can be derestricted to give about 18 mph.

Hi,

Interesting thread this one, and one which does not mirror especially closely my experiences with my Ezee Sprint.

I accept that I am reasonably fit, reasonably light and put in a fair bit of effort, but my experiences of pedaling without or above asistance seem altogether different to those posted above - is this because the newer Ezee motors are different?

I can, and do reasonably regularly, pedal the first 10 or 12 miles of my 18.5 mile commute to work without assistance. I manage to keep the speed at around 15 - 17 mph and it is not an absolute nightmare. The bike runs along quietly and easily and the couple of short hills on that section are perfectly achieveable by changing gear and keeping the cadence up.

To begin with I was trying this out as an "insurance" tactic believing that if I had a motor / battery failure the furthest I would need to pedal unassisted would be 10 miles, so thought I`d see if I could manage it - more recentlty though I have actually enjoyed pedalling unassisted - all 6 stone of bike, batteries and attached gear, but the wieght certainly comes into play on the hills and speed plummets to around 8 - 10mph

I can, and regularly do, pedal above the assisted speed - as I reach the speed the level of assistance I have selected will give me the power from the motor reduces and it becomes more about my legs doing the work, I can then continue accelerating on the flat or down hill with no sudden feeling of having a trailer added or massive drag when I get above the assisted speed. When I slow down again the motor scoops me up gradually adding the power to keep me going. The transition from motor to legs going above and then back below assistance speed is very smooth and certainly does not feel like I am getting into and out of significant amounts of hub drag

The only time I do notice a big effect from switching off assistance is if I am using the motor under load, eg up a steep hill, and turn off part way up - a sudden and complete loss off assistance is hard to cope with while in the same gear.

As I said - this seems different to the experiences referred to ref Wispers - I guess there must be something different in the motors??

All the best

Bob_about

(Oh, and BTW - if I do switch it to derestricted it stops assisting at 24mph with wheel off the ground, and about 20 - 22mph on the road - obviously only off road though!!)

 

[allen-uk]

Bob: still thinking about the pedalling with/without power business:

Does your Ezee have a front hub drive motor, and if so, is that what makes the difference? I know it's still got to turn in unassisted mode, but at least your legs are pushing an unencumbered back wheel/gear set-up rather than turning the motor as well.

Allen.

 

[Bob_about]

Yes

Large hub motor in the front, Nexus 7 speed hub in the back

If you are ever anywhere close you`d be welcome to have a try - it does everything I wanted - must get the 2000 mile review typed up and posted!

All the best

Bob_about

 

[nigel]

Even on my pro connect there is some drag with motor off but with my limited experience of all 6 electric bikes i would say the panasonic motors seemed to me the best so far. Nigel.

 

[allen-uk]

Yes

Large hub motor in the front, Nexus 7 speed hub in the back

If you are ever anywhere close you`d be welcome to have a try

All the best

Bob_about

Kind offer Bob. I would DEARLY love to be on the Warks/Glouc border!

Little chance of that, but I might badger you for more information as my plans for a possible switch of bikes progresses.


Allen.