A quick 'first impressions' of my new Scott e-sub 10.
The bike lists at £2,799 at most dealers, with the Bosch Performance CX motor, 500 level battery and XT level brakes/gears.
I took delivery a few days ago, having taken advantage of Evans offer to bring a bike to a store and make it available for testing for a £50 returnable deposit. I ordered two identical bikes, one for me, one for my wife. She would have preferred the woman's version, but it is out of stock across the UK.
We have had analogue Scott tourers for the past few years which have done 1000's miles with zero issues. Cleaned up they look like the day they arrived, so we were happy to stay loyal to the brand. We tried a lot of bikes and were impressed with most of them, Kalkoffs with Impulse, Haibike with Yamaha, Scott with Bosch.
We preferred the look of the Bosch controls, the reputation for reliability and we like Scott as a brand, so we checked out their range in more detail. Checking around dealers was disappointing, not only could we not find the bike we were interested in to test, we couldn't find many dealers with any available, especially in the women's style. Evans were the only people who had stock of the e-sub 10, with a couple of medium frames available. I paid the £50 and they ordered in the bikes to prep for testing.
On test day we arrived at the store to find the bikes ready, sort of.
The first thing I noticed was that the rear mudguard on one bike was pressed hard up against the tyre. I pointed it out and the salesman went off the get an allen key. At which point my wife noticed the headstock was horizontal, with the headlight pointing vertically down onto the fork tops. Bringing this to their attention generated confusion. It was decided to wheel the bikes back to the workshop area. Bike 1 was OK, but on turning the bars on bike 2, the bars rotated but the front wheel didn't. This was a bike supposedly ready for testing on a main road. It would have been dangerous.
At first we were told the headstock didn't adjust, then that it did, but only a little. Then the headstock was almost dismantled while they tried to work it out. Clearly they had little experience with Scott trekking bikes. Eventually, with our help, we ended up with the bars about right. Then I found the seat on bike 1 was loose and the Bosch display was showing kilometres not miles.
I gave the bikes a good check before the actual test ride, which they passed with flying colours.
Bought with a reasonable discount, we returned home and gave them a good going over. All four mudguards needed adjusting (the embedded wiring under the rear mudguard was rubbing on the wheel on both bikes). I changed the grips and added mirrors, plus phone holders.
The bikes came with chunky manuals, which are a complete waste of time. Dreadful. They are in multiple languages, so you discover the English section is small. It consists mostly of warnings and caveats to avoid liability by Scott and barely anything about the bikes controls and adjustments. Everything is generic. There are a couple of CD's, but we don't have anyway to access them, being a post-CD household. There was zero about the Bosch system, no manuals, no get started guides, nothing. I had to go onto websites to find out what the charging process is, how to change to Imperial units and so on.
The e-sub has a Racktime rack, which doesn't have the following in the UK of Topeak, which is what we have used previously. Fortunately the Topeak bags have velcro straps and that let us put them on the Racktime for the moment. If anyone has a suggestion for a large rear bag with built in panniers and a Racktime fitting, let me know, especially from a UK supplier (most seem to be in Germany).
The e-sub is a big bike, much larger than our previous Scott treckers. The riding style is half way between sit up and beg and weight on arms mountain bike. The standard seat is surprisngly comfortable, I haven't yet switched to our broken-in Brooks, we decided to leave it on and give the standard seat a fair test.
Our first ride was from Cheltenham up into the Cotswolds, to Winchcombe. This takes us up Cleeve Hill, a long a steep incline. This is a ride we would not have taken on previously.
I was surprised at how well the bike rode with the motor turned off, not much more work than the previous bike. The gearing leans towards the low end, so spinning the pedals while making stately progress makes human powered progress straightforward. I later found however that once up to speed, or on a downhill section, the top gears are too low, and I couldn't pedal fast enough once over 20mph or so, the cadence was too high for comfort.
Over the course of the ride (25 miles) we both found we switched off on any downhill (the weight of the bike working in your favour), we used Eco on the flat, Tour on mild inclines and Sport uphill. Neither of us 'needed' to use Turbo mode to get up even up steep hills, however I did use it a few times to keep up a higher speed uphill when cars were waiting behind us.
On regular bikes we average 8-9mph, with 5-6mph on hills, 10-12mph on the flat. Our age and the weight of trekking bikes works against being able to sustain anything over 12mph.
Within 30mins of e-biking we found anything below 14mph felt slow, 16mph was 'normal' and 10mph uphill was quite possible without needing Turbo mode.
When we tested e-bikes we didn't change gear much, but once out in the hilly countyside we found that we used the gears as much as on our regular bikes, plus we changed the assistance level every few minutes, depending on the terrain.
Overall I would say we had the assistance turned off 25% of the time, Eco mode 50% of the time, Tour mode 20% and Sport 5%. I'm ignoring the occassional burst of Turbo!
With much bigger tyres, at lower pressures, the bike is noticably more comfortable than previously. The riding position is also more relaxed.
I thought I had fully charged the batteries, but later found all the lights go out when fully charged, and I took them off charge while the fifth light was flashing, so they were perhaps 90% charged. Over 25 miles in hilly conditions my wife lost the first of 5 lights, I lost two lights (but then hers must have been more charged, the other conclusion, that she pedalled more than me, isn't something I want to consider). So we returned home with something around 60-70% battery remaining. If I had fully charged it would have been better. That suggests that we can do a comfortable 75 miles on one charge. I'll try to update this thread as I find out more. PS - we weigh around 75kg and are old'ish, but reasonably fit.
Overall we are really pleased with the bikes. They are comfortable, look good and seem well built. Our average speed has moved up from about 8mph to 12mph, a significant change, plus we got off after 25 miles quite fresh and ready to do more. 20 miles on our regular bikes is about it before we need a good rest.
Scott's manuals are poor, as was Evans prep of the bikes. The two of them had one more disappointment. Scott provided European plugs on the chargers, despite the legal requirement to provided bonded UK plugs. I reported this to Evans who said "Ah, we are just distributors, you'll need to take it up with Scott". This with £5,000 worth of bikes bought only two days earlier. I hope to goodness the Bosch system is reliable as I would have no confidence in Evans ability to sort things out and I certainly wouldn't trust them to repair or upgrade the bike.
Photos to follow
The bike lists at £2,799 at most dealers, with the Bosch Performance CX motor, 500 level battery and XT level brakes/gears.
I took delivery a few days ago, having taken advantage of Evans offer to bring a bike to a store and make it available for testing for a £50 returnable deposit. I ordered two identical bikes, one for me, one for my wife. She would have preferred the woman's version, but it is out of stock across the UK.
We have had analogue Scott tourers for the past few years which have done 1000's miles with zero issues. Cleaned up they look like the day they arrived, so we were happy to stay loyal to the brand. We tried a lot of bikes and were impressed with most of them, Kalkoffs with Impulse, Haibike with Yamaha, Scott with Bosch.
We preferred the look of the Bosch controls, the reputation for reliability and we like Scott as a brand, so we checked out their range in more detail. Checking around dealers was disappointing, not only could we not find the bike we were interested in to test, we couldn't find many dealers with any available, especially in the women's style. Evans were the only people who had stock of the e-sub 10, with a couple of medium frames available. I paid the £50 and they ordered in the bikes to prep for testing.
On test day we arrived at the store to find the bikes ready, sort of.
The first thing I noticed was that the rear mudguard on one bike was pressed hard up against the tyre. I pointed it out and the salesman went off the get an allen key. At which point my wife noticed the headstock was horizontal, with the headlight pointing vertically down onto the fork tops. Bringing this to their attention generated confusion. It was decided to wheel the bikes back to the workshop area. Bike 1 was OK, but on turning the bars on bike 2, the bars rotated but the front wheel didn't. This was a bike supposedly ready for testing on a main road. It would have been dangerous.
At first we were told the headstock didn't adjust, then that it did, but only a little. Then the headstock was almost dismantled while they tried to work it out. Clearly they had little experience with Scott trekking bikes. Eventually, with our help, we ended up with the bars about right. Then I found the seat on bike 1 was loose and the Bosch display was showing kilometres not miles.
I gave the bikes a good check before the actual test ride, which they passed with flying colours.
Bought with a reasonable discount, we returned home and gave them a good going over. All four mudguards needed adjusting (the embedded wiring under the rear mudguard was rubbing on the wheel on both bikes). I changed the grips and added mirrors, plus phone holders.
The bikes came with chunky manuals, which are a complete waste of time. Dreadful. They are in multiple languages, so you discover the English section is small. It consists mostly of warnings and caveats to avoid liability by Scott and barely anything about the bikes controls and adjustments. Everything is generic. There are a couple of CD's, but we don't have anyway to access them, being a post-CD household. There was zero about the Bosch system, no manuals, no get started guides, nothing. I had to go onto websites to find out what the charging process is, how to change to Imperial units and so on.
The e-sub has a Racktime rack, which doesn't have the following in the UK of Topeak, which is what we have used previously. Fortunately the Topeak bags have velcro straps and that let us put them on the Racktime for the moment. If anyone has a suggestion for a large rear bag with built in panniers and a Racktime fitting, let me know, especially from a UK supplier (most seem to be in Germany).
The e-sub is a big bike, much larger than our previous Scott treckers. The riding style is half way between sit up and beg and weight on arms mountain bike. The standard seat is surprisngly comfortable, I haven't yet switched to our broken-in Brooks, we decided to leave it on and give the standard seat a fair test.
Our first ride was from Cheltenham up into the Cotswolds, to Winchcombe. This takes us up Cleeve Hill, a long a steep incline. This is a ride we would not have taken on previously.
I was surprised at how well the bike rode with the motor turned off, not much more work than the previous bike. The gearing leans towards the low end, so spinning the pedals while making stately progress makes human powered progress straightforward. I later found however that once up to speed, or on a downhill section, the top gears are too low, and I couldn't pedal fast enough once over 20mph or so, the cadence was too high for comfort.
Over the course of the ride (25 miles) we both found we switched off on any downhill (the weight of the bike working in your favour), we used Eco on the flat, Tour on mild inclines and Sport uphill. Neither of us 'needed' to use Turbo mode to get up even up steep hills, however I did use it a few times to keep up a higher speed uphill when cars were waiting behind us.
On regular bikes we average 8-9mph, with 5-6mph on hills, 10-12mph on the flat. Our age and the weight of trekking bikes works against being able to sustain anything over 12mph.
Within 30mins of e-biking we found anything below 14mph felt slow, 16mph was 'normal' and 10mph uphill was quite possible without needing Turbo mode.
When we tested e-bikes we didn't change gear much, but once out in the hilly countyside we found that we used the gears as much as on our regular bikes, plus we changed the assistance level every few minutes, depending on the terrain.
Overall I would say we had the assistance turned off 25% of the time, Eco mode 50% of the time, Tour mode 20% and Sport 5%. I'm ignoring the occassional burst of Turbo!
With much bigger tyres, at lower pressures, the bike is noticably more comfortable than previously. The riding position is also more relaxed.
I thought I had fully charged the batteries, but later found all the lights go out when fully charged, and I took them off charge while the fifth light was flashing, so they were perhaps 90% charged. Over 25 miles in hilly conditions my wife lost the first of 5 lights, I lost two lights (but then hers must have been more charged, the other conclusion, that she pedalled more than me, isn't something I want to consider). So we returned home with something around 60-70% battery remaining. If I had fully charged it would have been better. That suggests that we can do a comfortable 75 miles on one charge. I'll try to update this thread as I find out more. PS - we weigh around 75kg and are old'ish, but reasonably fit.
Overall we are really pleased with the bikes. They are comfortable, look good and seem well built. Our average speed has moved up from about 8mph to 12mph, a significant change, plus we got off after 25 miles quite fresh and ready to do more. 20 miles on our regular bikes is about it before we need a good rest.
Scott's manuals are poor, as was Evans prep of the bikes. The two of them had one more disappointment. Scott provided European plugs on the chargers, despite the legal requirement to provided bonded UK plugs. I reported this to Evans who said "Ah, we are just distributors, you'll need to take it up with Scott". This with £5,000 worth of bikes bought only two days earlier. I hope to goodness the Bosch system is reliable as I would have no confidence in Evans ability to sort things out and I certainly wouldn't trust them to repair or upgrade the bike.
Photos to follow
