I think this is a cracking bike but what am I missing?

[Deleted member 4366]

Mjwobble. I'm not convinced that you're not trolling. Please convince me otherwise by giving more details:
Where did you get the bike from?
Did you complain to anyone about the lack of power?
Where is it now?

 

[RobF]

Mjwobble. I'm not convinced that you're not trolling.

Reluctant as I am to accuse anyone of trolling, I was thinking the same.

The original post certainly lacks clarity and I think any prospective purchaser of a Scirocco CD should disregard it.

 

[bayrider]

Hi john h

New to this site but looking at selling my Sirocco2 to upgrade to the Sirocco CD am I making the right move towards a crank driven e bike any advice would be much appreciated just read the post (mjwobble)
Incidentally I live in Torbay and is renowned for it's hills I have 4 back and forth to work, what do you honestly think.

 

[john h]

hi bayrider i use my cd most days and have never broke sweat up any hill if you could try one in your area, hattie at whoosh would advise you on that[who in your area has one ect] i all
so have a sirocco sport , great on flat not so on hills but still wife likes, all the gears , this is the first time i have herd someone say that the cd was not good on a hill, i my self would like to try the new sirocco TS. have aTS crank a500w motor and carrea vengance to put them on soon.

 

[bayrider]

Hi John

Thanks so much for your response just looked at the Sirocco TS and the CD but only 9aAH as the Sirocco CD is 15AH which am I right in saying is better for a number of reasons, lifetime and less frequent charges.

So how did you find the the use of the the controls and gear changes and the throttle being on the left hand side? or would you suggest say a branded version with same speck if out there and within a buget similar to the one at the moment. I cycle 15 mile round journey and have some steep hills but more importantly cycle in strong head winds when rolling of the English Channel Easterly and Northerly HW from Dartmoor ect, I find the current Sirocco2 deals with this fine but need the extre power and poke.

 

[Kudoscycles]

Any crank drive bike (including our Kudos Ibex) suffers from crunchy gear changes when connected to a derailleur gear system. On uphill changes with the PAS set on max,in a low gear and high pedal effort the chain is loaded like a solid bar-if you attempt to change gear under this load it is a struggle to lift the chain and the gear change is crunchy.
The Bosch crank drive motor has a system that on gear change it lowers the power for a few seconds to allow the change,then the power comes back in progressively,but this causes a loss of momentum up hills.
The loads are so high that the Shimano Nexus hub cannot cope with the power unless soft start is fitted.
The Kudos Ibex with the TCM motor has good hillclimbing power but it is necessary to back off the pedal on uphill gearchanges-it would probably help if the system had a torque sensor and thus backing off the pedal would reduce leg plus motor power but the TCM is a simple speed sensor system.
The only hub that currently can cope with the power and allow smooth gearchanges is the Nuvinci system,our Kudos Eiger bike has this combination-it allows smooth uphill power-on gearchanges with no loss of momentum. This would be the ideal bike if riding a lot in hilly terrain allowing slow,high cadence,minimum effort,consistent power uphill progress.
But for most riding the emergence of the BPM motor fitted to the BH Neos and Kudos Tornado or Arriba bikes with their low speed hi-torque characteristics have sufficient grunt to speedily climb most hills,they are also simpler and generally cheaper than the more complex crank drives.
Personal opinions but feedback from the recent NEC test track seems to back up the foregoing.
KudosDave

 

[trex]

It's interesting to note that none of the speed pedelec has been produced with a Nuvinci.

The Nuvinci can solve the problem of loss of momentum when on max assist but adds 3kgs of extra steel to a 20-25kg bike and £300 cost. On top of that, if you cycle unassisted, you also lose 10-12% of your own energy input.

The loss of momentum can be dealt with by yanking up the throttle after changing gear.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

I don't believe that efficiency loss. I went out on mine and did about 25 miles over mixed terrain without switching on the power, and didn't notice anything.

The motor is a GNG crank drive, which has considerably more power than any Bosch, and it works fine.

I tried a few Bosch bikes at the NEC, which all clonked when I changed gear like there was a solenoid operating the gears.

I still believe that the Nuvinci is the best gear system for 250w to 350w crank drives. The 500w 8Fun one wil probably be the limit.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Electrifying Cycles]

Actually there is a speed pedelec with NuVinci, not on the market yet but there is at least one from the2014 range. It is a Riese and Muller Blue label. If you go to the following link you will be able to see it: blueLABEL CRUISER hybrid nuvinci HS | riese und müller (as long as German is selected as the language)

Happy to take a deposit for one if your interested

Kind regards,
David

 

[john h]

bayrider my cd has throttle on right side, as for gears, after i got used to bliping the back brake;just before a gear change they where good easy to change up and down quickly.the king meter are great can easy change assist while on the move they are set at 15mph but i find 18 better for me, so easy to change settings ,the 15ah battery will give 50+[ i have done this] with power left, i often pedel without power on it easy to pedel, the newer ones have 8 gears

 

[Kudoscycles]

It's interesting to note that none of the speed pedelec has been produced with a Nuvinci.

The Nuvinci can solve the problem of loss of momentum when on max assist but adds 3kgs of extra steel to a 20-25kg bike and £300 cost. On top of that, if you cycle unassisted, you also lose 10-12% of your own energy input.

The loss of momentum can be dealt with by yanking up the throttle after changing gear.

Trex,I have just weighed the Nuvinci hub at 2,45 kg and the average weight of a derailleur/cassette/tensioner unit is about 1.2 kg so the added weight is about 1.25 kg. I haven't noticed any loss of efficiency over the derailleur but its difficult to measure.
Are you sure you are not confusing with stage 1 Nuvinci that weighed 5 kg plus and riding it was like riding through treacle. But they have made a lot of improvements in the last 2 years.
I will keep back some TCM + derailleur bikes for those who understand how to execute smooth uphill gearchanges but it is tricky not everyone gets the knack. For most people the TCM + Nuvinci is so much more easy to change under power uphill. Throttles(above 4mph) are becoming less easy to provide now that they have been outlawed in many of the EC countries.
KudosDave

 

[trex]

for most people, £300 extra for a NuVinci is difficult to justify.
If they are not sure that they can get the knack for changing gear under max load, they should consider a BPM motor. It's only £60 more than an SWX.

 

[trex]

Incidentally, as I was re-reading the new KTM eStyle P 2014 mountain test review, the Raleigh with Impulse motor coming last - the poor performance is down to the NuVinci-Harmony fitted to this bike according to the testers. The KTM motor is noisy. The BionX should be really be recommended.

Food for thought.

http://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/electric-bicycles/15825-new-ktm-estyle-p-2014-review-news-ktm.html

 

[103Alex1]

Incidentally, as I was re-reading the new KTM eStyle P 2014 mountain test review, the Raleigh with Impulse motor coming last - the poor performance is down to the NuVinci-Harmony fitted to this bike according to the testers.

It's definitely not down to the motor or the battery, both of which are perfectly capable of far exceeding that performance. I felt on both occasions I tested an Impulse bike with the Nuvinci Harmony that it just doesn't cut the mustard and would not be a bike to choose for steep climbing. Haven't tried one on other makes of bike but I've a strong suspicion there may be similar issues there too. Whatever is going on with this particular hub gear system on eBikes as it stands, it just isn't working right. Perhaps it got stuck in high gear and conked out of the test

Stick to derailleur (or Alfine-11 / Rohloff-14 if you want hub gears) for very steep climbing. Simples.

 

[John F]

I'm 15 stone and have owned the Woosh Santana CDL hub drive bike, and have been pleasantly surprised at its hill climbing talents. OK I live in the flatlands of York but there are a few moderate gradients that the assist comes in handy. The trick is to decide which low gear would be appropriate and select max assist and get the legs spinning. Simple! Hills that where previously a drag on my 67 year old legs are now no problem at all.

 

[Tim]

I've found the opposite - the Sahel Harmony is the bike most likely to climb the steepest slopes, thse greater than 1:4, with ease, partly because of the 360% range, partly because it will shift under load.

I was riding up and down a very steep bank, just for fun, on the seafront near Lancing on Saturday on a Sahel Harmony with no problems at all, apart from finding the right position to prevent falling backwards off the saddle.

 

[trex]

Tim,
Nobody will argue against the benefits of the NuVinci Harmony. The point I made is about efficiency. Any friction drive will have friction loss in the transmission. As long as NuVinci is coy about quantifying these losses, there are doubts about whether it should be recommended.
The NuVinci is elegant but using balls instead of discs will inevitably create a lot more losses in friction shear of the transmission fluid around the contact points when under stress.
In the mountain test I mentioned, the mountain course is 11km long, 557m elevation (about 5% gradient on average) but at some places, the gradient is as high as 22%-25%. The battery consumption of the Harmony is singled out by the testers as significant: from 21WH/km to 29WH/km, roughly one third of power is lost in the gearbox.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

There's something wrong with those test results, so I wouldn't take too much notice of them. When I rode the Kalkhoff impulse, it was about the same as the Bosch powerwise. I don't believe that the Nuvinci itself is very inefficient, but if the cadence of the Harmony system isn't set correctly, it can make a massive difference to motor efficiency.

 

[trex]

that was the same reaction I had when I read your first post about the 'Bergtest' (hub drive is better then crank drive for climbing) - So I re-read it yesterday. The testers took quite a bit of precautions trying to be fair to all the bikes. Of course, it's not a lab condition test. The KTM's battery is not supplied by Bosch - it may be a bit conservatively specified, resulting in very exceptional performance.
With regard to gearbox efficiency, most of the test rides around various bike shops are on flat roads with perhaps a small climb but not 11-20km on the trot.
There are some formulae in this article to estimate friction loss - roughly proportional to the cube of the torque.

Dissipative Processes in Tribology - Google Books

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Yes, but I've ridden my Nuvinci up and down hills for a long way without power, and I can tell you that the transmission loss is negligible. Also, when I go on the same journeys on my bike to compare battery consumption before and after fitting the Nuvinci, there's no measurable difference.

The Harmony system is not very good at keeping you in the right ratio at the right time. Maybe it can be with proper set-up, but when I tried it, it didn't change down properly. Just like when you're pedalling in the wrong gear, you waste a lot of energy and get tired easily, it's the same for the motor in a crank-drive. I'm pretty sure that's where all the losses would have been.