Yamaha easy

[urstuart16v@talktalk.net]

hi does anyone have any info on the Yamaha easy, i know it has an auto gear change but does i have the same drive as the giant twist ,is it any good ,and has its stopped production .How would you class the twist against say a sprint or torque power wise seeing the twist is only 24 volt i know it will climb hills better ,but what about assistance on the level -=thanks Stuart.

 

[flecc]

Hi Stuart

The Yamaha has been out of production for over three years now. It had a lot of the characteristics of the Twist, except the motor was in line with the frame and sat just in front of the bottom bracket, driving the spindle and then through the chain. It was a bit less powerful than the Twist. I doubt if spares are available for it now so it could be a risky buy.

The Twist has far less power than either the Sprint or Torq, but it's clever with what it does have. Driving through the gears is part of that as you've said, but in addition it's use of the rider's contribution is more efficient than any other electric due to the good software. You can judge that for yourself from the following rough figures:

Speed: Sprint 18 mph, Torq 21 mph, Twist 15 mph (or geared for up to 18)

Range: Sprint 25/30 miles, Torq 15/20 miles, Twist 20/24 miles. (17/20 if geared up)

Notes:

Any Twist can be geared to assist at up to 18 mph by changing the rear sprocket, and if done with the 5 speed hub the hill climbing doesn't suffer.

Considering the Twist does what it does with a 390 watt maximum motor and 24 volt 6.5 Ah NiMh battery, against the eZee 500(Sprint) or 570(Torq) watt motors and 36 volt 10 Ah Li-ion battery, you can see it's remarkable efficiency. A quarter to a third less powerful motor, one third less voltage and over one third less capacity, but having comparable overall performance. Those were the reasons why it's been so universally praised, and also the reason why it's the lightest, 21 kilos against the 24 kilo Torq and heavier Sprint.

 

[urstuart16v@talktalk.net]

thanks for that Flecc you have certainly wet ted my appetite for picking up a secondhand twist.

 

[flecc]

I like mine a lot, but don't expect a sporty bike like the Torq. It's a true utility bike, what we used to call a roadster years ago when they were much more common in England. That said, I've had country rides of 40 miles non-stop apart from the battery change.

It's mainly confined to trailer and heavy load duties now to make it last, but I use it with the raised gearing and ride on the flat at 17 to 20 mph even with the heavily loaded trailer, dropping to 8 mph in middle gear to climb a long 1 in 20 hill. On my 1 in 8 hill, it trundles up solo at 6 mph, or 4 mph with the 14 kilo empty trailer. On that 1 in 8, the Quando flies up at 9 mph with a little pedalling help, the Torq at 12 mph but only with very hard pedalling, but neither will match the all-round qualities of the Twist.

All these Twist figures are with the 5 speed SRAM hub that I fitted, and the batteries when new. A second hand bike's battery won't have the range until you re-cell the battery, and that would increase the figures I've given by around 20%.

 

[JohnInStockie]

Flecc, you mention 2 things of interest there:-

1st the changing of the lower sprocket, is this easy to do? What would I ask for and what tools would I need (should I take it into a shop to do it)?

2nd the 'recell-ing' the battery. Is this easy to do? Do you 'improve' the battery by doing this to even more power than it had when it was new? Can the Twist run on a 24v 12Ah battery for instance, and if so how could one be made?

Thanks

John

 

[flecc]

Changing the hub gear sprocket is a bit tricky since it's held back by a very strong circlip, not easy to remove without it disappearing towards the horizon at a rate of knots. A dealer doing it is safer and he'd do it quickly and cheaply.

Definitely use a re-celling service if you're not experienced with this. Doing this gives you the latest cell capacity in the same cell type, so it is an improvement on new. The cells in 24 volt NiMh were 6.5 Ah previously, but have recently been released with about 8 Ah. Powacycle and Urban Mover have them at 8 Ah, but Giant show them as 9 Ah. I suspect that in both cases they are the same 8450 mAh cells, two firms quoting conservatively and Giant being a bit extravagant.

The battery couldn't take larger capacity cells than those as they'd have to be bigger physically. Any bike can be fed with any capacity battery above the minimum it needs to run, only the voltage needs to be matched.

 

[derrick7]

Mileage on a re-celled Twist

I re-celled my Twist with a Windsor 8Ah battery pack, I used to get 23/24 miles from the original Twist but on the 2nd recharge, on the same sort of journeys, I get 31 miles.
BTW there was nothing wrong with my Twist pack, it was the Panasonic charger that was duff, I realise this when the re-celled pack still did only 5 miles!! When I bought the PowerServe charger from the U.S.A. (it's Chinese actually) I got the 31 miles.

Derrick - Llanberis