Are Electric bikes any good or too good

overlander

Esteemed Pedelecer
Apr 22, 2009
532
42
Ok guys, its time we had some hard evidence exactly what these levels of assist exactly mean. I know we can not compare the different systems as they assist in different way but we can compare assist levels to some level. A bit simplistic but say a level of assist of 30% should be the same as 30% assist on another system.

Ok the only electrical assist i have is the bionx system, for people who do not know about this system i will explain. The bionx system is a very natural system in that for example you could be mashing away at a low cadence and doing 10 mph but drop a few gears to increase your cadence and the system will assist up to 15mph. It must be programed to emulate real cycling cadence levels which is perfect for me so this makes this comparison pretty accurate. So what are the assist levels, there are 4 levels boosting your pedal power by 25%, 50%, 100%, or 200%.

So the two test bikes are my Trek FX+ and my Koga worldtraveller.

Firstly the Koga weighs in at a mighty 21.4Kg with the rohloff 14 speed hub.




This weighs in at 19.3KG but with the panniers etc it must be close to 22 Kg.



The koga but mine with hub and panniers close to 23Kg and 26" wheels.


So the idea is to do a 7 mile circuit, extremely hilly, one hill requires you to come out of 5th gear in the car so pretty tough 7 miles. So what i am going to do is cycle it with the koga(done today) Cycle with level 1,2,3 and 4 and compare the heart rate and that way we will see what effect these bikes have. So here is the koga run.


KOGA Run


Will try and improve this picture quality, anyway the next graphs tomorrow, but i should point out i lost 5 minutes of data as my Koga has a ANT+ machine on it which interfered with the polar signal. Will do it again soon, but tomorrow will do the electric bike in two modes.
 
Last edited:
D

Deleted member 4366

Guest
I'm looking forward to seeing the data and your conclusions - should be interesting.

I't would be interesting for you to do the same with my bike. Normally, your heart rate wouldn't change because the amount of pedal effort is the same whether the road is flat or a very steep hill, i.e you don't have to make any effort. The system adjusts the amount of power as you go along in an attempt to maintain a constant speed. Any change in heartbeat would be from either how your enjoyment level gradually rises through the journey as you start to realise how brilliant it is, or from when it jumps right up when the cars/buses/pedestrians pull/jump out on you.
 

overlander

Esteemed Pedelecer
Apr 22, 2009
532
42
Ok guys sorry for the delay but part of the engine had a serious issue on sunday due too much jack daniels being consumed. But better late than never.

Well today i done it on level 1, the one i class as absolutely hopeless as it only gives 25% assist. Now by my calculations, this should counteract the weight of the bike and give about 5% help. This came as a surprise, it actually did help slightly and the ride did feel easier but what about the hard figures.

Koga Heart Rate average: 144
Heart Rate Max: 163
Calories: 297

Level 1 Trek:
Heart Rate Avg 135
Heart Rate Max 160
Calories 294

Time roughly the same.

KOGA



TREK LEVEL 1



To be honest i am more impressed with this system after seeing this, remember Trek advertise this as a fitnes bike and one thing for certain is level 1 works. The general shape is the same but smoothed out and shifted down about 10%. I certainty would have bet it would not have helped but i was wrong, i still got a decent workout but felt it was a bit easier. So basically the assumption that you take the weight of the standard bike compared to electric bike ratio does indeed hold up. As for mileage, yes again i recon they are pretty spot on with 40 ish miles on this level.

Level 2,3,4 to follow.
 
Last edited: