Turning off motor going downhill

[OldPedaller]

I met a guy recently who told me that he'd been advised by a technician at the ebike retailer (50 Cycles) that it would be good practice to turn off the motor if cruising down a long downhill. He has a crank drive bike.
Anyone got opinions on this? I'm no techie but couldn't think of any reason/advantage for doing this.

 

[danielrlee]

No reason whatsoever.

 

[Andy-Mat]

I met a guy recently who told me that he'd been advised by a technician at the ebike retailer (50 Cycles) that it would be good practice to turn off the motor if cruising down a long downhill. He has a crank drive bike.
Anyone got opinions on this? I'm no techie but couldn't think of any reason/advantage for doing this.

Not really any reason, there might be a really tiny saving on Battery power IF you usually pedal while going downhill.
Some new & expensive bikes apparently use hills to recover energy and pass it back to the battery, though I myself have no experience of such a bike.
Generally speaking, as someone already mentioned, what that "guy" told you is useless information to my mind.
Ignore it!!
Andy

 

[georgehenry]

I tend to turn my Haibike sDuro hard tail Yamaha off on many downhill sections I ride both on and off road.

I have just got into that habit after all it is very easy to change from assist to off and back again.

I have been riding the Haibike to work and back since I got it in 2015 (Off road to work and road back) and although I have a variety of off road routes I now know the gradients very well and also ride quite a few bits with the motor off on the way to work.

On my 12 mile route to work on Monday I used 26% of my 400Wh battery equating to a theoretical range of 46 miles. This of course means very little in isolation as I used 38% of the same battery riding home on the road where I travel faster and use higher assist levels on the hills I climb equating to a much smaller range of 26 miles.

There are a lot of factors in the longevity of your battery and turning your assist off down hill is undoubtedly a very minor one but my battery is the original one that came with the bike in 2015 and has now entered its 5th year in very good shape with 10856 miles covered so far.

 

[anotherkiwi]

I used to a long time ago. Now I either don't bother because I am doing more than 25 km/h and the motor is off anyway or I choose assistance level 0.

That way I always have a speedo and an odometer. I don't have to wait for it to come back on at the next climb.

 

[georgehenry]

Sorry that is what I meant ie assist level zero, I do not turn the system off.

 

[Phil Dryden]

With the Bosch (Intuvia), there is no zero assist setting. Below Eco, the only setting is Off. Turning it off, you lose all your data functions for minuscule battery savings. Is it protecting the motor in some way? As AK says, going downhill you are probably above the 15.5 cut off anyway.

 

[Andy McNish]

What do you mean lose all data functions? 'Off" on the controller just means the motor is set at zero assist/is off. The controller still records your ride and all your stats. It's not the same as turning it off properly by pressing the off button or unplugging it.

It won't use any material power being kept on in Eco if you are above 25kph. I suppose some monitoring will be left on to see if the motor needs to kick in but that might also be on at zero assist as it keeps recording speed and distance data anyway.

I do tend to turn my Intuvia motor assist setting to zero for long portions of my ride ... probably 75% of the time in most of them, as that's sort of the point of touring with the ALP. The display stays on though. You do lose estimated range functionality until you turn it up of course.