Woosh Santana CD gearchange quality

[trex]

The Woosh is about 2 months old (and we also have a 3 year old Freego)

The Woosh gear change is shockingly bad (yes even when there is no power applied)! - it feels as if there is someone at the back bashing the chain with a hammer and it's very noisy and won't always change gear

I made some minor adjustments but have also taken it to the bike shop with no improvement

Does anyone have any suggestions ?

The Freego has been faultless in this regard

you may have a frayed or damaged shifter cable.
give a little 1 or 2mm push on the index lever as if you were going to change to a lower gear but without committing and watch the derailleur. If the derailleur does not respond to your thumb press, then check if the outer cable sits properly and inner cable runs freely.

 

[John F]

Well obviously. Like I said, with my bike I can stop peddling, the motor stops. I start peddling lightly and change gear with an unloaded chain, and by the time the motor starts up I'm in the lower gear.

How long does it take you to change gear?

That's right, The key thing is to be confident you can get smartly and elegantly into your selected gear as quickly as possible (meaning a correctly adjusted set up) Turn the pedals with the brake half on to disconnect the motor - after a second or so you are in gear and the motor wooshes you up the hill!.

 

[Kudoscycles]

When you say "without power", do you mean with no intended power or with the motor actually stopped because the motor runs on for a bit after you stop pedalling, which causes the problem. Also, the main problem came when changing down under load, like when going up a hill.

The reason that these CD bikes have difficulty changing compared with a hub-motor is that the high tension on the chain prevents the mechanism from working properly. Assuming that there's nothing else wrong with your gears, it's this problem that you have to solve.

I found that the changing was perfectly acceptable if you changed down much earlier than you normally would, so, as I got to the start of a steep climb, I would change right down to first gear from the start, so that I was pedalling air through the gears until the bike slowed down enough to be able to pedal in first gear. This way there's no load on the chain while you change, so it changes very easily. Changing up is OK as long as you wait a bit between stopping pedalling and changing gears.

The only other solutions are to upgrade the gear-set, but even Shimano Deore XT go with a bit of a bang and wear out quickly, or you can swap to a Nuvinci hub, which is expensive and heavy.

Some people will tell you to blip the brake before you change gear to cut the motor, which removes tension, but I found that there was too much delay in power coming back that meant it couldn't work for hill-climbing.

I did highlight this problem of crank drive plus derailleur gears some time ago,we used the Shimano Alivio gear set and the Deore gear set combined with the TCM crank motor. We destroyed an Alivio gear set and at that moment gave up the struggle and changed all of our crank drive bikes over to Nuvinci hubs,that bike is now named the Eiger,the change does not require lifting the chain and is now very good.
We did consider using the Shimano Nexus hub but when Shimano would not guarantee the hub when connected to a crank drive that seemed not a safe option.
I did suggest surprise that others were using the cheap Shimano Tourney gears with crank drive and no problems.
The technique requires you to make a decision as to which gear to use prior to the hill but that is not always easy. We found that gear changes uphill with full power put so much load into the chain that any attempt at changing was rewarded with graunching noises that inevitably would cause damage.
I believe you can execute an acceptable gearchange if you dab the brakes to cut the power,turn the pedals and change quickly before the power comes back but I cannot expect my customers to go through such a procedure,the Nuvinci allows a smooth gear change without any such consideration.
It is the reason why all our future models will use the BPM hub motor,the power is fed directly into the wheel and the gears are left to deal with rider power only,many of the big manufacturers are going back to the simplicity of hub drive.
Kudosdave

 

[HittheroadJ]

The Kalkhoff Sahel with Nuvinvi is not that expensive. I have not tried a nuvinci though. I would prefer to see what the expereinces with those are over time. For now the reliability and low maintenance are very attractive, but the risk of high repair costs and having to find a specialist seem to outweigh that slightly.

I have had my Woosh Santana CD too briefly to give a definitive verdict on the gear-changing.
In general I am starting to get used to hill-climbing.
1. My gears change fairly quickly if I briefly push brake, then shift and then continue to pedal releasing the brake asap. Using the black knob changing gears up 1 by 1 has not given any problems. Changing gears down or up using the shift in steep ascends has given me problems, occasionally. If the shift is not quick enough you can even grind to a halt.

Overall it is do-able. I do try to avoid shifting gear a lot when ascending. If I go over 8Mph in 2nd gear I can still easily go to 3d and go to 11mph. I think it is only a problem if you find yourself in too high a gear and need to gear down.

Although the gear-changes are awkward I really love the riding experience as a whole.

just my 2c.
J.

 

[Kudoscycles]

I just cannot understand how any bike rider can find it an acceptable procedure to apply the brake uphill.
As electric Dave pointed out you need to apply the brake to cut the power but you also need to be turning the pedals to execute the gearchange. You need to do this quickly and smoothly to retain momentum.
It must be appreciated that many e-bike purchasers are not necessarily experienced bike riders they can often be newbies to cycling or have forgotten cycling techniques.
Electric bikes need to be user friendly to have universal appeal.
The Nuvinci is a very reliable and strong hub,it is expensive unless purchased in big numbers,but the cost plummets when purchased in volume.
KudosDave

 

[JohnCade]

Well I haven't found it a huge problem. As you say it may not be suitable for everyone and is not idiot proof. But if a buyer is told the score they can be guided to a bike more suitable if necessary. I'm prepared to put up with a small compromise like that because the bike is good in other ways and very good value.

As long as the electrical problem I've had with it is properly sorted that is, and it doesn't mean the bike is going to be unreliable.

 

[trex]

I just cannot understand how any bike rider can find it an acceptable procedure to apply the brake uphill.
As electric Dave pointed out you need to apply the brake to cut the power but you also need to be turning the pedals to execute the gearchange. You need to do this quickly and smoothly to retain momentum.
It must be appreciated that many e-bike purchasers are not necessarily experienced bike riders they can often be newbies to cycling or have forgotten cycling techniques.
Electric bikes need to be user friendly to have universal appeal.
The Nuvinci is a very reliable and strong hub,it is expensive unless purchased in big numbers,but the cost plummets when purchased in volume.
KudosDave

it's quite straightforward to change the rear wheel for a new wheel with NuVinci hub gear.

It'll add 1.5kgs to the rear wheel, costs about £200 and takes about 30 minutes. I thought d8veh has done this before. Apparently, the NuVinci can get sticky to shift when you are on a steep hill. It also has a loading limit of around 500W, I've got that from Woosh, they were planning to put it on their Sport CD last year but abandoned the idea. I suppose they may now be tempted to offer it as an option for their CD bikes.

 

[pedelecvirgin]

Sorry to hijack this thread but 1 or 2 interestings bits have come up and I wanted to pose a bit of a query.
If for instance, a bike rider has some degree of co-ordination problems, not riding and awareness, but for instance co-ordinating brake/gear/ pedal changes to provide pleasant riding, which is best hub or cd.
I like the look of the Kalkhoff Sahel, with impulse gear thingy, couple of hundred cheaper and id get one.

Thanks.

pedelecvirgin.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

With or without coordination problems, a hub-motor will be more relaxing to ride unless you have a throttle on your crank-drive system, then you can ride it like a motorbike. Even then a hub-motor would be easier because you don't need to change gear.

 

[dmsims]

Again thanks for the replies

I did the check and no frayed or damaged cable

Funnily enough Woosh rang me this afternoon

They want to go through adjusting the gears (again) and I will do it as the procedure is different to the one on their website

I am videoing as I go along but for the first part the cable tension check seems fine

 

[dmsims]

Just a quick comment on hills: yes in an ideal world you would pick a gear for the hill before the ascent with a Crank drive but a hill's steepness varies a lot and sticking to one gear impedes progress (the Freego is much faster uphill)

 

[Geebee]

I just cannot understand how any bike rider can find it an acceptable procedure to apply the brake uphill.
As electric Dave pointed out you need to apply the brake to cut the power but you also need to be turning the pedals to execute the gearchange. You need to do this quickly and smoothly to retain momentum.
It must be appreciated that many e-bike purchasers are not necessarily experienced bike riders they can often be newbies to cycling or have forgotten cycling techniques.
Electric bikes need to be user friendly to have universal appeal.
The Nuvinci is a very reliable and strong hub,it is expensive unless purchased in big numbers,but the cost plummets when purchased in volume.
KudosDave

You do not "apply" the brake you tap the lever momentarily there by cutting power but not appying the brake.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Just a quick comment on hills: yes in an ideal world you would pick a gear for the hill before the ascent with a Crank drive but a hill's steepness varies a lot and sticking to one gear impedes progress (the Freego is much faster uphill)

The Freego is faster up hills, but you don't have to pedal so hard on the Woosh. The idea is to use the lowest gear for steep hills, and only change up when you get to the top. If you attempt the hill in too high a gear, it will be much harder to pedal and there's a slight risk of overheating the motor, plus, it's nearly impossible to change down if your legs get tired. You have to accept that you go up hills a lot more slowly on a crank bike.

When you approach a hill, you have to look at it and think about what's the lowest gear that you're likely to need for it (worst case scenario), and get in that gear right at the bottom, even if you don't need it then.

On a hub-motored bike, it's different, you have to try and go up as fast as you can to get the best efficiency, and to stop the motor from getting hot.

 

[dmsims]

I cannot agree that the Freego requires more effort and don't see how it's possible to anticipate the gear (when very often you cannot see the whole hill)

Round here you are going either up or down (unless you are by the sea) and most of the hills are 15-20%

 

[trex]

how does the Freego compare with the Santana CD on hills around your place?

 

[dmsims]

how does the Freego compare with the Santana CD on hills around your place?

For the hills I would take the Freego

 

[trex]

can you do a quick review on your Freego?

 

[Jimod]

My wife has a Woosh Santana CD. She's only ever used 1st and 2nd gear. I'll take it out next week to some hills and see how it performs against my Kudos Typhoon. The Typhoon will be faster up the hills but I'll find out how easily the Woosh goes up the same hills,

 

[John F]

Another point is that when I bought my bike, I had no idea of the "issues" of gear changing with CD's. It was like buying a new car with a totally weird gearbox - you have to learn from scratch.

All new CD's should come with clear info on this. I have made lots of very nasty noises on mine until I figured out the technique, which has now become just a minor annoyance. Perhaps that contributed to the early demise of mychain/rear sprocket?

There again as I live in York I hardly have to keep changing gear on hills!

 

[dmsims]

OK after endless "fiddling" with a lot of input from Tony at Woosh the gearchange issue is not resolved - yet

I had another look this morning and decided to video the change in motion and I think we have a clue now

Something (I don't know what) is out of true (click picture)