KentGuy

I did a 100k very hilly charity cycle ride unpowered a few years ago. I nearly died - I had to walk all the hills in the last 40k at least. I should have trained far more beforehand, but the fact for me is that I've never got anywhere near that level since either. Unless I totally reorder and re-proirotise my life - work and leisure - I've concluded I'm just not a very good cyclist.... So in reality my unpowered rides all became between about 10-18 miles (again, hilly terrain). Currently, 2 months into eBike living, its typically between 20-30 miles on a ride, and I reckon its safe to take that to 40 on a single charge so I'm planning some longer routes when time allows. The other factor is time - my eBike rides are average 15-16mph, whereas my longer unpowered rides were more like 12 and down to 10 once my legs had really given out much over 20 hilly miles. So its possible to go considerably further in the same amount of time, which is a routine real-world limitation for me.

It was the rear derailleur thing - they also changed the shifter, and apparently that was fine (which that had to order in at £99 retail, but hey that's the beauty of warranties). Everything is now kerchunking perfectly. And yay, was really happy that the water bottle fit - it has to be a smaller size, but I'd really have missed it if it wasn't possible (perfect fit, Darren). Today was a fantastic day actually. Had to make an emergency dash into the next town to buy something urgent for work - it's a dreadful traffic-jam ridden road, and over a very steep hill. While it wasn't exactly fun with the traffic an all, I was there and back in 45 minutes and zero effort. I think that would literally impossible that fast any other way - car, train or bus, when you factor in the parking, the waiting, the jams, the walking either end etc etc. The afternoon was a 30 mile fun ride. Unspeakably good. Saw so many beautiful places near me I'd never seen before, some fantastic quiet roads with majestic downhills. Averaged 16mph, battery just on half, 1800ft of climbing. Bike performed like a champ.

Interesting d8veh. I was mostly going by a) experience on these boards, and b) this fairly comprehensive looking test over at Woosh http://wooshbikes.co.uk/?motorcharts . And agreed, a 30% gradient would no doubt challenge the Bafang beyond its limits (this is pretty much the incline of the very top 10 climbs in the UK, so would be pretty exceptional here at least).

I wouldn't go that far. Recently got a Boardman converted to a crank drive, and it can handle even the most horrific hills near me. Obviously the steepest ones slow it down a fair bit, but thus far it's handled every road I've thrown at it. Crank drives much better than hub drives for hills is the basic wisdom.

Oh yes, and a photo http://i.imgur.com/7olVNuv.jpg

Just to say I got my Boardman Team Hybrid converted by Brighton eBikes a few weeks ago, and I've put an unreasonably long review up here - http://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/threads/boardman-team-hybrid-custom-fitted-with-a-bafang-bbs01b-by-brighton-ebikes.27683/

[REVIEW CONTINUED] Conversion Day – Brighton eBikes Darren of Brighton eBikes has something of a reputation as an e-bike God, taking on all manner of challenges for conversion with a famed tenacity for doing the best possible job with good humour and grace. Since I hadn’t actually had a chance to try a crank motor, we started the day with a quick ride around the local roads on two of his converted mountain bikes, including a down-then-up thoroughly vicious hill comparable to my local nightmares, which the bikes simply chewed up and spat out with what can only be described as pure arrogance. I couldn’t quite believe how fast we got to the top – the downhill was so quick and lengthy, you instinctively know as a cyclist what lengthy hell you’re in for going back up. Only of course it didn’t happen – we seemed to be back up almost as fast as we barrelled down. It would have been even quicker had Darren not encouraged me to briefly turn off power assist half way. It doesn’t feel like you slow down, it feels like you are suddenly riding through molasses, hooked up to a bungee behind you while the frame alchemizes into granite… so this is what it feels like to ride at 12mph up a brutal incline for half a second, I thought, before turning it back on hurriedly. In general, it was taking a while for me to get the hang of the gears and PAS (Power ASsist) modes, but I began to realise (with Darren’s help) I was overthinking it rather – just use the gears like normal, pretty much. Going uphill, just start in a low gear and work through them, as if you were on the flat. That mid-drive motor likes to work at 50-70rpm, so its all about keeping a good, healthy rhythm apparently. Once back at base, we chatted about the process and Darren gave the Boardman a once-over, finding instantly the gear problems I’d been having and figuring a new brake cable should sort it out. I then left him to it, and headed for Devil’s Dyke for a spectacular walk and lunch (also spotting two very-not-out-of-breath old boys on eBikes who had just got to the top). Darren rung in the afternoon to say the gears had been giving him no end of grief, but everything else was good to go, so I popped back. He demoed the problem – there was something quite fundamental wrong either with the spring weight of the derailleur, or the pull ratio of the shifter or both (not that I really understood, but clearly it wasn’t right and no regular tweaking was fixing it). So back to Halfords it would be the following day, especially as Darren pointed out the poor gear changes would be exacerbated by strain put on the motor. With that caveat, I ran a quick test round the roads. It seemed incredible. Far lighter than the mountain bikes, far less resistance on the road, I found I could pedal up his moderate hill with ease unassisted – this was more than I hoped for. At the other end, I was running out of road before I could reach top gear on the downhills. And then of course there was the powerful Bafang motor, ready to kick in seamlessly at the touch of a button. Nothing more than the briefest of plays, but very promising indeed. The Bafang converted Boardman The bike does indeed perform well. In the cold light of day, it is a little heavier than I’d like – once the bag rack, bike lock and all the other paraphernalia is on, you can’t exactly lift it with your finger. Of course, it’s the motor that is the heaviest component by far, but it feels nicely balanced by the pedals. The bike handles well (apart from my slipping gears, still a work in progress as Halfords had to order parts). One unexpected gripe – after riding a bit, boy my ass hurt. New gel saddle bought. Ass grateful. By default, the controller has 9 assist levels and is set to the UK legal speed limit. Both of these are customisable, buried away in the menus. Since I routinely ride at around 20mph with a literal prevailing wind, and far more on a descent, the limit of 15.5 does seem slightly arbitrary and blunt instrument, and actively works against the way you might normally ride (in the USA, the limit is a much more sensible 20 mph). If you do set it higher, it means the motor is working more, and your range will go down, ditto of course with the higher levels of assist. I found having 9 levels a bit OTT, and spent too much time skipping through them. There are options to change to 5 or 3 levels, skipping intermediate ones, and I found 5 works well for me. I find level 0 (no assist) is of course a bit tougher than an unmodified bike, with the extra weight. Level 1 (minimum assist) is I think actually a bit easier to ride than an unmodified bike. The current for these settings is actually also tweakable, but not in the standard controller, it needs a laptop which connects to the motor itself – at some point when I’m able, I might set level 1 down a shade. I like having my gears on my right hand and power control on my left, there are times where its nice to invert those controls as you ride – as you work up through the gears, you can power down on the motor keeping an even effort. There is also a throttle control which provides a pedal-free boost. I’m sort of struggling to find a use for it, so far just giving a nice brief pedalling break on a very long stretch between downhill respite is the best I’ve come up with. Darren has mentioned it takes quite a long time to really get used to an electric bike, and I concur. The problem really is… so many options. At any time you can go from zero assist and maximum effort, to full assist and zero effort. At any time. On hills, straights, headwinds… add in the options of how high you set the speed limit, and it provides an almost infinite variety of riding styles and philosophies that you chop and change as you go. And yeah, its easy to just say “sod it” at the first sign of effort when you know all that will go away at the touch of a button. Going in, my feeling was either “a regular bike with help uphills” or “a car replacement with zero effort”. Having spent time with it, it’s not really that simple. Well, perhaps the latter is. I tried a 16 mile round cinema trip with a lot of steep hills (about 1,000 ft in total), with the limit set to 17mph – at the upper end of allowable since there’s 10% leeway – with me putting in absolutely zero effort. A car replacement. It worked great. Average speed over the trip was 14mph – and remember there are some very steep hills, where it drops to around 5mph at the absolute toughest gradients. By and large I was on PAS 5 (maximum assist), but I started to realise on the way back much of the trip would be equally easy, and equally fast, set lower on around PAS 2 or 3. When you’re hovering near the max speed, the motor engages until you’re over it, and then switches off. Set to max, this is a little wearing – a heavy handed stop/start. Lower down its more refined, less lurching and you can find a spot that it’s just doing just enough to keep you on the edge of that maximum (PAS 1 is great for this, I’d later find). Battery-wise, I ended up just over half full, which given how demanding the trip was, is perfectly reasonable – a range of just over 30 miles would be pretty much a worst case scenario. Oh, and it was great to ride in regular clothes and arrive without even an elevated heart rate. All very civilised. So that’s car mode. What about on a bike ride? That took longer to bed in. My first thought was to keep assist low or off for much of the ride, then push it a little more on the hill. But that’s oddly unsatisfying, I found. It’s an electric bike – it wants to be an electric bike. Truth is, things become vastly more fun if you let it off the leash. On hills, what’s the point in crawling up on 2 or 3 when you can bomb up on 5? When you’re in the right gear and the right power level, you can work with the bike – on all but the tamest hills, you’ll be below the limit if you just leave it to the motor, so if you really work with it you can push it higher of course. With practice, I was enjoying balancing that power level trick with the gears, keeping me working but avoiding The Slog. So on a later bike ride – 23 miles, 1,300 ft of ascent – I had the motor working more but rarely at the max, the top speed up a little and me putting in some effort (I even got out of the saddle a couple of times, go me). Result – fun. Way more fun, always felt very controlled and a delight to be able to sit up and enjoy the view when you fancy. Average speed now up to 15-16mph, over a much longer distance than I would normally ride where I’d have likely dropped to 10-11 – effectively, everything feels like riding on the flat in good conditions. This ride also took about half the battery, so 50 miles of this kind of riding on hilly terrain feels about right. When I got back, there was no question I hadn’t worked as hard as on a regular tough ride, but I did feel it in my legs. Although I’m not hitting the red from the effort, it is a more even and longer workout. In Car Mode (as I call it) it’s sometimes difficult to hold back. If you like riding, you want to ride. For me, it’s not so satisfying to just ride pretty much as you did before, stretching the range as far as you can by being frugal. So live a little, I say – use the motor, and work with it. The following week, a 45-mile very hilly round trip to my parent’s house my legs were properly done in when I’d returned. but was fast, fun and best of all I was discovering all sorts of beautiful riding country it’s unlikely I’d ever have found otherwise. And that, to me, is the real beauty of my bike. I’m seeing more of the world around me. Those endless folds of hills are no longer the threatening barrier they once were, but an invitation to explore.

Review – Boardman Team Hybrid custom fitted with a Bafang BBS01b by Brighton eBikes Total cost approx. £1,400 This is going to be a very long review, apologies in advance. It seems to me that there is such a huge diversity regarding what people are looking for from an eBike, that I wanted to give as much context as possible as to how I ended up with this one and what I expected of it. To help you combat the verbosity, I’ve split it into sections, so you can skip to any part you might be interested in. Cycling background I’m now 50, and I guess I’ve been cycling for about 10 years in a moderate-if-fair-weather kind of way. To me, there’s nothing better on a hot sunny day than a cycle round the local area – the uphills can be brutal, but the downhills of course divine. Come rain, cold or monstrous headwind however, and the fun goes fast, I’ll be honest. We have very mixed terrain near me in Kent, UK – there’s a decent amount of flat running east-west leading to moderate hills, then north-south you get the horror hills. After I’ve been riding for 2 or 3 months in the year (I don’t even think about it until the weather has begun to warm up a bit), I can make it up one of these great climbs at a dead slow pace. Usually that’s about it – at that point I’m seeking flats and downhills back to home. So my rides tend to be quite limited, and not especially long, usually between 45 and 90 mins. Typically I’m around an average of between 12-14mph depending on the route, wind and how late into the season it is – I’m faster later. Part of the cycling attraction is keeping fit, I tend to run 4-5k on alternate days with cycling if work and weather permit. In summary – well below the level of a serious club rider, but making some kind of moderate effort. Meanwhile, we have only one car and often I only have the bike to get about. That’s fine for popping into town, but not so much for neighbouring towns. Crucially, the local cinema is a very tortuous and hilly route away. However, that is changing this summer with a new cycle route. Still hilly, but now direct and safe. It was then I had the thought…. Hmm, an Electric Bike would be perfect for that. Quick, and sweat-free so I’m able to just see a movie the Mrs isn’t interested in without me stinking the place out and suffering heart palpitations. And if I needed to pop into a different town on chores, its much more doable. And it was then I started to wonder about it for local rides too. I quickly learned about the 15.5mph speed limit, and figured I could still pedal the flats and gentle downhills, then get help up the hills which would theoretically enable me to explore the local routes further and with much more variety. So I started to develop a competing set of demands from my bike-to-be. On the one hand, I’d like it to be able to pull me up hills and drag me through headwinds with zero effort on my part, using it as a car replacement. On the other, I sought a regular bike on steroids (what an apt analogy that feels) enabling me to put in pretty much as much effort as I ever have on a ride, only hugely increasing my speed and range. Tried but found wanting My first port of call was the Eco Expedition, a converted Mountain Bike. I actually liked it very much as a bike, but it wasn’t really what I wanted, which was a road bike. I looked into changing tyres, gears etc to get some more pedal speed on the flat, but it would have cost hundreds and in the end still be a Mountain Bike at heart. Second was the Kudos Stealth / Alamo (both of these companies are based in my home county of Kent). Loved the look of it, seemed to ride pretty well as a bike, and handled the modest hill with apparent ease (as did the Eco Expedition). It was much more of a road bike. But something didn’t feel quite right – the motor and bike didn’t quite seem so joined up, as it were, there was a lot of competing gearing / power assisting to get the hang of. Also while the frame-embedded battery looked slick, I was concerned that I might be stuck in the future with a replacement. I asked here on the forum, and most gave the same advice – buy a good regular bike, and get it converted with a crank drive. OK - what, I wondered, is a crank drive all about? Both of the bikes I’d tried were hub drive – the motor very unobtrusive, hidden in the rear wheel. This was fine more moderate hills, but doesn’t work anything like as well on the really tough 12% and up hills I have near me. Apparently this is all about torque – it works the same way regardless of the gear you’re in, and lacks power on the hill climbs (analogous perhaps to trying to pedal up hill in a high gear). So if the hill is too steep, the bike simply can’t make it up under its own steam. The crank drive solves that problem by working with whatever gear you’re in – it’s right on your pedals (the motor hangs just beneath the frame there), so it works with your cadence and even steep hills become possible in an appropriate gear. I was always concerned about weight too (not just mine – I’m over-wanting-to-be-under 14st). I wanted as light a bike as possible for self-power on the flat. Both bikes I’d tried were relatively good at around 19-20kg. Some eBikes are nearly 30, really only designed for electric power, and I wanted to have my cake and eat it. By going down the custom conversion route, I found a combination that was closer to 18kg – still hardly a road bike, but all heading in the right direction and better than anything off the shelf, it seemed. The Boardman Team Hybrid - unmodified As luck would have it, this was on sale for £450 as I looked around Halfords, and it got rave reviews for value from seemingly everyone at its non-sale price. Carbon Fibre forks, 20 gears (2 x 10) and around 11kg weight. I didn’t want drop handlebars, so this was the perfect road-end-of-a-hybrid. And it was a Boardman. Better buy a decent lock, I thought. My old bike was an £88 27-speed rusting Chinese hybrid wonder, 10 years and counting on the clock, souped up to be as roadworthy as possible. The Boardman couldn’t go quite as low gear-wise but clearly this was a better bike in every other way. Silent to ride, I was a bit quicker up moderate hills with the lighter frame. Steep uphills though were too much for it /me (lacking that third ring), but at the other end I was keeping going at some 28mph at the foot of a short local hill, pedalling to maintain speed til a T junction spoiled the fun. It slipped gears when changing occasionally, but that would be a simple tweak for Halfords at the 6 week check in I figured. It was actually quite tough coming to terms with the conversion, since I’d lose the 2 front rings to be replaced by the single from the Bafang - down to a mere 10 gears (hub drives by contrast can keep all gears intact). But, I reasoned, most of the point of the eBike really was helping with hills, right? So what if I lost something there manually? I really liked the idea of having some help, but working hard to bomb up even the nasty climbs at 15mph (in vain, I tried to explain this to a suspicious and better-cycling wife – “I will still exercise, honest, just FASTER!”). The ring would go from 50 teeth to 46, which means I’d loose a little maximum flat speed, but hopefully not too much. And as long as I can get up those steep hills either slowly without any effort from me when I’m done for the day - or - blisteringly fast with a lot of effort from me if I still have the legs, then that’s all that counts, right? [REVIEW CONTINUED ON NEXT POST]

Hey I was in Rye last week! I recommend The Union for lunch next time you're in town there. Something I've done once or twice is combine a one way bike ride with the train back, or just get the train to somewhere else of course. It all takes time though - part of this ebike thing for me is getting a lot more variety into, say, a 90 minute ride. There are so many really nice looking routes really very near me that open up once I'm not confined to a single big hill on the route, but I guess I'll exhaust them all eventually!

Ah gotya, Steve. I'm curious to know what range I could get out of it - range isn't generally so much of a big deal for me, but it would be nice to occasionally to really take off somewhere.

Whoa, 40 on the flat - you mean with the motor?! Yikes! My cassette is 11-32, so that's quite a bit below your 42, will have to see how it does. I guess there's always the option of changing the cassette later on if needs be, would be great to have that range. Mind you, our front cogs are totally different, the Bafang is 46, and my current setup is 50/34. Logically, compared to now I'm expecting a reduction in my top speed when pedalling (which is very high at the moment, I was touching 30 pedalling downhill today for a brief moment til a T junction spoiled my fun) and also at the bottom obviously quite a bit less.

Quite - most of Kent is deceptively brutal in my experience! There's a lot of pragmatism here. I know that I'm supposed to just keep pummelling away at the hills, and there's no doubt it gets easier if you keep at it. But after a lot of years of this, I think I found my limit, and it was relatively underwhelming. It's psychologically difficult to think about losing the front cog in order to put the Bafang on it, like an admission of defeat. I've spent a weak riding the Boardman, and its lovely in many ways but actually won't let me climb as extreme gradients as my rattly, rusty old 27 gear. I figure you have to think about an electric bike differently though... rather than having a gear small enough to inch up a gradient from hell, its more about finding the combination of motor and gear that will allow me to still work hard if I want, but without the pain, and with (I do hope) a huge boost in speed. I get quite giddy at the thought of bombing up hills that I've only ever seen inch past. Or, of course, I still want the option for me to sit back and enjoy the view as I climb if I fancy it. That's where those charts on the Woosh site were quite compelling (when I got my head around them - http://wooshbikes.co.uk/?motorcharts ). If I understand it right, those 14% hills near me should be just fine in a low gear unassisted, whereas with a rear drive I'd always need to work pretty hard.

Just an update on this - I've gone for the custom option. Bought a Boardman Team Hybrid in the end of line sale, and getting a Bafang mid-drive conversion done by Brighton ebikes, Sounds like the best thing for me - should hill climb very well and allow for some decent flat and downhill speeds with some effort from me. Thanks again for everyone's advice, I'll update this once the conversion is done towards the end of the month, all being well.

That sounds more encouraging, D8ve. I may have to sort out a test ride of the Woosh somehow. Annoying all the prices have leapt up, Brexit I guess. Essentially I want my cake and eat it. On a ride, I'll likely want to work up hills, but if I'm just going to the cinema over the hill, I'll be more likely to want to sit up and let the bike do the work. That hill is long but not too steep, so it's not a worst case scenario. Up my 14% horror hill, I'm usually down to an absolute crawl, 3-4mph, gawd it hurts. My wife says I'll miss the feeling of accomplishment when I make it up without stopping under my own steam and she's got a point, but I think I'll get over it you know.

Thanks again to you all. I'm after a regular step over bike really, so it would count our the Roller. The Wisper 905 looks like it has a lot going for it, but the weight puts me off. It looks like the Whoosh Karoo is closest to what I want from their range, but might be just a shade under-powered as I'm at the very top end of the weight recommendation, and there isn't an equivalent bike with the more powerful motor. So far, from all the options you kind people have suggested, I think it's between the Kudos Stealth still, and a Boardman custom upgrade from Brighton eBikes. Danidl - that all makes sense. Again, since I have a lot of hills round me, weight is indeed an issue. I should stress that I certainly don't average anything like 20mph btw - on my standard routes, it's between 12-14mph average depending on how fit I am (better in August than March!) and exactly how hilly the route is. Pedalling at 20mph+ is either a tailwind or a slight downhill, but its always fun when it happens...