on eco mode you gotta really put the hammer down to hit max speed. most of the nicer units have a nice response curve that makes it feel like you’re riding a bike- gotta work hard to go fast but it gives you a real pep in your step
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This is great to hear. I don’t know why I was imagining these things as touchy rocketships, but it makes sense that at this point it’s a developed technology that’s user friendly. Thanks for the reassurance!
Leaning toward a Bosch equipped bike, because she’s ridden one and liked it. But I’d guess in this price range they’re all equivalently good.
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I mean I was kinda surprised too. My e-cargo bike doesn’t really get me around town THAT much faster than a normal bike, but the difference in effort is pretty extreme
i like the bosch stuff. incidence of issues is relatively low on the ~1k units i’ve dealt with
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Gazelle uses Bosch motors and have a few different step throughs.
I’d be surprised if they were supposed to hit 28mph
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It’s the difference between a Class 1 (tops out at 20) and Class 3 (tops out at 28) bike.
The Bosch bikes I test rode in 2017 had really great response in relation to the assist level. Quick to respond to pedal input from a start and it felt pretty natural all around atmo, something my kit lacks (but it’s good enough and has other advantages). They’ve also announced something like seven years of support for their products, but can’t seem to find anything on that right now.
I just helped a friend of my mom’s buy an ebike and my main recommendations were something that she could test ride and that had dealer support in her area. I recommended the Townie Go based on feedback from a coworker that has one and has put 3k miles on it. She ended up buying a previous year’s model of Pedago that fit her better and was the same price as the Townie 8. The new Pedago Interceptor (lol at that name for that bike) is surprisingly expensive in comparison.
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Fuck the big 3 get an Aventon pace 500
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https://www.rei.com/h/generation-e
these look neat
wish the budgeter one didnt have a squishy
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That’s pretty cool - looks like a shot across the bow at Rad Power. Would be curious to see the relative parts spec.
Also, maxing out at 100% assist is relatively weak isn’t it? Might just be a difference in a calculation but Bosch CX claims to go up to 300%, I think mine is supposed to be similar in “turbo mode”. 100% will definitely take the edge off though.
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That’s gotta be wrong, right? Yet there it is in the user manual. 100% max assist would be a huge bummer atmo. Seems like they’re just setting themselves up for unhappy customers if that’s really the case.
11.6ah, I am wondering if they throttled the motor so that they could advertise that 30-40 mile range while saving money on the battery.
That’s probably it. I’ve been sticking to 100% assist for like 95% of my commutes, with occasional boosts to 200% or 400% for some short hills. Based on the size of my battery and the range from my last charge, their advertised range seems about right.
Still pretty 
tho.
Sounds like a “goes to 11” kind of game. Like “max assist” should be 100%. That’s it, that’s the maximum. If you say your max is 300%, that just says to me they are sandbagging whatever they call “100%”.
Really would need to know stuff like how much torque it applies at each level of assist (edit which gets complicated by wheel size) to make any kind of meaningful comparison.
Edit again: the 80Nm put out by the motor they are using is going to ride nice. Bosch CX says 85Nm.
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The TSDZ-2 I have is supposed to be max assist of 300% and ~90nm. I feel that sorta checks out, because it feels like it is pedaling itself in turbo mode, and going up hills it is easy to feel the assistance maxing out in 200% or 300% modes.
If that 100% is accurate on the REI bike, which it may or may not be, you would probably only be able to get that full 80nm on hills, which is sort of how riding e-bikes seems to work shartmo
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REI can’t design a non-ugly bike.
Not a bad price though.
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Skimming through the Radrunner 2 specs and manual and they don’t list any assist level specs that I’ve seen, so maybe this is competitive. One difference between them is a gear reduction motor on the Rad and a direct drive on REI bike.
Haven’t been able to do a back to back ride between them, but I do recall the whatever Bosch (performance line?) were in the Benno Boost and Katu just powered up the hills in a way that my direct drive hub in a 20" wheel at 100% assist does not. Being able to take advantage of the drivetrain gear reduction made both those bikes feel pretty amazing.
Does anyone know about Truckrun kits? I’ve only just seen them turn up here. Are they rebadged Bafangs or what? Any good?
I assumed that the Assist Percentage was in terms of the riders pedaling effort?
effectively being the throttle setting as a pedalec
like 100% is 2x the power, and 300% is 4x the power?
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That was my assumption