These are the obvious things but I’m curious how dead the pedals feel and I’m also curious how much they claim the pedaling actually extends the range of the bike
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I saw they are coming to DC too. Need to look into that
I wanna know if it feels like a bike
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Test ride thoughts
So I did a quick 15min test ride in the office park where they’re located. The pedaling is interesting–there are two pedal modes, manual and auto; the former is like a manual gearbox, you can shift between 15 electronic gears and you feel pedaling resistance change across the range. Level 15 really required me to mash the pedals on the flats, while I was spinning very fast on level 1. I’ve never ridden an electronic groupset but in manual it shifts pretty instantly, they mentioned adding some haptic feedback to make it feel more like a bike so the “gear changes” are more noticeable. Is this what a Rohloff is like?
The latter auto mode is like normal ebike pedal assist, you set an expected cadence (default 70rpm) and then adjusts the speed based off of how fast/slow you are relative to it.
The pedaling is very responsive, can’t really notice digital latency compared to mechanical and it feels like a real bike. That said, the motor is constantly making noise, not loud but a buzz.
I didn’t get a chance to take it up hills or anything to stress the motor heavily. There’s also regenerative charging on the braking, when you’re using more than 10% brake it will start the regen.
The full suspension is very cushy, I hopped some low curbs and didn’t feel jostled around. I could also preload the fork and get some air. The lower end model has a coil spring and the higher end ($1k more) has an air suspension, I tried both and they didn’t feel very different
The tech is very cool. There’s a lot of electronic gizmos like electronic key, horn, turn signals, etc. The screen can do maps/turn by turn and also has music integration, they weren’t fully implemented yet though. There are some anti-theft features but I didn’t want to ask too many questions. Overall the electronics feel like gimmicks, nice to have but not core to the experience.
Overall, it’s a nice for an ebike, and pedal by wire is very cool to experience, but I wouldn’t say it’s “transcendent” as the marketing claims. At 80lbs it’s fast and doesn’t feel its weight when moving. On the other hand, it felt built like a CitiBike especially when handling it while walking the bike. There’s also some creaking that also reminded me of them too.
Personally I think it’s fun pet project for a large company but knowing the bike industry I have doubts about the market viability–especially when they’re paying Bay Area engineer salaries to develop this thing!
Supposedly they’re trying to make accessories like helmets too–perhaps with noise cancellation and lights. A helmet that can block wind noise would be very useful
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I see they are doing a demo near my house soon, may need to check it out. Was there a throttle button or was it all pedals?
No throttle, I forgot to mention but there is a throttle-like lever that auto engages max assist as an override. You’ll always need to pedal
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Okay so I have also ridden the Also now. For like 100 yards lol. I didn’t RSVP but we were already nearby for farmer’s market and playground so I swung by and the booth dude let me take a spin on the display bike while one of the organized rides were out.
It had that awful bench seat so I can’t comment too well on the pedaling and handling. In the mid range of assist the pedaling felt OK. But when I turned the assist down, it felt like spinning out a granny gear. So a little counter intuitive. And the resistance in the pedals is very low so I think that the pedal generator is unlikely to contribute much to range.
Overall felt like a good moped type ebike for luxury EV owners and early adopters but really not for me
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It’s really cool tech and it’s surprising how well it works. But it also feels like an appliance “built for the masses” bike
It is interesting to think about what kind of bike really would work for you though, I have a hard time visualizing for myself too
Well I had rolled up on my dad bike with torque sensing TSDZ2 kit. As a guy who likes bike more or less as they are, it does solidify for me how good a torque sensing mid drive is. It’s probably not the right solution for every situation but even that cheap kit is good enough to make the Also look like the answer to a question that nobody is asking.
The not-a-throttle was interesting but do people want that? The pedals seem like they are there mainly for Class 3 status, but then why the not-a-throttle? @stumphumper the booth bro called it a throttle but it worked exactly as you described lol
I guess the thing I wonder is, if your battery was at 15% and the bike is in limp-home mode, how does that ride go? Is it better or worse than a more conventional ebike under similar conditions? Not that I’ve ever encountered this situation personally, just trying to understand it better.