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Many thanks lots of useful insights. So far I can’t find anywhere to test electric road bikes nearish to me. Seems the more powerful motgors could also be a bet aginst future knee problems/issues and could help one keep cycling for longer.
In reality, the increased torque of a big Bosch motor in an e-bike has little meaningful advantage in terms of going up hills, except you can do it full e-gas for longer. Such motors and their larger batteries tend to serve those who want to put in less effort themselves (for all sorts of legitimate reasons, I hasten to add before getting stomped on again) and/or want to go long distances in one ride without having to recharge the battery or take a spare.
If you’re worried that future knee problems are going to be of the sort that will make cycling very difficult yet you still want to travel about in a bike-like fashion, you might be better going true motorbike. But why take the pessimistic view? 🙂 Those artificial knees are wunnerful things, as Len the Fish (who has just had two) tells everyone who asks (and everyone who doesn’t).
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As you suggest, though, the best buying mode would be to test and compare several e-bike types to see what’s what for your personal wants & needs & likes. This is no easy matter but probably the most likely way to achieve such testing would be to ask friends and acquaintances who have e-bikes if you could have a go on theirs.
If you lived in West Wales, I’d happily let you have a go on one of mine, as I have done for two local acquaintances already. Both of them ended up buying Bosch panzer sit-up-and-begs, though. They go everywhere on them at 15.5mph, including past me on the hills … but I’m parsimonius with the power of mine, not wanting my legs to wither away, see? ;-/
Oldfatgit wrote:
If you think that I’m “triumphing over substance” you couldn’t be further from the truth. I really don’t know why you are lecturing me. My bikes do what I need them to do. I needed bikes that could cope with 40mile commute, and 60 to 100 mile road rides. I also found that the Fauza system *wasn’t right for me*. Your post reads like you have taken that as a personal affront on behalf of Fauza owners everywhere. Thats up to you. I’ve not said anything bad about the system, it just didn’t do what I need it to do. But … it obviously does what *you* need it to do. Thanks though, for telling me my personal experience is wrong.You’re not being lectured or told that your choice was somehow wrong. “Horses for courses” and “the right steed for the rider”, is what I said. My post is just to point out that there are alternatives to “more of it = better”, even if sometimes more power and energy (and weight) does mean better, as it seems to for you.
And it’s also relevant to list some considerations in choosing a light weight or minimalist e-bike type or a heavier and more full-on e-bike type.
The OP has had an artificial knee installed. These can be very successful at re-establishng physical abilities, sometimes (often) to a degree better than before the op. (That’s why you have such an op, after all). I know three people, personally, who are now able to run and cycle better than they did for a year or three before their new knee(s) were installed and bedded-in. It took them just three months from the op to recover their abilities.
So, whilst a new knee might need more help to cycle in the short term, it’s highly likely that it’ll enable cycling no different to that possible before the knee went bad. Maybe the better e-bike in such a situation would be one that’s more like an ordinary bike (or can be) than an electric moped? This is not to diss moped-like e-bikes or those who find them the best solution to their own knee or other physical issues.
Not everyone needs the e-bike you need, even if the root cause of both needs happens to be a knee issue.
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As to your admitted dislike of the Fazua bike you tried, would you like to say what it was you disliked, in detail? This might help the OP in his own choice, by illuminating that he has a similar reason to reject Fazua-type bikes or realising that he doesn’t have such a reason and can therefore still consider such a choice along with the others.
Horses for courses … of
[quote=(snip) For my particular use and my particular injury, I would absolutely recommend the Bosch or Polini systems over the Fauza. I would however, suggest that you see if you can hire a Bosch powered bike (I’m lucky that my local bike library had one), and give it a go. Some personal info: Age … 53 Weight … 100kg Geographical location … Central Scotland.[/quote]Horses for courses … of course …. but also, the right steed for the rider.
There are now many types of e-bike, with a wide variety of styles, features and performances. The trick, when buying one, is to know what you really want from such a bike. These days, it’s often quite difficult to sort out one’s true wants & needs from all of the advertising and social media memes the rascals implant in our poor overheated brains!
Some considerations:
Bike weight is not so much an issue when riding the e-bike, as the heavier items tend to have motors with more torque and batteries with a greater capacity. But a heavy e-bike can be a real problem if you have to lift it … to bring it into a house or flat with steps; on to a car carrier or even up and down the steps from your bike shed to the road. Once a bike gets to 20 kg or more, you’ll struggle unless you’re a big strong ‘un.
Battery removal is often necessary if you need to store your bike where there’s no means of charging it; or you have to get the bike indoors to charge it rather than just taking the battery. Storing batteries in the bike in a very cold or very hot shed can also become an issue as temperature extremes affect batteries in various ways. Easy battery removal ability is useful.
Battery capacity need only cater to your longest ride between charging opportunities. A 250 watt-hour battery is generally good enouigh for rides of at least 60k … a lot longer if you’re just wanting assistance from the motor rather than for the e-bike to be more of a motorbike activated by pedal turning. Larger batteries are heavier but also consume twice the materials used to make them. As do heavier e-bikes. They’re less “green”. if that matters to you.
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“Cycling” is a broad church. There are lots of motives, styles and reasons for riding bikes, including the e-variety. It’s important when choosing one to know how you’ll actually use it and what aspects of it will be most important to you. It’s all too easy to think of advertser’s “reasons” you should have one rather than your own reasons – your own motives and style for cycling.
For example, do you need the most powerful motor with the highest battery capacity or is this just being persuaded by the advert that “bigger is always better”? Many now choose a 2 ton SUV as their family transport, for example, when what they really would be suited with is a much smaller and less powerful transporter that costs half as much to buy and run, is less polluting and doesn’t induce feelings of drivist superiority. 🙂
In short, best to avoid image triumphing over substance when buying anything, including an e-bike.
(snip) Maybe I just need to avoid hub motors as they won’t provide sufficient torque. I am partly drawn to the Giant as I have seen one at a good price significantly less than the Fazua systems (though being able to remove the system altogether is a nice feature of the Fazua systems).(snip).+Does a Fazua sstem stil provide good assistance if you are cyling slowly? or does one need to hit a certain cadence for it to provide the full assistance? I have read that some systems ramp up the assitance (even on high power modes) only when the rider is putting out higher cadences?
Here are two url to Fazua pages describing aspects of the Fazua Evation software that allows you to set various power assist parameters to match your own power output, cadence and required “feel” from the motor asistance.
https://fazua.com/en/support/help-center/ride-50-firmware/general/
https://fazua.com/en/support/help-center/ride-50-firmware/maximum-vs-minimal-assist/
Some figures extracted from the above:
Torque max: FAZUA RIDE 50 EVATION – 55 Nm | FAZUA RIDE 50 TRAIL/STREET 58 Nm
Power max.: FAZUA EVATION – 300 W (mechanical) | FAZUA RIDE 50 TRAIL/STREET – 350 W (mechanical)
Cadence spectrum (opt. efficiency / power): 55-125 crank turns per minuteUnlike a rear hub motor, the bike in which the Fazua (or any) mid drive system is installed allows the motor/gearbox speed to be kept in the best power output range by use of the bike’s own gears.
If you want to be able to get the motor to work well even at very low climbing speeds, for example, you can fit your bike with a gear range having a bottom/low gear of 1:1 or less. Even 60rpm in that gear (which will have you going at a very low road speed) will still enable the motor to work at it’s optimum torque output for whatever power-assist level you set it at.
The power-assist levels can be chosen from the three “standard” Fazua factory settings (breeze, river, rocket) but the software allows you to tweak those power-assist profiles in all sorts of ways, to make, save and insert (to the motor) whatever kinds of assistance profiles you want up to the maximum (250 watts continuous or even 15 seconds of 350 watts). The way the assist-power is delivered can be set to match your own power outputs and requirements for gradual or much quicker ramp up and down of the assistance.
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Fazua bikes are mosly quite light – a good 5 or 6 kilos less than that Giant and up to 15 kilos less than the bosch-equiped Panzerbikes. As you noticed, you can also take out the motor.battery and put in a “blank” to reduce the bike weight by 3 kilos. making an ordinary unassisted bike.
There are some less expensive Fazua eqipped bikes. The most well-known is the Boardmans:
https://www.boardmanbikes.com/gb_en/bikes/e-bikes/
which look like a price match to many of the rear hub motored bikes. Vitus (Wiggle) also do a couple of aluminium-framed Fazua bikes that are probably better-made than the Boardmans and currently have 25% off:
https://www.wiggle.com/search?query=Vitus%20e-bike
Personally I like the lighter weight of Fazua bikes and the ability to do without the motor/battery when wanting to suffer a bit. In practice I get around 150km and 2000 metres of ascent out of a single charge; but I often switch off the motor and generally use only the +80 watts setting up long and/or steep hills.
The ladywife gets about 70km and the same ascent from a single charge, as she uses the +140 watt setting on steeper ascents, with the occasional +200 watts for the ‘orrible ones. Our average speed for a ride varies between around 20 – 27 kph depending on the route, weather, how much we chatter to each other and how much cake we eat. 🙂
You’d be buying under a
You’d be buying under a misaprehension if you think that a mid-bike motor like the Fazua or similar is lacking in power to get you up hills. The Fazua Evation, for example, puts out 55-57Nm of torque and (assuming you yourself are not very heavy indeed) this will pull you up any British hill with relative ease, other than the very few monsters such as Wrynose or Hardknott.
We (me and the ladywife) have three Fazua-equiped bikes in our household, of the lighter e-bike variety (13.5kg, 14.5kg and 16.5 kg, one racey and the others more Audax style). We live and cycle in West Wales, which consists of nothing but hills, many of which are both long and steep.
Like many e-motors, the Fazua can be set to have various assistance levels and profiles. Currenty we tend to have a +80 watts, a +140 watts and a + 200 watts assistance setting, coming in gradually at 90 watts output from we riders and gradually increasing to those maximums as we riders increase our output to 120/180 watts (our respective FTPs) ourselves. We don’t use the potential 201 – 250 watts level of motor assistance, ever.
I weight 82 kilos and the ladywife weighs 56 kilos. My true FTP (what I can actually output for one hour or more, continously) is probably about 180 watts whilst the ladywife has an FTP (I’d guess) of around 120 watts.
Unless your knee is extremely delicate and/or you are very heavy, such a motor and the above-mentioned settings would easily allow you to tackle most British road-hills. Use the 250 watts max continuous output as well and you’ll probably beat either of us up any of those hills. 🙂
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Being 74, I have many friends and acquaintances who have new knee joints; and many also with artificial hip joints. Many cycle, run (even fell run) without issue, some at a high level despite their old age and joint replacements. Those artificial body bits are tough stuff! You can probably work up to a surprising fitness if you trust the surgeon who put yours in.
IanMSpencer wrote:
A modern gravel bike is only sluggish if you fit gravel tyres to it, the weight difference in the actual bike is minimal, (snip) I have a gravel and road bike and the gravel is harder work, but then it has 32mm heavy tyres on it, as opposed to 25mm Conti’s.(snip) Basically, the answer is wheelsets – if you want a road bike fit lightweight wheel and narrower, lighter tyre, off-road, heavier wheel, more robust, treaded tyre – to whatever degree. (snip)It’s becoming possible to configure a bike as a genuine “all-road” item, with no compromise to it’s performance whether used on the road or on various kinds of rough track. The same wheels and tyres will go just as well on “all roads”.
For example, I have Schwalbe G-One All-Rounds on the winter bike, used mostly on the road (but on forest tracks in other seasons, as well). Despite the extra weight of their 40mm width over the 32mm Conti GP5000s on the swish & racey summer bike, the speed differential between the two bikes, around various habitual road circuits, is perhaps 2 or 3% – nothing of consequence for leisure or fitness riding.
The epitome of all-round tyres is probably the Rene Herse range of knobblies that are claimed to be tread-cut so as to retain the perofmance of a similar uncut slick tyre on the road but to also have tenacious grip on every other kind of surface, including mud. I haven’t got any myself (they’re very expensive and hard to get in Blighty) but many praise their abilities.
The weight of a bike (within the range of +/- 2 or 3 kg) makes no real difference to performance. The quality of the frame, wheels and tyres at transmitting power to the road without hysteresis losses are the true differentiators of bike performances. Many gravel tyres are subtle i’ their sidewalls and roll very well on road as well as on gravel, despite their extra width and weight compared to traditional road tyres.
Its always been possible to
Its always been possible to get or build-up an all-purpose bike albeit such mounts are not the very, very best at all kinds of cycling. Only the marketing names have changed. Well, and a few of the technologies have improved.
I currently have such a bike which is the most versatile of such bikes I’ve ever had …. and I’ve bought or built-up a few in over 60 years cycling. These days it would be called an “all-roads” bike.
It’s used primarily as a winter (road) bike but also as a touring bike, a gravel bike and a shopping bike. The design of the frame is such that the swap of a few components transforms it into whatever sort of bike you like. It could do cyclo-cross, audax, commuter and also road racing bike. The compromises are very few indeed compared to such bikes of yesteryear.
The important features are: ability to take wide tyres as well as road-width tyres; fixings for mudguards & rack (which can be of the hidden or standard kind); a geometry that enables changes of rider position by use of different stems, bars, setposts and saddles.
Such bikes are still rapid on the road, even if not TdeF standard. Yet they’re tough enough for all those other uses with just a change of a few components (stem, tyres/wheels, gearing, mudguards/racks, etc.).
A bike purveyor will generally prefer to sell you two or even five bikes, one per cycling-style. But there really are bikes that can do it all. These days they do it all very well, with so little compromise that you won’t notice.
You do have to be something of a bike mechanic and component collector to make the most of them, though. And immune to the yen for a collection of bike frocks of various current-fashion must haveness. 🙂
PS The bike I have of this ilk is a Vitus e-substance but you can find any number of similar designs without the motor/battery. The e-bike version uses Fazua, which is a motor/battery module that can be taken out and replaced with an empty case (good for carrying stuff if you need to). This makes the bike even more versatile in being a 14.5kg e-bike or an 11.5kg ordinary bike.
Another article in the
Another article in the Groanydad discusses “perfectionism” – that strive to become better than before which never ends as nothing is ever better enough, in the fevered mind of the striver.
A quote from the article, quoting Victoria Pendelton on her never-ending need to be better:
” Victoria Pendleton, when interviewed in 2008 after winning six cycling world championship titles and Olympic gold, told the Guardian: ‘I just want to prove that I am really good at something. And I haven’t quite done that yet – at least not to myself.’ ”
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The article mentions that the strive for a “perfectly-formed” life and lifestyle is largely a vehicle of neoliberalism’s rabid consumer mode, in which profits and the landfills are fattened by the fashion cycle (including fashionable cycles) whilst our wallets, environment and feelings of self-worth are constantly slimmed down to starvation levels.
Those with a serious case of the perfections can, for example, obtain the latest Pinarello with the latest Campag et al for only £12,000. Mind, after 3 rides and a look through websites like this ‘ere, it won’t be good enough. There are several £12,000+ bicycles available, see?
Still, it might improve the Strava timings by 10 seconds. But that won’t be good enough either, will it? 🙂
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Here’s another cycling-related bit from that article:
“It doesn’t end there. Curran’s collaborator, Dr Andy Hill, has observed that perfectionism not only diminishes our capacity to succeed, but actively obstructs us from trying in the first place. In one experiment Hill challenged cyclists to race against themselves, setting a goal that should have been comfortable for them to achieve. On completion, he told them they had failed. The cyclists (picture pelotons of tearful mamils), were then asked to have another stab at it. Those that had scored low for self-oriented perfectionism put in the same effort (or a little more) but those who scored high for perfectionism saw their performance plummet the second time round. They simply gave up. Perfectionists experience such profound feelings of guilt and shame on failure that they withhold effort to avoid facing it.”
The most efficient way to avoid any angst related to running – the exercise choice of the Guardian writer – is to not go running.I’m too tight to pay for Strava, so miss out on some of the payment-only features that I previously took for granted, such as clicking on my fastest segment time and seeing when I completed that ride.
Other than that I record rides in part to signpost them to others I think might enjoy the routes. I’m beyond worrying about my decline in performance and stop to take photographs of what I think are nice views. And a bike ride is a perfect excuse for, say, a sausage sandwich.
The most efficient way to avoid any of life’s angsts, employing your logic, would be to murder oneself so as to avoid any possibility of such angst arising! However, it may be angsty in the extreme coming to such a decision.
Now, about that sausage sandwich ….. I have discovered that preparing the thing halfway around the ride is the difficult bit. One needs to take a heavy-bottomed frying pan along with the cooker. Also, on hot days the sausages can go orf if not kept in a small fridge. There is also the risk of starting a forest or grass fire.
So cake must suffice. Yesterday I had a banana and a piece of “blondy (a cake made with oats, ground almond, butter, egg and large chunks of 85% chocolate). This requires no cooking but can become a bit sticky in the pannier.
I ate them at the top of Afon Twrch valley (Cwm Twrch) – the Cambrian one flowing through Ffarmers, not one o’ them other twrchs about West Wales. No picnic bench so I had to sit on an abandoned low loader part-consumed by the flora.
I’m afraid I have no stats at all concerning this ride, not even the weight of the blondy. Does the “85% chocolate” count, though? The ride was “quite hard”. It was hot and all hills, including some “very long” ones. (Are those stats)?
The ride isn’t on Strava. I saw only two other vehicles (no cyclists) along the Afon Twrch section (about 12k at a guess) and want to keep it that way. 🙂
IanMSpencer wrote:
I think the theory is probably to do with “end of life”. A worn chain will not sit on a new cassette, and a worn cassette will skip on a new chain, but an old chain will sit on an old cassette. So by rotating chains you theoretically extend the time that cassette wear matches chain wear. I find that 3 chains to a cassette is a good ratio, and changing around the indicated lifespan as per spec. gives you a non-skip change. As I use the whole life of the chain, rotation doesn’t help. I’ve not noticed the 3rd, most mismatched, chain last a shorter time than the first, so the premise of matching wear to reduce wear doesn’t seem to offer significant gains. The trouble with rotating chains is the disconnecting and reconnecting. Unless you buy quick links specifically designed to be broken and reconnected (e.g. Wipperman), you should be replacing the quick link, so any wear savings are lost through replacing pins or quick links. Although most people do break and replace quick links like Shimano ones, you aren’t supposed to.If chains are cleaned and lubricated obsessively through truly-clean to carefully-lubricated (with effective lubrication designed for the purpose) then discarded as soon as the 0.5% “stretch” is detected, cassettes and chainrings will last much longer than the 3:1 ratio often quoted. The price for doing so is your time & effort.
It’s a personal choice, mine being not just to avoid having to buy expensive new cassettes and chainrings but also to have an efficient and well-functioning transmission at all times. And to serve my minor OCD lust. 🙂
Running worn chains on worn cogs may avoid the skipping that can otherwise occur with new-old combinations but the efficiency is likely to drop and the overall wear rates of everything will accelerate. Many don’t seem to mind as they imagine they’re “saving money”. We have all been well-encouraged to apply only the accountant’s rule to all matters though, eh?
If only there was a better set of uses for worn chains. Perhaps a fad for chain jewelry could be induced? This would be far less costly to the buyers than, say, a Campag groupset jewelbox.
bikes wrote:
I use spirits instead of degreaser as spirits are soluble with oil which is preferable to potentially leaving some degreaser behind which will interfere with the oil. I’m careful to remove as much oil as possible so the chain attracts less grime. I can’t be bothered with an ultrasonic cleaner. I like the idea of wax but I had no luck with it, it didn’t seem to withstand wet conditions at all. Not the way I used it, anyway.Ha ha – you will discover, one way or another, that “can’t be bothered” is a far inferior approach to having “luck”. Why do a thing badly when its much easier to do it well? Also, the well-done gets the good result rather than the other sort.
One might ask about the roads you ride; and when. One could then be sure to avoid inclusion in any incidents involving your “unlucky” steering of the bicycle, as well as those during which you “can’t be bothered” to attend to the other traffic about the place (or the kerbstones). 🙂
Interesting – I hadn’t considered that side of the wear.As someone else has mentioned – it does sound like quite a bit of faff for moderate benefit.
I think I would benefit more from improving my chain cleaning process. bikes’ idea of a jar of spirits/degreaser with a mesh in the bottom, followed by an oil bath sounds like a good starting point. Depending how I go, I might then started experimenting with waxing my chain.
It’s correct that chains don’t stretch elastically but get slightly longer as the pins wear in their housings. This lengthening, though, can still be accurately portrayed by calling the chain “stretched”. It has got longer, see? The stretching mode is a wear-mode not an elastic-mode.
Shaking chains in a bottle of degreaser won’t get all of the damaging-grinding stuff out of the chain. The stuff wearing the pins in their housings is trapped in the teeny-weeny gaps created and will resist a mere shake-the-bottle dislodgement. I know this by applying that technique then giving the chain a proper shake in an ultrsonic cleaner. Loh! – a blackening of the waters, with their clearing revealing a sediment of fine black grunge now removed from them pin-housings.
Nor is an oil bath a good way to lubricate a chain. The oil is sticky and will immediately attract the dust in the air, from the road and from the rock-mud encountered by gravel & MTB rides. It does keep the rust off – but rust isn’t really the enemy of chains.
Dry lubes (including various waxes) seem best. Best of all are tested to be those which evaporate or rub off to leave the magic slippery molecules coating the chain innards – those pins and their housings where the chain wear causing “stretch” occurs.
Silca chain lubes get the best test results in various on-line reviews. How accurate are the reviews, though? Many might be paid-for adverts in disguise! To test the claims, I’m using some Silca stuff on one of me bike chains now. 150k so far with no sign of black gunk or chain-creak. Supposedly I can do another 350K before the next lube (one little drop per chain roller).
We’ll see.
One reason proffered to
One reason proffered to justify the 3-chain rotation is that the chains and sprockets.chainrings wear together more evenly. Personally I don’t care to wear expensive sprockets and chainrings at all so try to change a chain when the indicator (a proper one) says it’s “stretched” by 0.5%. This seems to work as I rarely have to renew a sprocket or chainring. Not for years now, despite the many miles (and even more kilometres).
Another and more cogent reason for chain rotation is that it makes more convenient the business of proper chain cleaning & lubing (justified as a means to increase both chain and sprocket/chainring life). Take off the chain to be cleaned & lubed and immediately put on another already so-dealt with. Clean and lube the dirty chain whilst waiting for the coffee pecrculator to finish burbling and gurgling. I keep the coffee machine next to the ultrasonic cleaner, myself.
Were it not for me being a
Were it not for me being a lazy and self-centred ole skinbag, I would name myself “Wolfy” (or even “Foxy”) then go out painting out them cyclist symbols and replacing them with a small pic of a motorcar or van. The wider strips of road might even get a Very Large cycle symbol; or even a “cars-forbidden” red circle with a slash through it.
But would the white vans and proto-hummers confine themselves to the gutters, as we cyclists in the towns are expcted to do? I feel not; and the repainting might even stimulate Lazza Fux to come out ranting and swivelling his funny little eyes!
Would it not be possible to prosecute the “designers” of these white-line murder strips for gross dereliction of thinking or even person-slaughter? But I suppose it would take 8 years for the case to come to court, by which time there might only be vigilante-justice available, anyway, from taxi drivers and fat baldy men with sticks, dressed in cobbled-together uniforms.
Many years, nay decades, ago
Many years, nay decades, ago I discovered the exciting activity known as “cycling”. Although this didn’t make the sofa-attractor & brain-softener mechanism of the TV entirely redundant it certainly highlighted the full import of the term “idiot-box”.
In all events, I suggest you spend that £17.99 on a new cycling cap to don when you go out and about in reality courtesy of the two wheels, pedals and the like, which will help to unshackle your mind and attention from US individualista propaganda-tripe, including the “solve eveything with some sixgun/raygun violence, car/spaceship chases and a series of drawling space-cowboy cliches of the utmost vacuity”. 🙂