Most ebikers are retired or near retiring age where age has taken a tool on muscle strenght and endurance.

[Mr. Coffee]

Ok, I will further extend the challenge. Here are five of my bucket list rides, all of them are on pavement. Please send photos if you ride any of these with your hub drive bike if you and the bike survive:

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.com

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.com

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.com

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.com

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.com

The last one, I don't know how that would even be possible on a Bosch bike unless you carried a dozen batteries.

 

[Browneye]

So percentage of units sold means nothing? Over how many years? If that total from day one they shipped, it's likely a pretty low percentage. We have riders bemoan the fact they get no warranty service at all. I bet some of them would love to have a company that supported their system.

Of course. So what IS their failure rate?

 

[fooferdoggie]

Bosch don't make 8a ebike charger, and you can't use a 3rd party charger with Bosch ebike.

oops a 6 amp charger. why would I want to use a 3rd party charger? https://ebike-mtb.com/en/bosch-fast-charger/

 

[sc00ter]

At just under 50 and kinda outta shape I like my hub drive with a throttle, even though I rarely use the throttle. All of my riding is flat city/urban and as much as I LOVE the TERN GSD I wasn't feeling the mid-drive, and no throttle. Other than that the TERN made my ebike feel flimsy. But with the throttle on my ebike if I bonk out (would happen randomly even in my road bike days) I have the throttle to push my butt home. That little video was spot on. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Mr. Coffee]

Mr. Coffee, that last one indeed is quite a ride with lots of elevation, but a dozen batteries? Surely you could do that with a dozen batteries. That would be a lot of power!

Give me a dozen range extenders for my Creo and I think I could do that ride. It is difficult, but that's a lot of battery power to use and take advantage of.

Well, I think you might pull it off with six 480wh Bosch Powerpack 500s (I typically get from 1500-2000 feet of elevation gain per power pack, depending on temperature). On the other hand, the route is actually fairly gentle so you can probably get away with running at low levels of pedal assist most of that distance.

I'd probably chance it with eight.

 

[Saratoga Dave]

i guess I know where the summer EBR picnic is going to be this year! I haven’t been to Red Lodge since Summer Ski Racing Camp in June of 1969. Steak and potatoes for breakfast, fell off a horse, and got hauled off the head wall on a sled after crashing on a Giant Slalom course and sliding damn near all the way down to the lake. Great 10 days.

 

[Alex M]

oops a 6 amp charger. why would I want to use a 3rd party charger? https://ebike-mtb.com/en/bosch-fast-charger/

6 amp - yes, exists.
2 reasons to use a 3rd party charger:
1) Price. A part breaks in your Toyota, you go online or to the nearest shop and there is a choice from 5 or 6 different manufacturers, all cheaper than the original part from a dealer, same quality from same China.
2) Watch the video. The guy talks about fast charging at one of charging stations, or do you think they have Bosch charging stations anywhere?

 

[fooferdoggie]

6 amp - yes, exists.
2 reasons to use a 3rd party charger:
1) Price. A part breaks in your Toyota, you go online or to the nearest shop and there is a choice from 5 or 6 different manufacturers, all cheaper than the original part from a dealer, same quality from same China.
2) Watch the video. The guy talks about fast charging at one of charging stations, or do you think they have Bosch charging stations anywhere?

I don’t want to trust a cheap Chinese charger on my Bosch battery. And if you need to charge your battery you carry a charger trying to find a charging station that matches your battery plug would be very iffy.

 

[Martinet]

If I were to buy a mid-drive, I would have a problem with Bosch. I hate having spyware on a purchase and Bosch spies on dongle use. Certainly not considering a dongle, but such spyware is intolerable.

 

[Alex M]

I don’t want to trust a cheap Chinese charger on my Bosch battery.

Where to you think Bosch batteries are being made these days?

 

[Handlebars]

I know of no street-legal, commercially available hub-drive bike that performs adequately in mountainous terrain.

Does anyone else know of a mid-drive bike that has a throttle?

 

[TOOSLOW]

Luna Cycle

 

[fooferdoggie]

Where to you think Bosch batteries are being made these days?

They are not cheap Chinese cells not with a 5 year warranty

 

[Cowlitz]

Stay tuned for when I make it all the way to Conconully from Omak. The trip the other day, with a headwind for most of the uphill used up at least two bars on my Bosch.

I don't know about Baldy Pass, but Buck Pass was eating up the battery quickly on my Radmini. Slate Peak would be brutal. I'm trying to remember the Gold Cr road, but it's probably the same.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

I don't know about Baldy Pass, but Buck Pass was eating up the battery quickly on my Radmini. Slate Peak would be brutal. I'm trying to remember the Gold Cr road, but it's probably the same.

Baldy Pass is steeper than Buck Pass on the Conconully side, and there is somewhat more elevation gain.

I don't really recommend Slate Peak. You ought to do it once as a bucket list item but there is just too much traffic, the road is often very rough, and there are some really exposed sections as well.

South Fork Gold Creek road is usually lightly traveled so the road is generally better riding. Some sections are crazy narrow though so you might either have to backtrack or haul your bike up onto the steep hillside if you do meet a vehicle.

 

[indianajo]

I don't really recommend Slate Peak. You ought to do it once as a bucket list item but there is just too much traffic, the road is often very rough, and there are some really exposed sections as well.
South Fork Gold Creek road is usually lightly traveled so the road is generally better riding. Some sections are crazy narrow though so you might either have to backtrack or haul your bike up onto the steep hillside if you do meet a vehicle.

The reason I don't ride a bike on road in Kentucky across the Ohio, or West Virginia, where I was born. I'm nervous to ride on state road 3 in Indiana, which has 11' lanes if you ignore the 4" deep trench between the car part and the berm. The lanes in Ky & WVa are mostly 9 feet wide. You ride on US 101 and US 212? How wide are the lanes in Washington state and Montana?
AlexM, there are several levels of quality available from *****. Big outfits like Bosch, Caterpillar, farnell, keep an independent rep on site in the factory that checks at 3 AM on Sunday morning sometimes. Even in the US, production teams will pack up the reject bin and go party at that time if nobody from QA watching. ***** has a bad history of bribes to the QA guy, in a cash economy, so companies in the know employ some other company to do external QA. I've gotten a lot of real trash from *****. Farnell, a UK electronics distributor, has never screwed me with their house brand from there. On semi shut their Phillipines fab about 2017 and moved production to *****, and the quality of their parts did not decrease. Electronics one buys on ebay or alibaba is about 99% counterfeit, see this thread: https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/parts/82638-transistors-original-copy.html. I've gotten a charger from ebay that worked, but my controller is $35 if it gets toasted. I also check battery voltage during charging with a VOM that I know is accurate, and shut the charge off at 90% instead of letting the charger shut itself off @ 100%.

 

[Cowlitz]

The reason I don't ride a bike on road in Kentucky across the Ohio, or West Virginia, where I was born. I'm nervous to ride on state road 3 in Indiana, which has 11' lanes if you ignore the 4" deep trench between the car part and the berm. The lanes in Ky & WVa are mostly 9 feet wide. You ride on US 101 and US 212? How wide are the lanes in Washington state and Montana?
AlexM, there are several levels of quality available from *****. Big outfits like Bosch, Caterpillar, farnell, keep an independent rep on site in the factory that checks at 3 AM on Sunday morning sometimes. Even in the US, production teams will pack up the reject bin and go party at that time if nobody from QA watching. ***** has a bad history of bribes to the QA guy, in a cash economy, so companies in the know employ some other company to do external QA. I've gotten a lot of real trash from *****. Farnell, a UK electronics distributor, has never screwed me with their house brand from there. On semi shut their Phillipines fab about 2017 and moved production to *****, and the quality of their parts did not decrease. Electronics one buys on ebay or alibaba is about 99% counterfeit, see this thread: https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/parts/82638-transistors-original-copy.html. I've gotten a charger from ebay that worked, but my controller is $35 if it gets toasted. I also check battery voltage during charging with a VOM that I know is accurate, and shut the charge off at 90% instead of letting the charger shut itself off @ 100%.

I've driven this a couple times. You have to back up sometimes when meeting another vehicle. The road shakes some people up a bit.
It's beautiful country up there. The scariest section is Dead Horse Point. Then you get to Harts Pass where the Slate Peak section, which has been gated, takes up. Anyhow, here's a good write up and a short video.

Slate Peak is the highest road of Washington

Slate Peak is a high mountain peak at an elevation of 2,271m (7,4

www.dangerousroads.org

And a video where they turned back.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="

" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[Dentman333]

Does anyone else know of a mid-drive bike that has a throttle?

I have an Evelo Quest Max folder has a throttle, mid drive, NuVinci transmission and gates belt. Pretty sure they have several models with same setup. www.evelo.com

 

[Handlebars]

I have an Evelo Quest Max folder has a throttle, mid drive, NuVinci transmission and gates belt. Pretty sure they have several models with same setup. www.evelo.com

Thank you, Dentman.
I just checked and some posts indicate that one needs to be cautious of mountain riding with the NuVinci. What do you think about that?

 

[Dentman333]

Thank you, Dentman.
I just checked and some posts indicate that one needs to be cautious of mountain riding with the NuVinci. What do you think about that?

Haven't tried off road with a NuVinci but can understand that sentiment. I find the NuVinci helpful when starting from a dead stop because you can downshift without pedaling. Never fun riding in traffic, coming to a stop and forgetting to shift to a lower gear.