Gravel Vs. Trail Bikes

[Stefan Mikes]

who really wants to sit on a bike saddle longer than a feature film?

i do. And many other people.
In fact, this is called "adventure" or gravel cycling.

 

[PedalUma]

i do. And many other people.
In fact, this is called "adventure" or gravel cycling.

Then get the appropriate batteries for five hours of ride time. What is good is they are easily swappable in several seconds, In frame batteries suck. Inframe are a pain to swap. External ones are the best. And non-proprietary. You will not ever be beholden to brand X agin.
Freedom, freedom, freedom. Think.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Then get the appropriate batteries for five hours of ride time. What is good is they are easily swappable in several seconds, In frame batteries suck. Inframe are a pain to swap. External ones are the best. And non-proprietary. You will not ever be beholden to brand X agin.
Freedom, freedom, freedom. Think.

I have the appropriate batteries and it is called Specialized My longest ride ever was 163 miles and it lasted almost 13 hours net.

 

[Chargeride]

US plug sockets always look surprised, surprised they have an Earth pin I suppose.

 

[Chargeride]

Then get the appropriate batteries for five hours of ride time. What is good is they are easily swappable in several seconds, In frame batteries suck. Inframe are a pain to swap. External ones are the best. And non-proprietary. You will not ever be beholden to brand X agin.
Freedom, freedom, freedom. Think.

Yes, propriety batteries, especially non swappable are a pain, but the Levo is removable so its not causing me too much of an issue, but the long length means carrying a spare requires having to fit some kind of luggage rack like Im loading a pack mule to climb the khyber pass.

 

[stompandgo]

Fatties: We just sold off the rest of our stock of analog fatbikes. They had been used for rental duty for beach riding. Nobody was interested in buying them, and they took up a lot of space.

Proprietary and internal batteries: Two different things. Proprietary batteries, as part of a drive unit system, make sense. It makes it easier for the bike manufacturer to design the bike around a system that is designed, sold, and supported as a system. Internal batteries started as a low cost system but are now preferred for lightweight high end systems that use range extenders as the swappable element. Adding main battery access to a carbon frame adds weight. They make sense. That said, there's nothing wrong with doing conversions using off the shelf parts.

 

[6zfshdb]

If you're using panniers, do what I do and use them to carry the batteries. Keeps the center of gravity low as well.

 

[PedalUma]

Panniers with a heavy battery on a full suspension does not add up to me. For me I never need to go 100 km on a ride. There is a point at which more is less. When each additional mile becomes less fun.

 

[RunForTheHills]

Well, Pedaluma's builds do not use proprietary or built in batteries. I was just wondering about getting the same clean look, but with a bigger, more practical battery. And sharks / jumbo sharks are easily swapped if you need to carry a spare. 2.5 hours is respectable, but doesn't really talk about WH or range. That could be with a lot of human contribution.

I think if I were to build another bike, it would be for my wife who probably wouldn't ride more than 30 minutes at a time. I bought her a Brompton Electric a few years ago and she never rides it, but we live in the mountains and the bike doesn't have much oomph since it is made with a very small motor and compliant with UK e-bike laws. That and it has the typical Brompton twitchy steering that scares her.

 

[PedalUma]

@RunForTheHills,
I want batteries with particular features such as aluminum cases, toggle switch, USB port, can be swapped with various sizes (depending on that day's ride) super premium BMS, can easily charge to 90% and stop there, and only the best cells. Sometimes I use larger ones. For most applications 48V is good with 7Ah. I like that size and weight. For something like a cargo bike I might use 48 x 10. With a highly efficient compact motor that is more than enough for a 75 mile ride with hills.
Trace the discharge wire on this one.

 

[RunForTheHills]

That does look like a more substantial battery on that bike. My batteries are either bought from Grin, EM3EV, or the official Brompton battery on my wife's bike. So I am not concerned with quality and I use a Satiator to charge all but the Brompton, so I get the charge I want.

 

[PedalUma]

That does look like a more substantial battery on that bike. My batteries are either bought from Grin, EM3EV, or the official Brompton battery on my wife's bike. So I am not concerned with quality and I use a Satiator to charge all but the Brompton, so I get the charge I want.

On that Yuba imagine that you can walk over to it. Place your hand on the seat tube on the back side by the rear tire, running your fingers down to the back of the down tube. That is where you will feel the white discharge wire going to the motor. It is in plain sight but vanishes.

 

[PedalUma]

How the best gravel frames in the the world are made. Multi-part, in GB. See them all. Handcrafted bikes. They kick butt over the off the shelf ones.

 

[Catalyzt]

It does 2.5 hours. Who really wants to sit on a bike saddle longer than a feature film? A larger one is possible, or a second smaller one to swap from the pannier for a 190 K ride. Getting to work or around town is normally less than three miles each way dressed for your practical daily destination not a sporting event, or a weekend dentist spandex clown.

The batteries are special. They are made to my specifications by the boutique division of the factory that makes them for the top three. No plastic.

I found your batteries delivered more than 2.5 hours-- I figured the range at around 32 miles, and at average speeds of about 9 MPH, that netted out to around 3.5 hours... and that was assuming about 2,500 to 3,000 feet of vertical. I could imagine getting four hours on more sensible terrain, which is plenty of time in the saddle!

One difficulty I had with the TSDZ2 system as we had it set up, though, was the maddeningly inaccurate range indicator and the battery fade. Climbing the last hill on my way home in the last 15-20% of the battery was NOT fun, I was getting at least 25% less power than I would get for the first 3/4 of the charge.

Then again, we made some choices we probably would not repeat if/when we do it again someday in terms of how we set up the controller, etc. It was a cool experiment, but the demands of the terrain I ride and my use-case scenario are really hard on any bike. I'm sure the DM02 is a different animal as well.

 

[PedalUma]

I found your batteries delivered more than 2.5 hours-- I figured the range at around 32 miles, and at average speeds of about 9 MPH, that netted out to around 3.5 hours... and that was assuming about 2,500 to 3,000 feet of vertical. I could imagine getting four hours on more sensible terrain, which is plenty of time in the saddle!

One difficulty I had with the TSDZ2 system as we had it set up, though, was the maddeningly inaccurate range indicator and the battery fade. Climbing the last hill on my way home in the last 15-20% of the battery was NOT fun, I was getting at least 25% less power than I would get for the first 3/4 of the charge.

Then again, we made some choices we probably would not repeat if/when we do it again someday in terms of how we set up the controller, etc. It was a cool experiment, but the demands of the terrain I ride and my use-case scenario are really hard on any bike. I'm sure the DM02 is a different animal as well.

On the DM02 one can go into Device and there are 15 options, scroll down past the bottom to Battery setting the three parameters, then press Up and Down at the middle one to set all the percentages of how the power displays. You shape it like a sperm whale curve. Heavy on the front end with a long tail from 54.6 volts at the head, down to 36 volts at the end. That way you get about the same 15 miles per each of the five bars. Yes, the TS can't do that sort of thing.

 

[6zfshdb]

On the DM02 one can go into Device and there are 15 options, scroll down past the bottom to Battery setting the three parameters, then press Up and Down at the middle one to set all the percentages of how the power displays. You shape it like a sperm whale curve. Heavy on the front end with a long tail from 54.6 volts at the head, down to 36 volts at the end. That way you get about the same 15 miles per each of the five bars. Yes, the TS can't do that sort of thing.

View attachment 203930

Hey! That's what I need, a Whale battery to replace my Dolphin!

 

[jabberwocky]

For the OG question, a lot of the difference between categories comes down to geometry. Its also always worth keeping in mind that bike categories are like 70% marketing. Todays gravel was yesterdays cyclocross bike which was the day before thats endurance road bike. The trends change, the marketing changes, but bike design is bike design.

There are tons of ways bike designers play with/tweak geometry to make the bike excel in different ways. Theres a pretty wide variety of bikes marketed as gravel bikes, from barely-changed road bikes targeted at elite racers to long, slack bikes targeted at bikepackers/singletrack riders. There are always tradeoffs in bike geometry. Just as an example, a more upright seating position (shorter effective top tube and slacker head angle) pushes weight back which helps make the bike better off road, but decreases aerodynamic efficiency. There are dozens of geometric constraints to adjust when designing a bike and they all play into each other (can't adjust just one without affecting others).

For gravel vs trail, in general gravel is going to more to the road side of geometry (so nods given to aero, drop bars, uses road components, etc) but with some off-road dna mixed in. Theres an assumption that gravel bikes are ridden at least some of the time on pavement. Trail bikes are usually mountain bikes and its assumed they will see very little pavement so off-road performance is the driving design goal. But theres definitely some overlap in the middle, where the more off-roady gravel bikes and racier trail bikes are gonna be pretty similar. See bikes like the Salsa Fargo.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

drop bars, uses road components

Flared drop handlebars, GRX or AXS drivetrain and gravel specific wheel rims are not "road" components. Also, gravel bikes have a generous clearance for wide tyres. Otherwise, I do agree with you. Yes, there's a distinction between "racing" and "bikepacking" gravel bike subtypes. A good example is Orbea Terra Race vs Orbea Terra ("When you are chasing the podium, not the pack")

There was a good GCN programme whether you could replace a gravel bike with a road racing one. Well, you might perhaps install 33 or 35 mm wheels on a road bike but rather would not as you would be afraid to scratch your expensive road frame by gravel road pebbles