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  1. mschwett

    Help deciding when to switch to an ebike?

    those are nice rides. my experience is a little different in that i was always relatively fit/athletic but have a heart condition which strongly encourages me to limit activity. so i actually started with ebikes, then decided i didn't need them and went to an analog bike (s-works aethos) but...
  2. mschwett

    Lady cyclist killed in Davis involving juvenile on ebike...on the bike path.

    not really relevant whether it's a concrete wall, steel light post, aluminum car, etc. it's certainly unlikely to have a head-on collision with a concrete wall, but whether you hit the ground obliquely or a car door directly or a pedestrian, your kinetic energy goes somewhere. speed causes more...
  3. mschwett

    Lady cyclist killed in Davis involving juvenile on ebike...on the bike path.

    not a great point for a few reasons : 1) motorcyclists usually wear protective clothing, full face/head helmets etc 2) motorcyclists have to be licensed and motorcycles have to be registered and insured and are usually pretty skilled operators of their vehicles 3) there are always exceptions...
  4. mschwett

    Lady cyclist killed in Davis involving juvenile on ebike...on the bike path.

    e-bike absolutists are in such denial about everything you’ve said here, which is all true. a child’s tricycle can probably go 30mph if you drop it off a cliff, it still doesn’t mean that the average acoustic bike out on the road is routinely going 20+ for long distances. the dramatic increase...
  5. mschwett

    Bike RADAR - for other bikes

    mine typically detects bicycles…. but they have to be gaining on you. ride faster :)
  6. mschwett

    VADO 2026?

    what a strange article. a lot of work for a fake review of a fake bike. the bike described would be great, i'd definitely prefer a rigid vado to the boat anchor front forks they use, and the 3.0 having more torque is great... but the first image is absolutely AI generated (nanobanana) and there...
  7. mschwett

    Rad has new owner

    rad isn't big enough to invest in the kind of automation it would take to do things like install derailleurs and hydraulic brakes. it will certainly cost much more to build up a bike from components in the US, but maybe that can be slightly offset by logistics savings, incentives, etc. zero...
  8. mschwett

    been around a bit.

    this is awesome !!!! have you tried wandrer.earth? it tracks what % of the roads you've ridden in various places. it's fun and the notifications that you covered a new xxx miles are always cool. sadly i don't get out much anymore but here was my last heat map from 2024, maybe 15,000 miles of...
  9. mschwett

    Turbo Vado 2 4.0 or 5.0 or 6.0?

    would be interesting to conpare a few different cadences from both the display and the fit file to see if they’re really just always assuming 80%, or do they take into account their own published curve which is clearly much lower in places…
  10. mschwett

    Turbo Vado 2 4.0 or 5.0 or 6.0?

    pretty interesting. basically what we see is that the support factor at xx/100 is significantly higher than what specialized claims it is. your observed values on the right, spec data from the reference paper on the left. that said ... inferring a few more data points than you studied (20...
  11. mschwett

    mahle x20 firmware update

    not too surprising... but it's still way off lol interestingly the very low rider power values <100 watts actually match pretty well red is mahle blue is 4iiii precision
  12. mschwett

    Can 36v be better than 48?

    hmmmm. i think pretty much every mainstream bike from aventon, gazelle, specialized, trek, giant, vanmoof, etc is a geared motor. even rad switched to geared like 5 years ago, i think. in addition to more torque geared motors are smaller and more efficient at low speeds, because the motor isn't...
  13. mschwett

    mahle x20 firmware update

    so i replaced the bottom bracket on my addict today. i'm guessing this is NOT going to change the power inaccuracy, but it'll be interesting to see! it took my a bit under an hour, but it's one of those things that would have been a PITA without the right tools. here's the tools all standard...
  14. mschwett

    Can 36v be better than 48?

    almost all ebike motors are geared tho, so the relationship between the motor speed and the wheel speed is whatever the motor manufacturer wants it to be. at a lower voltage you could just gear it down less and up the current for more torque at the lower speed. i am not really sure what the pros...
  15. mschwett

    Turbo Vado 2 4.0 or 5.0 or 6.0?

    yeah, that's going to take seriously GRINDING up a hill at 100/100 in a very low gear. be careful, that's the kind of riding that causes people to hurt themselves or have a body <-> pavement interaction.
  16. mschwett

    Specialize needs to tandardize the batteries and chargers within the same company.

    Why? Because engineering and physics. The SL bikes use 48V batteries, quite small ones (not sure what the C rating is). Most of the other non-SL bikes use 36v batteries, larger ones that are presumably more parallel to support higher current. The new Levo 4 is 60v to support the very high power...
  17. mschwett

    Turbo Vado 2 4.0 or 5.0 or 6.0?

    the older specialized chart does confirm very high efficiency at high rpm. it also suggests that the efficiency should be higher at lower rpm, but maybe the new motor sacrificed that a bit, or maybe a longer steady state test would show lower electrical draw?
  18. mschwett

    Turbo Vado 2 4.0 or 5.0 or 6.0?

    cool my guess is, however, that the system is not 84% efficient at 100rpm. more likely it’s just not outputting quite the full 315/320 watts of mechanical power when the electrical draw is only 377w. i think specialized would be crowing about it a lot more if so :) it’s very interesting that...
  19. mschwett

    Anybody tried Clik tire valves?

    i’ve very much enjoyed inflating with the cliks. it’s so much factor and more satisfying! on both my road bikes. air loss is very minimal between rides but i also refreshed the sealant when i installed the cliks. both tubeless of course on my commuter, somehow the process of screwing in the...
  20. mschwett

    Turbo Vado 2 4.0 or 5.0 or 6.0?

    an interesting note in a review of the new firmware for the full power levo, perhaps explaining why 0/100 on microtune is not really 0.
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