Saratoga Dave
Well-Known Member
A little early in the game, but here’s the one week/105 mile report on my new Civante.
For context, my history is Cannondale T400 for many, many years, other various mountain bikes, five years out of the game, then an eJoe Koda for 1400 miles in a year, a Trek xm700+ for 6000 miles in two years, a Giant ToughRoad currently at just over 3400 miles in a year and a half - still owned, active and well loved - and now the Civante as a road based alternate to the Giant. Recreational riding only.
I am the world’s biggest Yamaha motor fan, for the way the power is delivered, so when I started looking at second bikes to go along with my Giant, it was Yamaha power all the way. Here came the Civante, just as I was getting serious about it. Last week I tracked down what appears to have been the last size Large in New England in a lovely shop in Cornwall Bridge, Connecticut, and after a stunned phone call where I realized they actually had one, I jumped in the car last Sunday, zoomed an hour and a half down there in a charming rain storm and bought the thing as soon as I laid eyes on it.
Excellent bike, amazing price at $3400. Where other shops are bumping the price a hundred and fifty dollars - on mediums, by the way - these guys sold it at the number it is supposed to be, and threw in a bottle cage and a good quality kickstand as well. Big ups to Covered Bridge Electric Bikes! The shop owner is a real gentleman as well.
Class 3. I very much doubt I will get much use out of the higher speeds since I tend to ride at low assist or with the system off on level ground as much as I can stand, and it does that very well. That said, I did wind it up to Standard (+Eco, Eco, Standard and High) this afternoon crossing a corn field along the river and was effortlessly carrying about 24 mph... nice, but I’ve already had a Class 3 and I still prefer to do most of the work myself. It is nice to have that oomph in your back pocket, though.
My Giant, a 2018, has three assist levels - Eco, Normal and Power. This thing has a very light assist +Eco added at the bottom end which I would say evens out the weight of the bike. I love riding in that first level. Any normal hill - and I mean hill, not just a bump or small rise - I can deal with by going to Eco. There is a 13% hill on today’s ride, a regular route, and for that I went to Standard and third gear up in the rear, smaller ring in the front... no problem at all. I don’t know what I would use High for, but we shall see once I get this up into the Adirondacks a bit.
While we’re on that subject, this has a 2 X 10 setup, unlike the 1 X drivetrains of my other ebikes. 50/34 in the front, 11/32 in the back. I do prefer a 1 X for overall ease and not having to think about where on the rear sprocket we are when going down to the small ring in the front, but I expect I’ll get used to it. In the pre ebike days, all my bikes had 3 X setups. That said, this has a nice wide range and good low hill or mountain climbing gearing, given the power that is coming from the motor. No problem there at all.
So this is very complementary to my ToughRoad. TR is my Land Rover Discovery, while this is the sports car... maybe a Mazda Miata? Very fast, very quick, comfortable ride and just a blast. It encounters road seams more abruptly by far than the ToughRoad, but that has 50 mm tires! That bike rides really smoothly, for something with no suspension. I absolutely love it on gravel and dirt, and liked it just fine on pavement, but the Civante will be taking over paved duties.
The Civante is sporting somewhat larger than road normal 700 X 35 tires. A good choice. Strangely, larger than the 700 X 33s of their very popular Wabash gravel ebike.
So tag me as a big fan of this bike. Very excellent performance, terrific looks, even with the battery placement - it sort of lays along the downtube very reasonably, and is a flatter and more swoopy design than the Bosch Powerpack of my former Trek bike. OK, it isn’t hidden in the downtube, but it costs what, less than half of what some of these other new road bikes cost, and it has that outstanding Yamaha power delivery and what appears to be a very good 3 year warranty.
Sadly, the Giant Road e was a non starter, being almost a thousand dollars more with a far smaller battery now... what the hell are they thinking? A 375Wh battery on a road bike? Sure, you can throw many more hundreds on the pile for the range extender, but this one has a 500Wh battery and weighs 43 pounds. Case closed.
Time will tell, and I will update this when I get some decent miles on it, but out of the gate I am very happy with the purchase. Having a little bike redundancy was also a big part of this, since you can’t just go buy a new one anywhere these days if something goes wrong. If one of them craps out for a while, the other is there ready to go. Dave Berry can speak to that!
For context, my history is Cannondale T400 for many, many years, other various mountain bikes, five years out of the game, then an eJoe Koda for 1400 miles in a year, a Trek xm700+ for 6000 miles in two years, a Giant ToughRoad currently at just over 3400 miles in a year and a half - still owned, active and well loved - and now the Civante as a road based alternate to the Giant. Recreational riding only.
I am the world’s biggest Yamaha motor fan, for the way the power is delivered, so when I started looking at second bikes to go along with my Giant, it was Yamaha power all the way. Here came the Civante, just as I was getting serious about it. Last week I tracked down what appears to have been the last size Large in New England in a lovely shop in Cornwall Bridge, Connecticut, and after a stunned phone call where I realized they actually had one, I jumped in the car last Sunday, zoomed an hour and a half down there in a charming rain storm and bought the thing as soon as I laid eyes on it.
Excellent bike, amazing price at $3400. Where other shops are bumping the price a hundred and fifty dollars - on mediums, by the way - these guys sold it at the number it is supposed to be, and threw in a bottle cage and a good quality kickstand as well. Big ups to Covered Bridge Electric Bikes! The shop owner is a real gentleman as well.
Class 3. I very much doubt I will get much use out of the higher speeds since I tend to ride at low assist or with the system off on level ground as much as I can stand, and it does that very well. That said, I did wind it up to Standard (+Eco, Eco, Standard and High) this afternoon crossing a corn field along the river and was effortlessly carrying about 24 mph... nice, but I’ve already had a Class 3 and I still prefer to do most of the work myself. It is nice to have that oomph in your back pocket, though.
My Giant, a 2018, has three assist levels - Eco, Normal and Power. This thing has a very light assist +Eco added at the bottom end which I would say evens out the weight of the bike. I love riding in that first level. Any normal hill - and I mean hill, not just a bump or small rise - I can deal with by going to Eco. There is a 13% hill on today’s ride, a regular route, and for that I went to Standard and third gear up in the rear, smaller ring in the front... no problem at all. I don’t know what I would use High for, but we shall see once I get this up into the Adirondacks a bit.
While we’re on that subject, this has a 2 X 10 setup, unlike the 1 X drivetrains of my other ebikes. 50/34 in the front, 11/32 in the back. I do prefer a 1 X for overall ease and not having to think about where on the rear sprocket we are when going down to the small ring in the front, but I expect I’ll get used to it. In the pre ebike days, all my bikes had 3 X setups. That said, this has a nice wide range and good low hill or mountain climbing gearing, given the power that is coming from the motor. No problem there at all.
So this is very complementary to my ToughRoad. TR is my Land Rover Discovery, while this is the sports car... maybe a Mazda Miata? Very fast, very quick, comfortable ride and just a blast. It encounters road seams more abruptly by far than the ToughRoad, but that has 50 mm tires! That bike rides really smoothly, for something with no suspension. I absolutely love it on gravel and dirt, and liked it just fine on pavement, but the Civante will be taking over paved duties.
The Civante is sporting somewhat larger than road normal 700 X 35 tires. A good choice. Strangely, larger than the 700 X 33s of their very popular Wabash gravel ebike.
So tag me as a big fan of this bike. Very excellent performance, terrific looks, even with the battery placement - it sort of lays along the downtube very reasonably, and is a flatter and more swoopy design than the Bosch Powerpack of my former Trek bike. OK, it isn’t hidden in the downtube, but it costs what, less than half of what some of these other new road bikes cost, and it has that outstanding Yamaha power delivery and what appears to be a very good 3 year warranty.
Sadly, the Giant Road e was a non starter, being almost a thousand dollars more with a far smaller battery now... what the hell are they thinking? A 375Wh battery on a road bike? Sure, you can throw many more hundreds on the pile for the range extender, but this one has a 500Wh battery and weighs 43 pounds. Case closed.
Time will tell, and I will update this when I get some decent miles on it, but out of the gate I am very happy with the purchase. Having a little bike redundancy was also a big part of this, since you can’t just go buy a new one anywhere these days if something goes wrong. If one of them craps out for a while, the other is there ready to go. Dave Berry can speak to that!
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, it has a great motorcycling pedigree.
