Magnifico! Finally cut through all the major B.S. to get this matter rectified. Please keep us posted regarding purchases. I assume you will retrofit your bike with the Nyon as well??
I have 15 accessories that amount to $2000. The second battery is $900. The light is $500. The bike is expensive enough at $3800. I feel like I am being gouged. Intuvia retrofit is $200. So, really the base price is over $6000. I call this tactic cost shifting. My racing mountain bike cost that much. No way in hell they are equivalent. My Yeti ASR-C is a dream ride.
The Bosch only starts making sense to me with the Nyon. Otherwise, it is just yet another over-engineered source of excessive German pride. What do I care about Prussian anything? And then they continue to stick it to you in the most abusive way. I fail to to see the perverse pleasure in the German scene. Please, someone clue me in, because I do not get it, being such a fat, ignorant and rich American. The Germans must be laughing all the way to the international currency exchange desk.
I am still deciding whether this is worth the price. I am trying to determine how far I can go with two batteries. They have a 30 day full refund policy.
One battery has half the range I want. At 210 pounds, the bike only carries half the weight that I want, 35 pounds. I feel like I am buying a frame, rather than a complete bike.
The bike shop is about a 90 minute bike ride. Not bad because my mother lives about 20 minutes away. Since I sold my car, the bus ride back is 90 minutes. I will easily put 5000 to 10000 miles on the bike per year. I expect The two batteries will last two years. The maintenance costs and inconvenience will be high.
In summary, I am not feeling very good about it. I just love my conventional bikes. I hate to put them through the abuse of another winter. I am torn.
I do not have problems with the American side of the bike. I very much dislike the German half — Bosch, Bush&Mueller. I wish I could by all American. I own a Specialized Diverge that I love. I am totally uninterested in the Specialized eBikes.
I think they hold all the cards and are taking full advantage of the situation. I just feel bad. If they were the least bit smart, they would try to make the experience pleasant. It has been a hassle. It makes me want to ride my pedal bikes, just to spite them.
I figured out how to work around no rack on my carbon bikes. Keep the amount of food to the size of a Guinness 18 pack. Or pay Walmart $10 to deliver bulky items, like TP.
It makes me sick. I can retrofit a 2019 (in a 2018 time warp) product to make it meet my needs, after a lot of sophisticated research. I do not t feel like the product was designed or made for me in any way. That really sucks when the bill is over $6000. All the pieces exist, in an incoherent, and sometimes illegal, manner. But they just do not integrate as a whole. The sum of parts do not add up to the price.
As a real cyclist, i just cannot bear the small, fixed chainring. A 15T chainring looks like a toy. Does a 15T cog belong on the rear cassette, or what? You have got to be kidding me. I do not care what rationalization marketing devises about reduction, a 15T chainring makes me want to laugh. Reduction belongs in a hub, not bottom bracket. I hate my small chainring on my compact 34/50T, because it makes me feel like a hamster in a treadmill. I like a 50T chainring because it is so efficient and smooth. I also love 29" wheels, for the same reason. The part that really blows my mind is the super-sized cassette. That giant cog looks so fragile. I wonder if i push too hard on the pedals what will happen to the drivetrain.
The other thing that irkes me about the Bosch is the weight and aerodynamic drag. It makes my eyes pop out of my head. Are they serious cyclists? Where did that shape come from, a car part? I only grudgingly accepted Bosch when the integrated the battery into the down tube. I look at that shape and wonder if pay a 25% drag penalty. The old configuration looks plain ugly to me. The old Bosch is offensive from an aesthetic standpoint. Have they no style? I hardly believe an Italian designer would tolerate that aesthetic. I rather think a French designer would throw a fit. Bosch is so obsessed with the controller logic, that they forgot what a beautiful bike looks like.
The Nyon compensates for all those anti-bike features. The Nyon brings rationality to the Bosch system.
The guiding principle seems to be profit. The price is not related to value. I have a hard time with that philosophy. It conjures images of witches stirring a caldron.
I have two needs: cargo and foul-weather bike. The Trek Powerfly 5 delivers no cargo value. I would rather pay Walmart $10 to deliver food. I can also pick up small, 25 pound grocery purchases, when i happen to pass by.
Can the Trek Powerfly 5 deliver foul-weather value? I have a hard time figuring that out due to the lack of battery fuel economy data. If i must guess, the answer is no. But i am not the gambling type.
