Are mid drives just naturally less zippy than hub motors?

[AHicks]

It depends on if you want to ride a scooter, or a bicycle. And really the feel is based on how each controller is programmed. We have riders who say their hub motors kick in too hard even in low PAS settings, and then there are people who still want more power from their hub drive. Some complain their mid drive destroys chains from the crazy power, and they there are those who love the torque sensors and true bicycle feel. There is no general blanket that describes the rider preference nor motor preference. It's about personal styles and programming.

I agree on all points other than the one highlighted. That's nonsense. Because somebody's priorities don't line up with yours does NOT mean they are riding a scooter and you are riding a bike.

 

[Saratoga Dave]

My wife had a Pedego City Commuter, I had an eJoe Koda, both hub drives, back in 2016. I think what you’re referring to is the fact that if you were riding along in PAS 1 or 2 and switched it, without changing your pedaling effort at all, the thing would just take off. It didn’t care what gear you were in or anything else, if the pedals were turning, off it went. Go up another level and it went faster yet. It was a cool sensation, I’ll say that, but hardly natural.

Mid drive will accelerate plenty quick if you up the torque enough and are in an appropriate gear. It responds directly to what you are doing. That is the reason I landed on mid drives only after that first ebike.

To each his own, but to me at least that has always been the difference.

 

[Gordon71]

Interesting thread. Makes me glad I chose a hub drive.

 

[PedalUma]

A good friend has bad arthritis. One knee barely functions. A certain type of bike works for him. That style of bike is not my preference but who knows, it might be just the ticket for me one day. His bikes keep him active and moving and he is still using his core fine balance muscles. It is better than giving up and sitting on the couch. I might be doing a new Marin Gestalt 2 in the coming weeks. It is getting a riser stem that is shorter for her. The brakes currently are a little far and low for her body type. What I am saying is that the rider and bike need to fit.

 

[fooferdoggie]

My wife had a Pedego City Commuter, I had an eJoe Koda, both hub drives, back in 2016. I think what you’re referring to is the fact that if you were riding along in PAS 1 or 2 and switched it, without changing your pedaling effort at all, the thing would just take off. It didn’t care what gear you were in or anything else, if the pedals were turning, off it went. Go up another level and it went faster yet. It was a cool sensation, I’ll say that, but hardly natural.

Mid drive will accelerate plenty quick if you up the torque enough and are in an appropriate gear. It responds directly to what you are doing. That is the reason I landed on mid drives only after that first ebike.

To each his own, but to me at least that has always been the difference.

so true when I can put out 6 or 700 watts my bike gets up and boogies I have lifted the front wheel off the ground before. it feels great because i know its me that maker it possible not just a motor.

 

[AHicks]

Mid driveth is the way to go when selecting an ebike motor.

My wife won't ride either of my mid drives. She's a clumsy shifter, and that's when/if she gets around to shifting. If she doesn't have one of the hub drives available, she stays home......

Edit/second thought - I should have mentioned she's my riding partner, has been riding e-bikes since 2016, and analogs before that.

 

[PedalUma]

Doth Shakespearian. Yet Rasta. Mid-driveth.

 

[AHicks]

You can't buy a high end e bike with hub motor.

Priorities....
You can buy a pretty decent hub bike, ride it for 2 years, throw it away and buy a new one 3 - 4 times for the price of a high end e-bike......

 

[PedalUma]

Did anyone, anyone, zoom and squint to see the wire between the battery and motor on that cargo? It is there but unremarkable. It just blends in. That is part of the art. If you take bikes on an RV twice each year to go around flat campgrounds a hub-drive is fine. Serous rides are different than placid ones.

 

[SC00CHB00CH]

Get on my mid-drive and hit throttle full and you'll be on your...you know what.
Mid-Drives eat hub motors lunch for torque and hill climbing ability.
I didn't encounter one hub motor around me that even climb the hills my little bike could , they all stalled 1/2 way.
Just hit throttle and you're up the hill with ease , pedaling optional.

For me it's mid drives all day. Especially if you live in a hilly environment. If you want torque , power and fun.
I say find a normal non ebike that fits you comfortably and then add a BBS02 to it. Set the display to 50% power at throttle. Then set pedal assist to 9 levels. You'll get a more refined experience if that's your goal.
Here is my build that I just sold on EBAY , which I'm really regretting now.
Top speed 36mph on a flat road, throttle only. It pulls up hills like a billy goat. If you get full throttle the front end will pop a wheelie and throw you off the bike. Super fun , probable keep the Orthopedic surgeon on speed dial. I had about 600 miles on it , ran great. It took me awhile to dial in the chain-line to keep it from slipping under high torque throttle runs. When I sold it , not one gear slipped , super tight. Really enjoyed it.


Most pre-built bikes are way too heavy. My mother's hub drive bike weighs 70lbs. I think my next build will be a super,super light folder with a BBSHD. The picture of mine is little older. I did clean up the wires around the seat post. I made it so you can fold it up with both batteries attached.
The only hub motor bike that could compete with mine up hills were the giant 4000 watt motorcycle looking ebikes. Mine runs 1300 watts peak up hills. So you a perfect balance of power and battery saving long miles.

Max throttle wide open no pedaling hitting 36mph I get 50 miles range easy on my little pocket rocket. Imagine a V6 in a Honda Civic , yeah baby, yeah.

 

[Art Deco]

@rjdavis4,
Better bikes will feel more like bikes. Lesser bikes will lack feel with a disconnect between the rider's input and the motor's output. You are calling this lack of feel 'zippy.' I don't like that disconnected feel. BBSO2 bikes are mid-drives that lack feel (zippy). So are the Bafang HD's. That might be the ticket for you. Some of this is a matter of taste. I like mid-drives with cadence and torque sensors that work together. Higher cadence, more revs, like in a motorcycle or Porsche will give more torque and power while making the torque sensor accelerator more alive. Good bikes are thrilling, intuitive, and interactive. 'Zippy' lack of feel bikes are for people who like spongy big cars with automatic transmissions and V8s and who do not like Euro sports cars with a stick.

 

[Ken M]

@rjdavis4,
Better bikes will feel more like bikes. Lesser bikes will lack feel with a disconnect between the rider's input and the motor's output. You are calling this lack of feel 'zippy.' I don't like that disconnected feel. BBSO2 bikes are mid-drives that lack feel (zippy). So are the Bafang HD's. That might be the ticket for you. Some of this is a matter of taste. I like mid-drives with cadence and torque sensors that work together. Higher cadence, more revs, like in a motorcycle or Porsche will give more torque and power while making the torque sensor accelerator more alive. Good bikes are thrilling, intuitive, and interactive. 'Zippy' lack of feel bikes are for people who like spongy big cars with automatic transmissions and V8s and who do not like Euro sports cars with a stick.

I think what you describe is a good mountain bike but for a bike to be a better transportation / urban mobility solution maybe just a throttle is a better way to go.

 

[Catalyzt]

My .02 from riding both types for a number of years is that it is very dependent on terrain.

Make that .04. And there are so, so many other variables. I have two lightweight underpowered e-bikes, a 40-pound throttle-only front hub drive kit bike and a 46-pound mid-drive eMTB, both are probably around 40nm, both are 250 watt.

Off the line on pavement, there is no question that the hub drive is zippier. The hub drive is also zippier when cornering on flat terrain-- with a human delivering power to the rear wheel, and the motor delivering power to the front wheel, even a tiny little motor is crazy fun... you enter the curve faster, and just as you reach maximum lean, where you can't pedal anymore without a pedal strike, just nudge the throttle a bit so that front wheel pulls you out of the turn at a speed you simply couldn't reach either unpowered on a mid drive (at least where it's flat.)

Going downhill on pavement, however, the mid-drive is heavier, more stable, and better balanced, and 40nm feels like a motorcycle-- snap through the gears quickly at max assist, and to me, the acceleration feels really dramatic-- it takes only seconds to get past 20 MPH. The bottom of the big hills here would be maybe 35 MPH on the kit bike, but it's 43 MPH on the mid drive.

Sure, most of the reasons it's so much faster have nothing to do with the motor, it's the weight, the geometry, rolling resistance, etc. But hub drives do tend to be set up more like touring or gravel bikes, and eMTBs are more likely to be mid drives. I couldn't even compare the two on dirt, because the kit bike can't manage some of the terrain the eMTB can.

 

[Ken M]

I've always wondered if the higher cost and maintainance of having a torque, cadense, speed, etc. sensors were known vs just a simple throttle (this still fully allows the rider to provide all the input they desire while have 100% complete control of the assist level instead of it being determined by a program) I wonder how many would still prefer and purchase the sensor controlled ebike models. I fully understand that they feel more bike like and for some terrain riding that really does add enjoyment. But if you are using an ebike for it's urban mobility utility it seems to me that a throttle just makes far better sense.

How many people have ever wondered why most states require class 3 ebikes (no thottle allowed) to be ridden on streets or road side bike lanes which is infrastructure where all the other motor vehicles have throttles/accelerator pedals. Makes no sense whatsoever but the brilliant minds at People for Bikes pushed that legislation state by state (albeit with money from the auto industry that wants ebikes only good for recreation and leisure).

 

[PedalUma]

I ride class 3 bikes daily that replace and excel over dumb cars stuck at lights. The accelerator is in the foot like a Tesla. Push rev, go. It is 22 min to cross my town in a car. Then there is the panicked searching around for parking. Then walking from parking a car. An eBike takes 7 minutes to cross town and it is fun. Bikes are more than thee times faster than cars. Drivers arrive stressed. Those people show up stunned, angry and dull. I arrive sharp and alive and way ahead. I fell sorry for the dumb suckers stuck in dud cars.

 

[SC00CHB00CH]

Mid drives depend more on what gear you are in to feel zippy. If you're climbing a hill on an 11th teeth rear sprocket it's gonna be slow. Shift down into a larger gear like a 32t tooth and hit the throttle and my bike will literally throw you off like a horse. So if that's isn't zippy then maybe I'm not understanding the question. Every one that gets on my mid drive says "wow that's really fast".
Think of what it would feel like driving a Honda Civic with a V6. Lots of power , low weight , lots of torque.

If you have 52teeth front chain ring and an 11th tooth rear , that's top speed gearing. If you have a 34 teeth front and a 34teeth rear you're climbing sides of houses. Almost literally.
I'm not a fan of gear sensors , I grew up driving manuals so I really like the full manual control. If you let off the throttle and stop pedaling and then shift a millisecond later the natural cadence will shift the bike into the next gear then ease back onto on the throttle. Almost like the throttle is a clutch in reverse. Letting off the throttle is like putting in the clutch in a manual car , then shift then back to throttle. Then pedal when back into gear.
With mid drive it;s all about what gear your in.
I do want to build a mid drive with a Rohloff. I'd like to test if the hub can handle the torque.

 

[HappyGrandpa]

At the start of Covid lockdown in 2020, my wife and I bought Mirider One folding e-bikes with 16“ wheels, hub motor, and no gears ie. single speed. In the max power assist level No 5 the bikes could be described as zippy. Once moving, they would whizz up a local 8 degree hill with little effort on our part.

Mainly because of the small wheels and ”range anxiety”, we sold them both and now I have a Specialized Turbo Vado 5 SL and my wife has a Turbo Vado 3. With Mid drive motors and gears, both bikes feel very different from the hub drive Miriders. Although the Specialized bikes feel much more like normal bikes and e-power delivery feels very natural; we still miss the instant instant pizazz and thrust we got from the hub drive Miriders.

 

[SC00CHB00CH]

Make that .04. And there are so, so many other variables. I have two lightweight underpowered e-bikes, a 40-pound throttle-only front hub drive kit bike and a 46-pound mid-drive eMTB, both are probably around 40nm, both are 250 watt.

Off the line on pavement, there is no question that the hub drive is zippier. The hub drive is also zippier when cornering on flat terrain-- with a human delivering power to the rear wheel, and the motor delivering power to the front wheel, even a tiny little motor is crazy fun... you enter the curve faster, and just as you reach maximum lean, where you can't pedal anymore without a pedal strike, just nudge the throttle a bit so that front wheel pulls you out of the turn at a speed you simply couldn't reach either unpowered on a mid drive (at least where it's flat.)

Going downhill on pavement, however, the mid-drive is heavier, more stable, and better balanced, and 40nm feels like a motorcycle-- snap through the gears quickly at max assist, and to me, the acceleration feels really dramatic-- it takes only seconds to get past 20 MPH. The bottom of the big hills here would be maybe 35 MPH on the kit bike, but it's 43 MPH on the mid drive.

Sure, most of the reasons it's so much faster have nothing to do with the motor, it's the weight, the geometry, rolling resistance, etc. But hub drives do tend to be set up more like touring or gravel bikes, and eMTBs are more likely to be mid drives. I couldn't even compare the two on dirt, because the kit bike can't manage some of the terrain the eMTB can.

My folding carbon bike with BBS02 has 120nm of torque. Think of a V6 in a Honda Civic. It's crazy zippy , like 'keep your orthopedic surgeon on speed dial zippy'. Combine 120nm with a super light carbon fiber folding bike that weighs 40lbs and you can kind of get an idea.
The big problem I've had with every hub drive I've tested is they all stalled 1/2 way up on the hill behind our house using just the throttle. It's my litmus test if I wanna buy the bike or not. I've seen some crazy hub drives with with 3-4k watts of power , now those are basically electric motorcycles with massive trash can sized hub drives. Those will eat up hills. But they're NOT what I would call a bicycle anymore.
My folder you can put in a large duffel bag and pop it in your trunk and you're good to go. The guy I sold it to is a pilot and he takes it on his carry bag on the plane.

Really all the bread and butter in a mid drive is gearing , since it really depends on what gear your in to determine hill climbing , top speed etc. The beauty is you can take a regular every day normal bike , hopefully that fits your body type well , is easy to pedal and all that. Now put a mid drive on it. And you'll likely have something faster, quicker and more zippy than any off the shelf 5-10k mid drive from specialized or other.
Those specialized mid drives are excellent e bikes , if you want something refined , polished and feels more like a bike. But for about the price of a mid drive kit added to the bike in your garage you can walk all over those bikes on the trails for 1,000s less. The price of a decent mid drive kit with a high end grade A battery will run you about $1300.

You could buy a used specialized off Craigslist , then slap a mid drive kit on it and you'll likely have a way faster , hill climbing beast that will cause those guys spending 5-10k on a e bike envy.

Here's a good video explaining why mid-drives are better than hub drives in many ways.

 

[SC00CHB00CH]

At the start of Covid lockdown in 2020, my wife and I bought Mirider One folding e-bikes with 16“ wheels, hub motor, and no gears ie. single speed. In the max power assist level No 5 the bikes could be described as zippy. Once moving, they would whizz up a local 8 degree hill with little effort on our part.
View attachment 138096Mainly because of the small wheels and ”range anxiety”, we sold them both and now I have a Specialized Turbo Vado 5 SL and my wife has a Turbo Vado 3. With Mid drive motors and gears, both bikes feel very different from the hub drive Miriders. Although the Specialized bikes feel much more like normal bikes and e-power delivery feels very natural; we still miss the instant instant pizazz and thrust we got from the hub drive Miriders.

For what it's worth I find those specialized vados to be underpowered. They're primariy built towards the European market with high restrictions on wattage and top speed etc. They're basically neutered ebikes ,IMO.

 

[AHicks]

To stir the pot a little here-
We seem to have wandered a bit - from "zippy" to ability to climb? Earlier we were comparing the "zippy factor", hub drives vs. mid.

I don't think anyone here will argue the fact that a mid will out climb a hub, for extended or steep climb purposes at least. We already know that! Put a mid in granny gear and you can climb rock walls. Does that make them "zippy"?

A bulldozer can climb much the same way, for a very similar reason (gearing). Does that make them "zippy"? I don't think so

Are there differences in what comes to mind with the term "zippy"?