Are mid drives just naturally less zippy than hub motors?

[rjdavis4]

I've test ridden a lot of different e-bikes over the last couple months trying to find what fits me best. This would be a second bike for me, I currently own a hub motor bike from Juiced Bikes. I've tried hub drives and mid drives from a lot of the big brands (Juiced, Rad, Specialized, Reise & Mueller, Gazelle, EVELO) and it seems like no matter what the hub drive bikes are always zippier than the mid drive bikes.

What do I mean by this? Basically it seems like the hub drives always accelerate faster and the motor responds quicker when you put more pressure on the pedals or press the throttle. By contrast the mid drives have slower acceleration and take more pedal pressure before I feel increased motor output.

I posted all of the above on another ebike forum and a common reply I got was that I was probably feeling the difference between cadence sensor pedal assist vs torque sensor pedal assist, but this doesn't seem to line up with my experience. For example, my Juiced bike (Ocean Current model) is a hub drive with torque and cadence sensor and the ride feels very similar to a friends Rad bike (Rad Expand 5 model) which is hub drive and cadence sensor only. They both have that zippy feeling I like. In contrast I have recently been riding an EVELO (Omega model) which is mid drive with torque and cadence sensor and it feels quite a bit different than the other two bikes. So at least in my limited experience it seems like the motor type makes a bigger difference than the pedal assist sensor type for how the ride feels.

I am wondering if other people who have ridden both types of motor feel the same way or have I just not ridden the right type of mid drives? Does anyone know of any mid drive bikes that feel really zippy like my hub drive bike? (Preferably a commuter style)

 

[fooferdoggie]

well a mid drive will will take more pressure because they have torque sensors. But response is instant on them too. but if you in the right gear when you start its not horrible. I mean i can rest my foot on a pedal and jump forward unless I hold a brake lever. there is no delay. a cadence system has to ahve some rotation of the cranks before it kicks in.
but when I feel good and I can put out 500 or more watts I can pop a wheely on my Bosch powered bike. with a torque sensor the more you put into it the more you will get out of it. zippy too will depend a lot on the bikes weight but more on the tire size and pressure. like my bulls bike with a less torquy bosch motor and 1.5" tires at 70psi is far snappier then my trek with a bosch motor with a lot more torque but 2.5" tires at 50 pis. but I sure cant accelerate on it as fast.

 

[PedalUma]

@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.

 

[Viking1]

My wife and I have both kinds. Her Fission’s hub motor is 500 watts versus the 250 watt Bosch in my Gazelle T10+ Ultimate. I ride both of them but prefer the mid motor as I prefer to use the gears. Hers is very “zippy” as you say. I think it is just personal preference and an apples versus oranges kind of comparison.

 

[CodyDog]

I have owned one cadense sensor (hub motor) and three torque sensor (mid drive ) bikes. I did not prefer the cadence sensor bike (Rad Rover) because it didn't feel like a real bike. Start pedaling in speed 5 and it took off like a rabbit, yes it was very zippy. So would say throttle bikes are zippy. My favorite ride being a Vado SL 5.0. Feels like a real bike and the zippy factor can be somewhat controlled by the Specialized application om my phone.

 

[PedalUma]

Many toque sensor bikes still lack feel and can be ghost pedaled. The bottom line is a person needs to ride bikes to see what they like. Each one is different. Beginner bikes are for people who do not really like riding bikes are going to lack feel and be 'zippy'. I call this input disconnect lurch. Why are higher priced wines not sweet? Because they are not for beginners. Freshman sorority girls don't like big bold complex aged reds and cannot talk about the nuances of something really good. They want sugar.

 

[AHicks]

I have and ride both (500w geared hub, 1000w geared hub, Bafang Ultra mid drive, and Bafang M600 mid drive), and I have a pretty good idea of what you are talking about. Many of the torque sensing mid drive bikes bikes have smaller motors, and even if they don't, getting a fair comparison to a geared hub is going to be difficult. For starters, the mid drive is going to have to be in a fairly low gear to have the mechanical advantage/acceleration the geared hub will have with the 5:1 gearing most of them are using. To add to that, the mid drives with torque sensing generally (but not always) have some pretty sophisticated controller programming that includes programming to avoid startling inexperienced users (soft start). That's not always the case though. An Ultra powered bike is generally a prett aggressive bike under hard acceleration even though it offers torques sensing. The soft start bikes do take a second to spool up to full available power. A lot of the hub drives have a tendency to go right now when you tell them to.....

Sooooooo, the way I look at it is if you're looking for an easy to ride bike (bordering on brain dead) the hub drives are nearly always the better option (especially for wives and inexperienced riders). You just swing a leg over and go. Also, nearly all of them come with a throttle, making them even easier to ride.

When the word hill is mentioned along with the word BIG, or when talking a heavy rider (like me, 300lbs) that's when it's time to really consider the mid drives. They are much stronger climbers. Here, you get into the more sophisticated bikes, and there is little doubt they need a little more finesse when riding. Throttles can be hard to come by, but they ARE available on some. -Al

 

[rjdavis4]

I think op is saying throttle equipped ebikes are zippy. The mid drive ebikes He mentioned are none throttle.
I have a Bafang tourqe sensing m620 powered emtb I deleted throttle. It is zippy under my own cadence input and I don't feel disconnected from the bike, I can still get a really good workout but at a higher rate of speed and longer distance.

Not quite. The Evelo Omega I have been riding does have a throttle but the zippiness/acceleration still doesn't quite match my Juiced. I do agree that the Evelo feels a bit more bike-like than the Juiced though.

I guess I would say I like ebikes that take away the weight of the pedals while still leaving just enough resistance that I feel like I'm riding a bike and not ghost pedaling. Almost like the bike always feels like you are casually pedaling on flat ground no matter if you are taking off from a dead stop, going up a hill, or trying to reach max speed.

I'm not sure which component of the bike has the biggest effect on giving you that feeling. Motor type? Pedal assist sensor type? Controller programming? I may be rambling

 

[rjdavis4]

I have and ride both (500w geared hub, 1000w geared hub, Bafang Ultra mid drive, and Bafang M600 mid drive), and I have a pretty good idea of what you are talking about. Many of the torque sensing mid drive bikes bikes have smaller motors, and even if they don't, getting a fair comparison to a geared hub is going to be difficult. For starters, the mid drive is going to have to be in a fairly low gear to have the mechanical advantage/acceleration the geared hub will have with the 5:1 gearing most of them are using. To add to that, the mid drives with torque sensing generally (but not always) have some pretty sophisticated controller programming that includes programming to avoid startling inexperienced users (soft start). That's not always the case though. An Ultra powered bike is generally a prett aggressive bike under hard acceleration even though it offers torques sensing. The soft start bikes do take a second to spool up to full available power. A lot of the hub drives have a tendency to go right now when you tell them to.....

Sooooooo, the way I look at it is if you're looking for an easy to ride bike (bordering on brain dead) the hub drives are nearly always the better option (especially for wives and inexperienced riders). You just swing a leg over and go. Also, nearly all of them come with a throttle, making them even easier to ride.

When the word hill is mentioned along with the word BIG, or when talking a heavy rider (like me, 300lbs) that's when it's time to really consider the mid drives. They are much stronger climbers. Here, you get into the more sophisticated bikes, and there is little doubt they need a little more finesse when riding. Throttles can be hard to come by, but they ARE available on some. -Al

I agree with a lot of what you are saying here. It seems like most of the high end manufacturers (Specialized, R&M) try to make their ebikes still feel like regular bikes as much as possible in the way they ride and for the most part they all use mid drives. The Bafangs also seem to be the most popular counter-example of mid drives that lean more into speed/power. Are your Bafang bikes DIY or from an ebike manufacturer?

For starters, the mid drive is going to have to be in a fairly low gear to have the mechanical advantage/acceleration the geared hub will have with the 5:1 gearing most of them are using.

Could you expand on this more? Does this mean a lot of times a geared hub will be better at accelerating than a mid drive?

 

[fooferdoggie]

my bosch when I fell good and can put out 600 or more watts the motor matches it for the 10 or so seconds I can manage that. so maybe 1000 wattrs of power through the drivetrain on the lowest back cog gets the bike up and running very fast. I find it hard to shift fast enough to keep up with the acceleration. so if you are willing to put for the effort you can have a zippy mid drive. but if you dont want to put forth the effort you wont get that return then a hub drive will do it. I usually out accelerate most people because I use my gears. that was the same before I had a e bike. your gears will get you going fast with less effort if you learn to shift right.

 

[JRA]

My .02 from riding both types for a number of years is that it is very dependent on terrain. I find that my hub motor drop bar bike is much more fun on the road, even with hills involved. I put together a flat bar road bike with the same size wheels, 700c x 40c, and a torque sensing mid drive, TSDZ2 which arguably isn't as sophisticated as the major brands but is more powerful overall. I had at the time the same motor system on my eMTB so was very familiar with how to get the most performance out of it but couldn't get it to feel like my hub bike so I put some other wider rims and tires on it and although it is fully ridged my son who lives in a city loves it.

The feeling of gliding along with just the right amount of pedal pressure that you want pretty much demands a torque assist system of some type and the Juiced seems to have hit the sweet spot with theirs? However how I get that feeling is via no PAS. How I work it is to have a conventional derailleur system, but I do use a Schlumpf High Speed Drive to get the higher gear ratios that will match up with the motor at speed to get the effect you talk about. Because there is no strain on the chain other than what I have been used to for years and the constant momentum provided by my hub, DD Grin All Axle front motor btw, with only a throttle to control the watt output of the motor and the ability to set it on "cruise control" it even helps to make you more aware of the dead spots in your spin and gives you something to work on while riding. I liken the effect to having a row boat with a trolling motor if that makes any sense.

Peoples fear of front drive hubs, direct drive hubs and throttles doesn't make my method at all popular but after thousands of miles from sea level to 9000' ele it works for me. I ride mainly on gravel and secondary paved roads with it but have diced up a little mellow single track as well. But for off road adventures of single track, beach/sand trails and the chunkier gravel logging roads around me a FS M620 bike is my go to rig and gets the most use frankly. But as a long time bike addict I am used to having a few bikes around.

One thing I will say though is that it takes me a few miles to get back into the way the drop bar bike works most efficiently whereas the mid drive bike doesn't.

 

[ElevenAD]

Its because you are riding bikes with slow middrives! None of the middrive bikes you mentioned are going to feel as powerful as your Juiced because they are not as powerful, try a bike with a bigger Middrive and trust me it will feel plenty Zippy. Test anything with a Bafang Ultra or a BBSHD and you will feel like your riding a rocket!

 

[Stefan Mikes]

@rjdavis4:
It is my humble advice to you that you try and understand what the derailleur is for.
If you compare a high power hub-motor to a good mid-drive motor by starting in the high gear, the hub-drive motor will feel more zippy because it is pushing your e-bike with constant force irrelevant of the gear you are in. However, starting the mid-drive e-bike in low gear and gradually upshifting gives the mid-drive motor e-bike a launch as if it were a racing car!

Only yesterday, I zoomed by a group of my traditional gravel cycling mates going from zero to over 45 km/h (28 mph) on my Specialized Turbo Vado 5.0 by properly using the derailleur and spinning the crank at high cadence. It was like a "whoooooosh!"

As recorded by my Wahoo.

 

[JRA]

OK then, given equal output of the motors, I find it takes 1000w to really make a bike feel "zippy" for me at least, so say both running 20A @ 52v. I would wager that stop light to stop light my DD hub would clean the clock of my M620 bike every time.

While the M620 has stump pulling power in the back woods trying to get up to speed fast is inhibited by the need to shift gears which has to be done somewhat gingerly or you will leave a chain snake in your tracks. While the DD, in my case, motor will pull from the line equally but with my no PAS method I can back off human input slightly to shift but the motor is still putting out a consistent wattage so you can even drop a few gears at once because of no chain strain.

Horses for courses......

 

[AHicks]

I agree with a lot of what you are saying here. It seems like most of the high end manufacturers (Specialized, R&M) try to make their ebikes still feel like regular bikes as much as possible in the way they ride and for the most part they all use mid drives. The Bafangs also seem to be the most popular counter-example of mid drives that lean more into speed/power. Are your Bafang bikes DIY or from an ebike manufacturer?



Could you expand on this more? Does this mean a lot of times a geared hub will be better at accelerating than a mid drive?

My Bafang's are both production bikes. They also have fairly large motors (160nm and 110nm). The Ultra (M620) is an absolute torque monster. That big motor makes it very forgiving when you don't feel like/have the need to be starting in the lowest possible gear and work up through them as you accelerate. If you don't need max acceleration, taking off in 4th or 5th (of 9) works well. The M-600 has much more finesse built into it's controller, is not the gorilla on steroids like the Ultra at all. That bike requires you start off in a lower gear for crossing a busy road, or it just kind of moseys on across, to the point you need to be careful picking out the hole in traffic you're crossing through....

The geared hub bikes are NOT driven through the drive train. They could care less what gear you are in when accelerating from a stop. They're going to be on that 5:1 gear reduction no matter what you do. If you contribute to that acceleration so much the better! This, and the throttle, is what makes them so easy to ride.

The 500w geared hub, and the M600 mid drive are both "rated" at 500w. Both will be pulling closer to 1000w at wide open throttle, so they would be a pretty good match - on paper. From a standing start, the geared hub is going to clean the M600's clock to about 10mph. To get to 10mph for example, there's no need to shift the geared hub if taking off in 3rd or 4th gear, where with the M600 you are going to have to back off on your pedal pressure for each shift (or risk clunky shifts) slowing you considerably. From there (10+mph) you're into more of a cruise mode, and both are actually pretty similar when it comes to mid range punch/top speeds.

"Does this mean a lot of times a geared hub will be better at accelerating than a mid drive?"
All else being equal, would you rather be drag racing a car with a well tuned automatic trans (that doesn't require you to shift), or a 9 speed manual trans? -Al

 

[TForan52]

Finally, a hub vs mid drive discussion.

 

[dodgeman]

We rented e bikes before we bought Treks. They are mid drive. One of the ones we rented was a hub drive, I think it was a Pedigo, and it did feel pretty zippy compared to my current Trek. It was also a class III with a throttle and also seemed to surge when you didn’t want it to. Just my preference but I like my Trek it feels more natural and like a regular bike with assist.

 

[PedalUma]

It's funny. Stefan and I are so very different, yet we both like bikes with the same riding characteristics. Here is one that lives on a hill in San Francisco and can carry 200Kg. It has a powerful duel clutch motor that I have optimized so it feels like a responsive instrument that is amplified to the extent desired. The small rear wheel steps down the gearing. It is going out today. See if you can spot any electrical wires. You would have to zoom and squint.

 

[rich c]

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.

 

[JRA]

Finally, a hub vs mid drive discussion.

Yeah, let's get back to talking about Specialized bikes and WW issues.