Do ebikes need more than 5 speeds?

[Cyklefanatic]

Just put 1000k on my Vado 4.0 that I use mostly for commuting and pleasure rides. Thinking about my experience so far I have realized that I have never used the lowest 4 gears, not even once. If I need to climb a hill or go against the wind I just up the assist level instead of gearing down. At worst I may have to pedal hard for a revolution before the motor takes over and it’s easy pedalling again.
Having ten or eleven gears on a regular bike makes sense but on an ebike it seems a waste.
Plus there are many advantages to having fewer gears.
The chainline can be much better with a narrower cassette. On my bike the chain spends almost all of its time in ninth or tenth so the chain is twisted over all the time. This will prematurely wear the chain.
Shifts are easier to make because the derailleur has more room for error and the chain stays straighter.
The chain could be wider which will add strength. This is a big advantage for mid drives with motor power coming through the chain.
Less shifting for the rider to worry about. Enjoy the ride instead of thinking about gearing.
Lower cost for the cassette, derailleur, and shift control.
For riders who desire more gear spread you could still have it it’s just that the gap between gears will increase. Again the motor assist can help with the extra torque required because of this larger ratio gap. This only takes a few revolutions until you reach a comfortable cadence.
Am I alone in thinking this way?

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Unless you try steeper hills, Cyclefanatic. The drive-train in Vados is inherited from MTBs.
I read a report from a Forum member who needs to negotiate a 17% grade climb. He says he cannot do it with the 48-46t granny gear and he needs a smaller chainring to achieve his goal.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

P.S. There is the Gates belt drive and Rohloff hub gears. Or Enviolo. The chain/derailleur is not the only system in the market. Yet we got a report from @David Berry his Gates belt drive snapped after less than 15000 km.

 

[Cyklefanatic]

Unless you try steeper hills, Cyclefanatic. The drive-train in Vados is inherited from MTBs.
I read a report from a Forum member who needs to negotiate a 17% grade climb. He says he cannot do it with the 48-46t granny gear and he needs a smaller chainring to achieve his goal.

I am going to have to find myself a 17% grade. But my point is the gear spread can be just as wide if you want.

 

[Cyklefanatic]

P.S. There is the Gates belt drive and Rohloff hub gears. Or Enviolo. The chain/derailleur is not the only system in the market. Yet we got a report from @David Berry his Gates belt drive snapped after less than 15000 km.

15,000k that’s great. I am happy to get 10-12,000 k on a chain plus all that greasy maintenance.

 

[fooferdoggie]

Yes I use them all and I’m mostly have assist to the max cause of my Heath. But I always start in the first gear as I get going fast. I have 14 degree hills I am in that same gear.

 

[Cyklefanatic]

Yes I use them all and I’m mostly have assist to the max cause of my Heath. But I always start in the first gear as I get going fast. I have 14 degree hills I am in that same gear.

If you had the same first gear and the same top gear with fewer gears in between do you feel it would be OK?

 

[fooferdoggie]

If you had the same first gear and the same top gear with fewer gears in between do you feel it would be OK?

Maybe a few in the middle but that usually because I cruise at 20+ but I need the lowest and the highest. When going up a light hill from a stop I will use most of them to get up to speed.

 

[indianajo]

Just put 1000k on my Vado 4.0 that I use mostly for commuting and pleasure rides. Thinking about my experience so far I have realized that I have never used the lowest 4 gears, not even once.
I am alone in thinking this way?

I ride a bike for the aerobic exercise. At 68, my heart "had nothing wrong" the cardiologist said. It was racing during heart tests because I was mad about them wasting money testing my heart, when it was my shoulder that needed surgery. Without power on the 77 hills I ride to my summer camp, I use a wide range of sprockets. My bike has 24 speeds, 3 x 8. My geared hub drive doesn't drag when it is not turned on, by contrast with the common Bosch mid-drives.
OTOH, Monday if I come back, I'll be fighting 23 mph wind gusts in the face, with 12-19 mph steady headwind. THAT is why I bought electricity, after a day like that. I don't need 6 hours of struggle, 132 bpm, to exercise my heart. 3.5 hours 100-120 is fine.
See the 2019 bbcnews.com article about the Surrey bike club of 70-88 year olds that average the same # of T cells (repair) as 29 year olds. They bike 60-70 miles 4 * a week. Use it or lose it. I'm using it.

 

[fooferdoggie]

Ya I know about the heart thing. I have had heartburn all my life and after I hurt my left arm and found when I had heartburn it made my left arm ache my docs freaked out and though I wa having a heart attack. One ekg and a stress test later they kinda believed me

 

[Cyklefanatic]

Without power on the 77 hills I ride to my summer camp, I use a wide range of sprockets. My bike has 24 speeds, 3 x 8. My geared hub drive doesn't drag when it is not turned on, by contrast with the common Bosch mid-drives.
OTOH, Monday if I come back, I'll be fighting 23 mph wind gusts in the face, with 12-19 mph steady headwind. THAT is why I bought electricity, after a day like that. I don't need 6 hours of struggle, 132 bpm, to exercise my heart. 3.5 hours 100-120 is fine.

Interesting comment about the hub drive , tried a few and they cogged when not used. What brand do you have?

 

[Stefan Mikes]

For what it's worth...
There are no natural hills in Warsaw Poland, only artificial mounds. One of them is the Warsaw Uprising 1944 Mound (made of the debris of Warsaw razed to the ground in 1944 by the Nazi). On Sep 1st 2019 we were on a group ride. I and two of friends of mine climbed the Mound with our bikes. At that time I only had the 250 W hub motor e-bike with 3x8 drive-train. My friends were all acoustic. The last segment of the climb was indeed very steep. I shifted down to the granny gear, turned maximum PAS on and could climb that segment -- with nuns in grey habits cheering me up -- and the segment was steep by luckily very short. My "friends acoustic" could not make that.

Today I know I could far easier make it with my mid-drive Vado but the granny gear would certainly have helped, taking into account the Vado's lowest gear is 48-46t and the other bike is 22-34t in the granny gear. I wonder how all that works in real mountains.

 

[christob]

10 gears here + rear hub, and I probably routinely use about 5-6 of them consistently. But my ebiking habits have definitely changed over 23 months and I now routinely stay in the lowest assist level for entire rides, only bumping up to level 2 briefly sometimes (of 5) for a pesky short hill climb... I used heavier assist in the first several months on the ebike, but gradually got stronger, and became more keen to extend my range between charge cycles.
I brought my old Bianchi 3x7 into play last summer, and find that I generally use all 7 gears while staying on the #2 chainring, probably 99% of my rides... I’ve explored the granny spins of front gear #1 (but don’t ride up serious enough grades for it, on most routes I repeat) and I don’t seem to have enough long uninterrupted / uncrowded flats for enjoying the front gear #3.

 

[AHicks]

10 gears here + rear hub, and I probably routinely use about 5-6 of them consistently. But my ebiking habits have definitely changed over 23 months and I now routinely stay in the lowest assist level for entire rides, only bumping up to level 2 briefly sometimes (of 5) for a pesky short hill climb... I used heavier assist in the first several months on the ebike, but gradually got stronger, and became more keen to extend my range between charge cycles.
I brought my old Bianchi 3x7 into play last summer, and find that I generally use all 7 gears while staying on the #2 chainring, probably 99% of my rides... I’ve explored the granny spins of front gear #1 (but don’t ride up serious enough grades for it, on most routes I repeat) and I don’t seem to have enough long uninterrupted / uncrowded flats for enjoying the front gear #3.

A lot of the same goes for me. I think early on there's a big learning curve and we use more power than necessary. As we build up a few miles and get to know the bike better, the coordination between desired pedaling effort, bike speed, PAS level, and chosen gear, all seems to come into a much better focus and our riding becomes way more efficient.

To the question, my bike is a 1x7 and I ride 2 through maybe 5 or 6 most frequently. So in a perfect world that's granted me gear ratios customized to/for my riding habits, 5 gears would be fine by me. Problem is it's not a perfect world, and all of us have different riding styles and needs. Few would take the trouble to set themselves up with their 5 favorite ratios. It's WAY easier to pick you favorite 5 from a selection including several more choices - to my way of thinking anyway. -Al

 

[Captain Slow]

I have often said that I'd rather have a 5, 6 or 7 speed cassette instead of the 9 or 10 speed cassettes many ebikes have. I don't think that many gears are necessary as long as you had a wide spread. Fewer speeds on the rear cassette would mean thicker cogs and chain which would then last longer.

Someone gets 10,000 to 12,000 km's on a chain? Wow, on my Cervelo with a 10 speed cassette, I get about 3,000 km's and I change it. If I leave it much longer than the cassette needs to be changed in addition to the chain.

 

[Captain Slow]

How much does a Gates carbon belt cost to replace? In another 7-10 years when I'm retired I plan to ride a lot and my ideal bike would be an electric mid-drive with a Rohloff and a Gates carbon belt. I figure the reduced maintenance will be worth it. I previously had not heard about a belt breaking.

 

[TForan]

I went with a 52T chainring, so I could utilize more of the gears. Even so, five would be plenty.

 

[fooferdoggie]

being able to keep your desired cadence at any speed is then need for more gears.

 

[Asher]

being able to keep your desired cadence at any speed is then need for more gears.

Both the OP and foofer have a point.

My problem is: e-bikes are designed to make the engineer's job easy, not the user's.

If you want to maintain constant speed given fairly constant pedal input (say, 100 W), while going over changing terrain, you'd have to nudge the assist level up and down, which is stupid, annoying and potentially a little dangerous. If speeds were fairly constant given X pedal input, then this would be unneccessary. And the need to change gears would be slashed as well (but probably still needed for hills). I'd rather change gears if only because shifters are easier to use and gauge mid-ride than electronics.

Same for accelerating from a stop, but some bikes at least have an easy throttle to deal with this.

So if you had a 'smart assist' system, you wouldn't need to change gears or the assist nearly as much. And then could probably do with a smaller cassette. (The downside of smart assist is that you'd have less control over power usage, but there are workarounds, like turning it off and power caps)

 

[smorgasbord]

Having ten or eleven gears on a regular bike makes sense but on an ebike it seems a waste.

No, it enables the rider to keep a constant cadence, which is beneficial.

The chainline can be much better with a narrower cassette. On my bike the chain spends almost all of its time in ninth or tenth so the chain is twisted over all the time. This will prematurely wear the chain.

Not really twisted, of course, but I know what you mean. If most of the time you are in the high or low gears, then you may not have the right gear range for the riding you do. I see people commuting in the flats on mountain bikes all the time, which can result in the "normal" gear selection you're seeing since mountain bikes are made for, well, climbing mountains and so low gears are more important than high gears for top speed on pavement. That's a reason to have the right gears, not fewer gears.

Shifts are easier to make because the derailleur has more room for error and the chain stays straighter.

Actually, shifts are easier with more gears because the derailleur doesn't have to move as far for each gear. My SRAM 12-speed is simply awesome - better shifting than my Campy 10-speed, which I thought was the cat's meow.

The chain could be wider which will add strength.

Not necessarily true. It's the links, not the rollers that determine the strength. If the rollers get shorter, the chain gets narrower with the same strength if it's using the same links. The construction of how the pins are flush is also new. Chains have gotten narrower with advances in materials and heat treatments, so I think you'll find today's top of the line 12 speed chain to be better than any 7 speed chain of the past.

There's also the total gear range to be considered. My SRAM has a 10-50 cassette. Try to do that on a 5-speed and the derailleur loses its ability to ramp up to the larger cogs since the distance between them is too great. Especially on a eBike, it's important to have a wide gear range since you don't (easily) get a front derailleur.