First charge distance travelled

[JohnRC]

Finally did my first charge and was then able to see how far I would get.
180 km. Which comes out to 109 miles (if the measuring is accurate).

To me this is pretty good. I believe it is this high because this bike is so easy to pedal without assist. For this reason I pedal as much of the time as I can.
What I did notice was that the last 20% seemed to be used up much faster than other 20% sections. When I ran out of juice I was going up a pretty big hill and everything began to drag and finally just quit. As the manual says the lights still work for a period of time but not the motor. You can still coast home safely.

 

[steve_rolfeca]

Wow. That's excellent range!

I have a 55CM Medeo T9 HMB with the smaller 400WH battery, and I've only been getting about 110 to 120km a charge, mostly riding in ECO. Still, that's better than the published range estimates, so I can't complain.

However, I'm something of a big, impatient lump. I weigh 107 kilos, and like to bomb hills.

I'm guessing that you're a smaller or fitter rider, even given that you aren't using a lot of assist.

I find that the Purion display is very accurate, always within a km of the GPS map measurements in Strava or Google maps.

The range estimates are pretty accurate as well, but they're always adjusting according to how hard you're riding. If you come to a series of steep hills near the end of a ride, you may be surprised at how quickly those last few km bleed off.

I prefer to charge the bike whenever it gets down to two or three bars. Running the battery all the way down doesn't help battery life, and I would only do it if I was planning a long ride that stretched the limits of my bike.

 

[JohnRC]

Hi Steve.
It is good to compare some notes and experiences. Thanks for responding.

Yes, I am light at around 130 lbs but also 74 years old.
I do not plan on running the battery to the bottom very often. Giant bikes has a battery section on their site that has good information. To me it is one of the most complete presentations I have come across. In it they suggest that every 3 months you run the battery down to the bottom. These are “deep cycle” batteries and it is good and ok to do this every once in a while.
I think you have the same motor as I do. Do you get any rattling from around the motor? I do and find it really annoying. If I am coasting along on a slight down hill and there are small pavement joints or bumps. It is not the kickstand I tied it up to check. You know the “clunk” you get when you stop peddling sometimes with power? The noise and vibration seems to be right around my feet. I hope to get to the shop in the next couple of days but we have very bad smoke from the fires from California, Oregon and Washington I am not going out much.
Where are you located?

Take care,
John

 

[steve_rolfeca]

...Yes, I am light at around 130 lbs but also 74 years old.

...I think you have the same motor as I do. Do you get any rattling from around the motor? I do and find it really annoying. If I am coasting along on a slight down hill and there are small pavement joints or bumps. It is not the kickstand I tied it up to check. You know the “clunk” you get when you stop peddling sometimes with power? The noise and vibration seems to be right around my feet.

...Where are you located?

I'm "only" 65, and hoping to still be hard at it in another 10 years...

What sort of average speeds are you doing?

My wife is waiting for knee surgery (arthritis). I like to average about 25-29kph on the flat, while she prefers to cruise along at about 10 or 12kph. Needless to say, she would get stellar range if she had electric assist!

I have about 490km on my Medeo, and it seems to have developed a couple of mild rattles around the fenders. They're barely audible at this point, but I'm going to torque the fasterners down there with a bit of locktite. No point losing loose fasteners.


I saw comments on the web about the driveline "clunk", and had no idea what out what people were talking about.

I think that this is because I tend to ride at a fairly high cadence, with very light pressure on the pedals. Also, I tend to ease up pretty gradually after accelerating hard.

The other day, I changed it up. I would pedal pretty hard, get up to a decent cadence, and then abruptly stop pedaling. When I did that, I got a soft clunk every time.

I don't know what's going on in there, but subjectively it feels as though something with some weight to it continues to spin when I stop, and the clunk happens as the internal mechanism takes up the slack.

Based on my experience, it seems that when you taper off your effort gradually, it gives the internals time to catch up, so no clunk. This isn't a deliberate strategy on my part- it just seems to be the way I ride.

 

[Steve-H]

See my comments in another thread about the clunk as a pre-cursor to a squeak whose both symptoms were eliminated with some sort of shim kit that Bosch supplies for this was installed under warranty by my bike shop.

As for mileage, I am now addicted to riding to 30-32 km/h and thus limited by how much power I want to do on my own. I run a base of Tour all the time with EMTB used when I need to battle headwinds or steep hills.
I can say that a "full boost" range of around 80km is normal. I have never run out of power. The full battery displayed range often goes up if starting out in cold weather. I think the battery use helps it to heat up. Yesterday, I started with 49km showing and did a 25km ride in wind and got home with 60km showing and used boost on the whole ride.

I am using an e-bike as a way to keep knee arthritis away. The boost means that you never need to strain and the fact that I did 3500km last year is good for me and the environment.