Hub drive vs mid drive, round 2.

[Trail Cruiser]

I know, I know, people would quickly point out that mid drives has the advantage on steep inclines. And that is true, mid drives can take advantage of the gearing and can comfortably tackle more than 15% inclines. You would often see those steep inclines on off road single tracks, riding in the lowest gears and laboring slowly at 5 mph or less.

If you stick to designated bicycle trails and/or streets, you'll rarely encounter hills that steep on your regular route unless you go hunting for one. And that's what I experienced myself, on all my regular routes, the steepest hill I encounter is something like 12%. Both my hub drive and mid drive have no problem tackling it.

However, when I went looking for the steepest hill in my area (16-18%), my mid drive performed better and struggled less.

Unless you ride regularly on off road single tracks with really steep hills, the hub drive is an adequate setup.

If you use it for commute with speeds regularly exceeding 25 mph, then the hub drive may have the advantage mainly for longevity of the drivetrain.

 

[TForan]

I'm glad we finally got that straightened out.

 

[Figs]

Good to know.

 

[6zfshdb]

Mid drives typically have lower wattage motors than hubs. On average, the lower wattage combined with the mechanical advantage of the gearing make mid drives more efficient. Hub drives put less strain on the drive train however.

As you say, which is better really depends on where you ride.

 

[TForan]

And with hubs , you have the inherent weight imbalance, a real pain in the butt with rear flats and I had one shut down on a steep hill that my mid drives laughs at.

 

[CodyDog]

My wife has a mid drive and I ride a hub driven bike. I really like both. I feel I get more of a traditional bike feel on my wife's Specialized Como 3.0. I like the torque sensor and I like her's a little bit better for steeper hills. I like my hub drive for over all acceleration on the flats. I feel like I get more of an exercise on her mid drive. My Rad Rover has a candence sensor which forces me to be in lower gears for more of an exercise type workout. if Im in level 3-5 on my bike, the bike seems to do more of the work and requires less of an effort.

With all that being said, I really enjoy the throttle on my bike when riding out in the grassy, rocky, dirt roads when tooling around and for quicker starts in intersections or inclines.

Personally I would like to have both a hub and mid drive for myself to have the best of both worlds but I'll have to stick to one bike for now.

 

[ebikemom]

Personally I would like to have both a hub and mid drive for myself to have the best of both worlds but I'll have to stick to one bike for now.

Ooooh, that sounds fun!

 

[indianajo]

Nobody seems to notice the geared hub motor. Mine has no trouble with 15% grade with 320 lb gross, 450 of the 1000 watts used at 4 mph, 250 W @ 11 mph. I have that one on the front, to balance the 50 lb of water I load on the back.
My direct drive hub is on the back of the newer cargo bicycle, but the weight is not bothering me even self propelled. 15 lb of hub motor is nothing like 50 lb of supplies or water.
New battery is up to 51.8 v, maybe I can use it tomorrow. First charge requires 54.6 v.

 

[Jerry LM]

Just got my Evelo Galaxy TT so after two days I am no expert for sure, but when you move the electronic shifting on this thing it gets so easy to pedal on a hill it's like a flat...thing is sure easy to ride. I have only used power level 3 so far and was cruising along at 16mph, not pushing it yet as I am new to this.

 

[Figs]

@Jerry LM - Congrats on the Evelo!

 

[tomjasz]

After selling and supporting mid drive kits since Dec 2015 I’ve concluded they are oversold. Geared hub drives have gotten lighter and more powerful, as well as far fewer mechanical issues. That said, I still like my 250w and 350w mid drives for park and bike multi use paths. Front direct drive 1000w w/studded tire for winter tracking with heated battery. Busting butt scurrying across town as quickly as possible, a MAC 12fet controller rear GD. I find that crank forward bikes aren’t a balance problem with weight on rear rack. As others have posted, I prefer owning a couple of bikes each better suited to specific conditions. I’ve also slowed down. Not need for a 1000w/33mph mid drive here.

 

[harryS]

I own a mid drive and geared motor bikes of various sizes. In my opinion, there's not much difference in rideability, as long as you have enough power to do what you want.

 

[rannyv]

After selling and supporting mid drive kits since Dec 2015 I’ve concluded they are oversold. Geared hub drives have gotten lighter and more powerful, as well as far fewer mechanical issues. That said, I still like my 250w and 350w mid drives for park and bike multi use paths. Front direct drive 1000w w/studded tire for winter tracking with heated battery. Busting butt scurrying across town as quickly as possible, a MAC 12fet controller rear GD. I find that crank forward bikes aren’t a balance problem with weight on rear rack. As others have posted, I prefer owning a couple of bikes each better suited to specific conditions. I’ve also slowed down. Not need for a 1000w/33mph mid drive here.

When you say 'crank forward' are you talking about an extreme example of this such as Rans bikes or something milder like Electra Townie?

 

[rannyv]

@Trail Cruiser - what kind of mid-drive and torque sensor did the Pedago bike you tested have? I recently purchased a Bosch powered mid-drive and before I sold my BBS-HD mid-drive, I had a chance to ride both of them back to back. Although the BBS had lots of power, the Bosch felt a lot more natural and was a better overall experience due to responsiveness and torque sensor vs. crank speed sensing on the BBS. I have never ridden a Pedago nor even investigated the specs on their bikes, but my sense is it's built to a lower price point than most big name powered mid-drive bikes. There's a world of difference between a mid-drive system from one of the big 3 (or 4?) mid-drive companies and something like a Bafang mid-drive with pedal speed activated assist.

 

[TForan]

@Trail Cruiser - what kind of mid-drive and torque sensor did the Pedago bike you tested have? I recently purchased a Bosch powered mid-drive and before I sold my BBS-HD mid-drive, I had a chance to ride both of them back to back. Although the BBS had lots of power, the Bosch felt a lot more natural and was a better overall experience due to responsiveness and torque sensor vs. crank speed sensing on the BBS. I have never ridden a Pedago nor even investigated the specs on their bikes, but my sense is it's built to a lower price point than most big name powered mid-drive bikes. There's a world of difference between a mid-drive system from one of the big 3 (or 4?) mid-drive companies and something like a Bafang mid-drive with pedal speed activated assist.

The Bafang Ultra with torque sensor works great.

 

[DDBB]

"bafang" may very well be a great motor but the name alone is a marketing fail, at least for the USA

 

[indianajo]

bafang in the US is a motor you can actually buy. In hub motors, when I was buying,Luna had fat bike wheels only.
Mac hub motors have a great reputation and far as I could find are only available in the US from Grin in Canada, or Em3ev in HongKong. Neither of their servers are covered by US wirefraud law or enforcement. The business owners may be great guys, but how good are their ISP's at keeping out hackers? Undeterminable question. I bought a $179 piece of generic garbage, labled LY-48v-1000 from a guy in LA. I'll see how it performs tomorrow. I'm not out much.
The luna 17.5 AH panasonic battery passes my load test. 20 ohms load dropped it about 1 v in an hour.

 

[MisterM]

bafang in the US is a motor you can actually buy. In hub motors, when I was buying,Luna had fat bike wheels only.
Mac hub motors have a great reputation and far as I could find are only available in the US from Grin in Canada, or Em3ev in HongKong. Neither of their servers are covered by US wirefraud law or enforcement. The business owners may be great guys, but how good are their ISP's at keeping out hackers? Undeterminable question. I bought a $179 piece of generic garbage, labled LY-48v-1000 from a guy in LA. I'll see how it performs tomorrow. I'm not out much.
The luna 17.5 AH panasonic battery passes my load test. 20 ohms load dropped it about 1 v in an hour.

Odd you focus on overseas hackers/security when far and away the biggest hacks have been on US companies.

 

[Trail Cruiser]

@Trail Cruiser - what kind of mid-drive and torque sensor did the Pedago bike you tested have? I recently purchased a Bosch powered mid-drive and before I sold my BBS-HD mid-drive, I had a chance to ride both of them back to back. Although the BBS had lots of power, the Bosch felt a lot more natural and was a better overall experience due to responsiveness and torque sensor vs. crank speed sensing on the BBS. I have never ridden a Pedago nor even investigated the specs on their bikes, but my sense is it's built to a lower price point than most big name powered mid-drive bikes. There's a world of difference between a mid-drive system from one of the big 3 (or 4?) mid-drive companies and something like a Bafang mid-drive with pedal speed activated assist.

Probably someone else did the test drive on Pedego mid drive.

Since the BBSHD has no torque sensor, it would feel sluggish from the start up. The torque sensor on other ebikes ramps up the power at low speed / low cadence to help you accelerate from a stop. That's where the throttle comes in handy on my BBSHD (or other ebikes with no torque sensor / cadence only sensor) to compensate for the higher power demand on start up.

I have tried the Bosch and it felt great, however, I am not totally sold out to the shift detection since it does not consistently prevent gear bashing. Sometimes it shift smoothly, sometimes not. The newer Bosch-Rohloff combo has actual power cutoff when shifting (finally!).

I 've been to 3 geared hub drives (one I still have), 2 mid drives, all cadence only sensor (one I still have), and 1 direct hub drive with torque sensor ebike.

My knees hurt, so I mostly do low pressure high cadence riding (80-95 rpm). The mid drives that allow me to do that are the Bosch and the 52V BBSHD.

The TranzX mid drive's assist starts to go down above 80 RPM.

The torque sensor on my direct hub drive messes up with my high cadence endeavor since the assist decreases above 80 rpm and slows down the ebike altogether.

I make it a point to alternate between my mid drive and my hub drive whenever I go out for a ride. And I get more motivation to ride often since I want variety. I also appreciate the strengths of each drive system.

 

[tomjasz]

bafang in the US is a motor you can actually buy. In hub motors, when I was buying,Luna had fat bike wheels only.
Mac hub motors have a great reputation and far as I could find are only available in the US from Grin in Canada, or Em3ev in HongKong. Neither of their servers are covered by US wirefraud law or enforcement. The business owners may be great guys, but how good are their ISP's at keeping out hackers? Undeterminable question. I bought a $179 piece of generic garbage, labled LY-48v-1000 from a guy in LA. I'll see how it performs tomorrow. I'm not out much.
The luna 17.5 AH panasonic battery passes my load test. 20 ohms load dropped it about 1 v in an hour.

EBike.ca wells eZee geared hub motors. EM3ev has been doing business for 10 years with a stainless reputation. I have 3 motors and batteries from EM3ev. 2 Mac F&R, original BBS01 and ve sold dozens of accessories and bags. I’d risk $1000 ordering from China before a bought a $179 bomb.