Importance of Gears

[RRB]

I've come to the conclusion that I'm looking for a trail and road bike combo. Here's my scenario. In the past, we could take a 4x4 with a quad down main roads and forestry roads and get to a trail head, but the quad is no longer allowed. So I'm looking for both speed and hill climbing capability. In a perfect world, I'd be going 28 mph at 80 rpm and have low gears that don't burn out motors. I'm considering the Rad Power Rover, Surface Shred, Volt Outback and Rize Leisure. (I live in Alberta, Canada) It seems to me that the Rize Leisure is the the best fit for my requirements. I've included data for my three bikes so that you can you see my frame of reference. I'm not getting any younger so I think there's an ebike in my future. I'd sure like to pick the best one. If you have some experience with these four bikes, please chime in. Also, if the low speed and motor burnout isn't a real issue - please let me know. BTW - I'm looking at a rear hub.

I used BikeCalc.com to prepare the above table.

 

[fooferdoggie]

How much hill climbing are you going to do?

 

[RRB]

How much hill climbing are you going to do?

A fair amount. One example would be the service road up the mountain at a ski resort (https://www.skicastle.ca/). And then there’s the ups and down of a forestry access road or a cut line. I’m still interested in climbing to the top of the mountains on my own horsepower.

Thanks for asking.

 

[rich c]

Your definition of a road bike must be way different than mine. Either that or it's the definition of what a trail is. No way would I take my Haibike Trekking on trails. Narrow tires and 28mph are useless on dirt.

 

[RRB]

Rich, for sure I’m trying to have my piece of cake and eat it too. I want the high speed (20 mph would be fine) to get to the trail heads and then eMTB capability. I have no plans of going 28mph on a trail. But using a 2 to 3 inch tire on a trail is good. The Surface 604 Shred is the only one like this I’ve listed. The other are three are fat tires. I’ll take a look at the Haibike Trekking. Thanks.

 

[indianajo]

I find a 26" x 2" tire sufficient to ride good pavement up to 35 mph, also to ride my rutted eroded johnson grass covered driveway into my summer camp. If I were taller I'd ride 700 mm x 55 mm. I ride knobbies. Some drag, but not nearly as much as riding upright to preserve my neck. those head down hips to the sky riders can always ride 2 -3 times faster than me, but it is not worth risking pain every second for the rest of my life from a popped disk to ride the efficient way. 8 mph average is slow, but gets me 30 miles in 3.5 hours and keeps me out of the cardiologists office. I'm age 70.
A wide range of gears/speeds is important for unforseen events.
Today the cold front came through 3 hours earlier than predicted last night, and I got caught in the rainstorm. The throttle quit working right after I got the plastic bag over it. As is normal for heavy rains. I was out on the "safe" hilly Beulah church road, which bypasses the rutted 24" berm on flatter highway 62 with all the 70 mph trucks & on Sunday, waggling house trailers and pontoon boats. I had to use 32:28 up some of the hills, since I didn't have electricity that I usually use out there. My bike has 52:42:32 front crank and 32 to 11 rear sprocket cluster to give me a wide range of speeds. Today it paid off. The wind was up to ~40 mph in my face briefly, too. I carry a $1 poncho for these days.
It is difficult to find an e-bike with this wide range of speeds. Most of the ones with the lower gears are mountain bikes, which have flat handle bars which put my hand to sleep in 20 minutes. I don't like the mountain bike riding position any more. Your hands may be more stout to resist abuse, mine are not.
One thing I'll say about 9 speed or 11 speed rear clusters, you are not going to get 5000 miles out of the chain that I get with 8 speed rear cluster. Maybe you enjoy hauling your bike to the dealer for chain replacement. I don't operate a car; if I leave my bike at the dealer I ride the bus home, a 3 hour ordeal to make 7 miles because of the lousy transfers. I can walk faster than the bus, but don't enjoy it. I do my own maintenance, as a result. first time I changed the chain took ~ 8 hours over 2 days. About the same time as walking to/from the bike shop. Next time it will be quicker since I won't have to make any tools. Industrial dodge master links are a lot easier to assemble than this KMC trash. **** dodge master link wouldn't go through the derailler, hung on the cotter pins.
I don't know of any e-bike anymore that has 24 speeds. Sure came in handy today. Electricity is nice but can't be relied on in a heavy rain. My Mommie is no longer dedicated to picking me up if I have trouble, she's dead. The wife has her own schedule and her car too small to fit my bike anyway.
Happy shopping.

 

[RRB]

Just listened to the first 3 minutes of a Rize Leisure review.

The reviewer doesn’t like it that at low speed and low PA the motor is making a squawking noise. The noise goes away when he speeds. I’ll try to find out if it has anything to do with what gear he’s using.

 

[antboy]

The reviewer doesn’t like it that at low speed and low PA the motor is making a squawking noise.

I don't know if he's using the cadence or torque version of the motor, but I've heard a similar (but not nearly as loud) noise out of my 500W Bafang 500W rear hub with cadence only (on a SparkBike, Rize before the name change).

To me, it felt like being at a speed/PAS level that is riding the edge of engaging the motor, and changing physical gear or PAS level will get rid of that, while keeping you at similar speed and cadence.

Not sure how many levels of PAS the Leisure has, but it should be easily user configurable to 9 levels, which I found to be more flexible than the 5 that many hub bikes default to. There used to be a chart online that showed the relationship between PAS levels if set to 3, 5, 7, and 9.

 

[AHicks]

Current rear gear for the Rad is 32/11 unless something has changed. They went that route on the 2018 bike.

 

[ruffruff]

I would look at a straight up eMTB. I have a 27.5 x 2.8 tires on my mountain bike. I ride a lot of single track, and occasional paved paths with my wife.
It behaves well in both circumstances.

FYI it has the Yamaha PW-se motor on it. I've never ridden a Bosch to compare but I LOVE the Yamaha drive!
After riding the Yamaha and I get on my Bafang bike it feels like riding a dinosaur!

 

[tomjasz]

I would look at a straight up eMTB. I have a 27.5 x 2.8 tires on my mountain bike. I ride a lot of single track, and occasional paved paths with my wife.
It behaves well in both circumstances.

FYI it has the Yamaha PW-se motor on it. I've never ridden a Bosch to compare but I LOVE the Yamaha drive!
After riding the Yamaha and I get on my Bafang bike it feels like riding a dinosaur!

Which mid drive? BBSHD are very much powerhouses

 

[RRB]

Current rear gear for the Rad is 32/11 unless something has changed. They went that route on the 2018 bike.

Thanks for the correction AHicks. On the Canadian site the freewheel is 11-34 with 42 chaingear. This results in a very nice 83 RPM at 28 mph. Low speed at 30 cadence is 3.3 mph. I can see that getting going on steep hills with an ebike is going to be interesting. I need to get out and try it. Does anyone have experiece with damaging a motor starting on steep hills?

 

[Captain Slow]

As long as your derailleur has available capacity it's pretty easy to change a cassette and get a wider spread of gears. I'm not understanding why this is such a big consideration. If the bike you want doesn't have the gearing well then changing cassettes are easy and generally chain rings as well.

 

[AHicks]

RRB, I can never remember 32 vs. 34 probably because I never use it. The 11 is important though! With a 14 tooth, I could barely stay up with the pedals at just 15mph...

Oh, and the RAD's will be freewheels, not cartridges. For whatever that's worth. I do agree though, that the bikes gearing is about fine tuning to your needs/priorities. I'm thinking if I found a bike that checked all of the other boxes, I would not base a buying decision on the available "correct" gear ratios. Kinda like seats....

 

[RRB]

Thanks Captain Slow and AHicks for your good advice. Kinda like seats”. I’ll remember that.

 

[Ebiker33]

@RRB

From what you want to do, you better consider a mid-drive motor with at least 120nm of torque a 48V battery and controller with 25 amps, otherwise your gears might be irrelevant.
I have hub drive 48V with 20amp controller and I struggle with steep grade. Remember you are trying to haul a 70lb. Ebike not a 30lb standard MTB. On top of that if you are a 200lb man verses somebody like Court who is a flyweight when comes to Ebike riders what I say is even more true.
I have been watching video's of Ebikes taking on mountainous grades, 120nm is the starting point for all the testers to take on all these challenges one bike shop owner even admitted the Bosch's, Broses, and Yamaha's mid-drives motors fail on his " rocky test hill" mind you it's extreme, at 36% grade. But he sells all brands because he know not everybody wants or needs to do that. But if you live near the Rockies verses the prairies in North America it is a variable to be considered. Having lived in both spots, on the prairies a hub motor or the weaker Bosch/Brose/Yamaha would be perfectly fine. But get into the rocky mountains trail riding and stronger motors become a need to have fun and not struggle with riding steep grade.

That is unless you are young super fit and want a super cardio work out....then go for it.

 

[CdnShaun]

Hey there RRB,

I'm out in Ontario Canada. Hope you don't mind - I will be speaking in Metric with you here.

Another thread recently started has the same theme/questions you have. I just posted more details there of my experience:

E-Bike hybrid for street and trail

any suggestions for a great e-bike that does great on pavement and light trail?

electricbikereview.com

I will mention here in quick summary - I chose to build my bike matching much of your needs. Details are:

-I'm 270lbs (currently) and carry 60lbs of rack/bags/food/water/extra batteries when I ride.

-I choose a Giant Toughroad SLR 2 (2018) and added Bionx hub motor to it. The 700C x 50mm tires are great on road and light trails. The 22T/32T/44T chain rings combined with 11-34T 9 speed in the back gives me all the options I want, starting out on a hill (22T x 34T if needed) is no problem at all.

-My Bionx D500 motor is only 50nm of torque for reference.

-Up to 10-12% grade hills I'm still using the 44T chain ring with the larger gears in the cassette, with the option to drop down to the 32T chain ring when above 10% grade. The steepest climb I can remember was around 16-18% which I was on the 32T chain ring and had the confidence if I needed to I could drop down to the 22T chain ring - always nice to know it's there.

-I cruise along at 35-42kmph on the road. When I'm running the 44T/11T and I'm running 80-85rpm my speed is 45-48kmph.

-Bionx has served me well and lead me to being part of this awesome forum. I'm moving ahead myself with upgrades/new builds from ebikes.ca (based out B.C.) and will share more this summer when my builds are complete.

I leave you with the thought, even if it's to simply rule it out with your research, that a conversion ebike project might be a good fit for you, allowing you to buy the ideal bike and add the ideal motor/battery/controller to it.

Good luck!
Shaun