Thanks! I bought this bike mainly for the look (at first glance, it looks like a regular bike), the location of the charger (located on lower part of the seat tube, below the bottle cage and covered by a magnetic cover) and the price (even considering that its specs are on the low end of the Shimano family, it was below USD4000). Ah, and of course, because it was an American model with a higher speed limit than in Europe. The feel of the assistance is different to other systems and varies depending on the slope of the terrain and the mode of the assistance.
Lets start with the assistance mode. Mode 1 (green) gives up to 100 watts, mode 2 (orange) up to 175 watts and mode 3 (red) up 250 watts. On the app you can choose the percentage of assitance for each mode. So, in my current setup I have 60% for mode 1, which gives me 60% of 100 watts, 60 watts. Mode 2 is at 85%, giving me 85% of 175 watts, about 150 watts and mode 3 (red) at 100%, which gives me 250 watts, that is full throttle. Another important point is that the assistance is mainly based on speed (I wrote "mainly" because I suspect that there must be another sensor that checks if you are pedaling or not) and is not a system based on torque. Thus, there is indeed a feeling of being pushed when starting to pedal and on exit (up to 20 mph).
Now that I just mentioned the feels, on exit, I find that being-pushed-feeling nice, actually. When stopped (or at near zero speed) and starting to pedal, I find that push a bit dangerous because its like you are exerting more force that the one you desire. So, one has to be careful. On the flat I ride without the motor, so the bike behaves like a regular bike. However, if you happen to ride it below 20mph (32kmh approx) at constant speed, it feels very natural. The nicest feel is close to (but just right below) the speed limit, at about 19.5mph. If you happen to ride at 21 incrementally to 22, 23 and so on, you don´t feel that the assistance suddenly stopped and you hit a wall. That is nice, very nice. As I said, I don't use the assistance on the flat, though, bit those are my impressions regarding that terrain. The bike becomes more interesting when climbing. I really like climbing, so most of the time I use it at mode 1 (giving me those 60 watts extra). Today, for example I rode 100km (62 miles) with tried the assistance on two 7 km climbs, with average slope of 6% and 4%. Both on a 52-28 gear and it was so nice. You exert the same effort as in a muscular bike and you just ride faster. In my case, much much faster! I suspect that if I used mode 3 at 100% I can easily beat Pogacar, Roglic, Bernal, or any other professional cyclist (the assistance would last on paper only for an hour though!!). This is to say that I have rarely used the full assistance. By the way I rode those 100km and consumed about 20% of the battery, mostly on those 15 kms climbing. My weight is about 65kg (143.3 pounds). On other couple of rides I have used the assistance on slopes of 20% or more and those 70 watts are my besties. Not to mention 150 or 250. Finally, descending of course the assistance is off, but because of the rear hub motor and the battery on the head tube, the bike has a slight (but only slight) tendency to go long, but the weight is so much more important (at least in my case, with my weight) that I have a nice feeling of adherence to the road.
I hope this helps a bit for you to have a notion of the feels of this X35 Mahle rear-hub motor. If you share your experience of your motor I would appreciate them a lot!
