Crazy Ray's ? I hope you were talking Lenny's.
While in general center drive (bottom bracket) motors deliver more usable power to the ground, especially if you are measuring the torque, they tend to be less powerful themselves (250 & 350 w typical). Due to the mechanical gearing advantages involved by running the motor output through the bicycles gear train they are able to utilize smaller less powerful motors. Hub motors currently come in two flavors direct and geared applying the power directly a more powerful motor is needed due to the inability to change the gearing between the wheel and motor (500w+ typical). There are of course exceptions. There are a few two speed hub motors but to date not commercially widespread for various reasons, as well as very powerful (1000w +) mid drives. Both systems have advantages and disadvantages. In general most mid drives do not offer throttle. For most people without the need for outrageous hill climbing ability a hub motor works great. For off road users a mid drive offers a lot of advantages due to it's ability to handle aggressive hills simply by shifting into a lower mechanical gear. Some riders like the ability to utilize internal hub gearing and belt drive systems with mid drives too, however wear and tear on transmissions designed for human power is much greater. There are always new developments being explored too. Bafang has introduced a bottom bracket system which transmits its power to the wheel utilizing a shaft drive to a 8 speed internally geared rear hub, mainly marketed for the loan bike customers it's robustness and lack of maintenance may bring forth a new paradigm. As far as one of our sales staff not posting to the forum it does not surprise or disappoint me. Our volume of sales (thousands a year) and a small staff preclude most of us from participating in the forums. I was on hiatus from posting for a few years myself, a turn in my health is the only reason I find the time to participate now. While many of our customers have unlimited time and resources to research, debate and mull over even the smallest details of the few models they are interested in, time and resources will not allow us to do so. When a small LBS sells a couple of bikes a month they have the time to debate the merits of tapered spokes and grommets in rims, and their markups reflect that. Our customers expect the best pricing and the only way to achieve that without being a charity is to maintain volume. Unfortunately reality dictates there are only so many hours in a day or lifetime, I gave up being disappointed that others don't spend theirs following my passions. I may be way off base here and probably just rambling now so will follow my doctors advice and actually rest a bit...Keep rolling Rich
