Just for some background, I grew up riding dirt bikes/motorcycles, have wrenched on cars and motorcycles most of my life, have ridden off-road (dirt bike and dual-sports) across a couple of foreign/non-US countries - not an expert, but I don't mind getting dirty or a bit of air time. My wife and I rented ebikes to do some sightseeing on an overseas trip, and as we both really liked it, got her a (used) Bosch powered Gazelle and a FS BBHSD for myself when we got back. We ride a mixture of single track, double track, and some road, with the primary goals being having together time and also getting into better shape. I'm also hoping to convince her to shift to an eMTB over time, and I'd like to get into harder single track.
Looking around, most of the suitable bikes out there were heavy pigs, which I had one already - check the weights and make sure it's with battery, and most FS bikes with Bafang motors (can't cope with 20mph limits, although some now do 28mph limits and Orbea Wild for example would be a nice bike if it increased the limit to 28mph..) are all at, approaching, or even over 80lbs or so, many of them being fat bikes. There's the WattWagon Hydra which as an Innotrace programmable controller and an Ultra motor, with a carbon fiber frame, which should be an awesome ride, but some unknown waiting time and it can get spendy quickly. There are a few Frey models (M600, EX) which look to be pretty solid bikes, but assume 6 month wait from order, metal frames, and rather heavy, as well as no guarantee of a UART programmable Ultra motor. The Sondors Rockstar is 80#. There are others - I looked at more than 20 different (although some had same frame, minor component differences) bikes.
I had waffled for a while between Ultra and M600, and also weight, while noting both - I LIKE power as well as programmability, but I'd moved to mostly using my BBHSD bike on level 2 of 9 for a majority of rides, so had been leaning towards the M600 option, as well as getting away from fat tire bikes (fun IMO, but already have suspension, and not beach riding in general).
I wound up with a spreadsheet of parts to build my own, and prices. FWIW, Ultra or M600 based, I was right around $5K USD plus or minus a bit depending on paint myself vs cerakote, Pike Ultimate vs other options, etc..but was hard-pressed in current pricing + frame/motor/shipping to get much lower. I was ready after many hours of convo with China suppliers, to go order my parts, but I recalled some mention somewhere on the Luna forum for 'there may be a Black Friday surprise' and I had it in my head it was a batch of X1s, so waited...
I woke up on Black Friday, checked the site, and saw the X2 and Z1, and the X2 was nearly exactly what I'd been looking for - but with a programmable controller option. Some not-entirely-quick searching to make sure this was a 'real' controller, and quickly found one of the controller developers, who has worked on motor controllers on the VESC platform, including his own hardware, since at least 2014 or so. VESC is a broad family of both hardware controllers and a well-developed mature software suite for programming, log analysis etc. In short - this is the real deal/not a hack, and an earlier variant was released early 2021 for the BBHSD with some fairly impressed users. It also allows for data-logging, something I found
extremely useful in tuning car ECUs, and you can do some cool stuff with the data.
At 6'0" I waffled a bit on frame size, as the X2 is essentially an E10 Dengfu frame or a slightly modified one, aka 'the Cheeb' on YouTube and emtb forums, and I could find people of the same height (6'0") both saying they wish they had gone with the medium as well as the large frame is great. I have a plan percolating in my head to eventually convince my wife, who has a Bosch-powered Gazelle, to move to an eMTB at some point, while she flat out refuses to ride my fat BBSHD bike... so said screw it and ordered a medium. Apparently the mediums were out of stock within hours, and the rest not long after, although I think they now have some DNM suspension bikes ordered for ~Jan delivery.
The bike showed up around 10 days later. After seeing sooo much drama and people handing out cash now to 'hope' they get a bike in 6-9 months, well - I'll just say it, that was rather nice.. that was actually one of the reasons I'd considered just building one fully from parts - uncertain delivery dates with most vendors at the moment. It was well packed, zip-ties, foam and cardboard, but somehow I still managed to have a frame scuff...looks like not even breaking the surface, which is good, but it's there..
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Putting it together was pretty simple. I spent some time checking fastener tightness (almost all were good), adjusting the controls, and pulling the seat post out to apply carbon assembly paste and set for my height. I put on my pedals and a front Hope floating rotor (mostly for the bling as will be going for a black/red scheme.. but SRAM rotors are also known for getting kind of loud..), which needed a bit of filing on the caliper to clear the rivets, but not bad.
The overall bike in Medium, for me, seemed to be a good fit, which was a relief - including the reach. I may eventually replace the dropper with a longer one, as I did have to raise the seat post a few inches (still well above min insertion). The controls out of the box were kind of wonky, so re-arranged them to suit, with the power, then brake and then throttle from the outside in on the left, and brake, shifter, dropper outside in on the right. Yes, the throttle lever is a bit on the high side, but I don't want the throw on it to tap the bike's power button. I may file the width down or just try a different throttle on it.
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The brakes are SRAM G2 R - 200mm front and 180mm rear. They seem to be 2 finger levers although I may be wrong (used similar on dual-sports and dirt bikes), and nicely they have the tool-less adjustment for lever reach, although realistically this is something you play with for initial setup and then don't touch much until pads are well worn in most cases..
Overall quality seemed good - the frame feels pretty stout/beefy as does the rear suspension linkage. I'm a bit less sure on the paint - I
think it's painted flat black, then Luna stickers applied, then clear-coated, but - not entirely sure..feels like it's somewhat easy to scratch but will see over time. The wheels were true if a bit on the heavy side, so aired them up for the time being to 26PSI F/R as they're tubed. A few loose spokes but nothing egregious. Checked derailleur but it was working well out of the box.
No manual, and some mystery stickers that are either for very lightweight frame protection (not thick or silicon/rubber, so definitely not for chainstay) or 'paint touchup'...or something. I used two of them to sit underneath my top tube/stem mount phone bag for now. They also include the component 'extras' e.g. a pair of bottomless tokens, etc. Charger looks to be the same as my Eunorau, and the battery is the same Reention style, just slightly longer than my pair of 14.5aH I have for the fat bike.
All together (minus still needing some seat adjustment)
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There's an app for the LudiV2, and had some initial issues as it wouldn't install on the NOS cheap Android phone I got (Samsung A02), so reached out to the developer, grabbed some logs and we sorted for whatever reason the phone (64 bit CPU) had a 32-bit OS or libraries on it. He did a beta 32 bit build, and the app installed. I do still have an issue there, in I can connect over bluetooth to the controller, see the settings etc. but only when I have the phone right next to the controller. There are a few possibilities there and I have a different phone en route to rule out the phone before worrying about it further, as the bike is ride-able as is.
My initial rides were pretty short in my neighborhood so really couldn't tell much other than general feel of the bike. The motor with the new wider silent gear doesn't jump out as being much louder than my BBHSD. With a bunch of pedaling, I hit a bit over 30MPH, and may be able to get more, but this was really just a quick functional check, and as I am looking for assistance and a workout more than a moped/mini-motorcycle I don't use higher PAS levels or throttle but rarely.
It was somehow going to reach into the 70* range for the weekend, so we planned a 15-20 mile 'shakeout ride' which is a mixture of single and double track dirt and gravel, with some road and cycle paths threw in..nothing extreme but with some elevation changes, some of which are fairly long.
First time getting on the bike with power - the bike was applying power nearly as soon as I put my foot on the pedal, which was a bit of a surprise, but after that I think I'm already adjusted. My wife and I swapped bikes for a bit at the tail end of our ride - she actually liked it, which was great as she flat out refuses to even touch my fat BBHSD bike, and swapping back and forth, I think the torque sensor out of box may be a bit overly sensitive and the power 'ramp' is seemingly shorter, being a bit more progressive on the Bosch, but when moving, there isn't really much different - it's quite nice, IMO, and no 'run-on' that I've noticed...
The Power levels can be set by the B/W Bafang display to either 3, 5 or 9, and at least in 9 levels, they're split progressively into 11% increments, meaning going up a level will add 11% to max
torque. Note with the LudiV2 controller, the Bafang display will show both speed limit and wheel size as 0 - those are handled via the app and controller but don't speak Bafang protocol so the display shows as 0 - with no ill effect.
Finally - a long ride
Yesterday came and was gloomy outside and kind of windy, but warm, so - time for a ride.
The ride was...spectacularly uneventful, which actually is what I was hoping for - the adjusted controls worked well, the bike felt quite a bit lighter than my fat bike, the brakes worked well, and nothing broke or stopped working.
I'm going to need to play with the suspension a bit yet, as the fork is a bit 'chattery' on soaking up smaller imperfections like small rocks or gravel on hard-pack, probably low speed compression settings, but will tackle that a different day. I did notice a bit of flex on the Yari (35mm). All forks and wheels, even frames flex in reality under load..I expect I won't worry about it as it was pretty minor, just noting.
We did a 15 mile loop of mostly dirt and gravel, then another 5 miles around the park and just messing around. The feel of the bike is sooooo much nicer than my (reprogrammed but still Bafang controller) BBHSD. I was surprised when my wife agreed to try it, then I let her 'keep' it for a while, probably a few miles...
I was in PAS 2 the majority of the ride, I think up to 3 on and off on one section I internally think of as 'the long slog' which isn't really steep, but is a loong incline, and I set the bottom line of the display to show power.
I think I ended the ride at ~70-something percent battery, although I need to see if I can set this display to show voltage vs percentage, and I'm not sure if the V2 controller makes any improvements to percentage approximation or not. Need some more rides in to get a feel for 'real range.'
I'm not sure what I think of the (MTB Volt) seat. I'm not in pain today, but my immediate thought was it'd need to go. May give it a bit and see how it goes.
Overall, I'm quite happy with the bike. Some things I'll still do to 'make it mine,' and I need to sort the BT connectivity so I can play with the programming. I'll probably replace the WTB grips with Ergons or Ergon clones as it's what I'm used to. Assuming I can resolve the connectivity issue, all these changes are really personal preference vs 'must do items' in reality, and while the bike may not be for everyone, I'm pretty happy that I chose the X2 w/Ludi over the Z1 or other Ultra bike at this point in time.
For those considering between the two bikes, or even the M600 vs Ultra in general - a few have reported thermal cutoffs on the X2s. The M600 by comparison the the BBSHD or Ultra, is much smaller - less copper, smaller stator, basically it has less capability to absorb and disperse heat. If your style of riding is higher power levels or 'ride by throttle' then an Ultra is certainly a better fit, IMO. That isn't to say the M600 can't put out some power, as it can, but it can't do max/near max power indefinitely. As right now, I'm mainly playing in lower power levels and can't yet catalog (this includes temps), it's tough to get a better idea on how it performs thermally for me.
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