New mid-drive Yamaha

[PDoz]

Brose motors deliver 90 Nm, so what?

Sure, but yamaha still makes that power after 12 months

 

[Captain Slow]

I'm confused. My 2018 giant has 500 wh stored ( full e pro) and all but the cheapest giants still have that - am I missing something?



They already have it in the 2020 range - they just didn't make much noise about making less noise

Operative word being NEW, yes the current model year has 375 wh batteries. At least in my part of the world. Maybe it's different in Australia.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Sure, but yamaha still makes that power after 12 months

Perhaps I didn't understand that short sentence
Torque is not power. Any transmission system acts as either divider or multiplier of torque to the drive-wheel, and torque translates to force exerted on the ground to make a vehicle move.

In a car, the gearbox (and the rest of the transmission) typically reduces the rpm of the engine but multiplies torque at driven wheels. The lower the gear, the higher the effective torque. It makes the car accelerate fast from the lowest gears. There are situations when too high torque has adverse effects, such as starting the car from ice, snow, mud or sandy surface because the driven wheels may slip and the car wouldn't move. A manual gearbox driver would upshift to gear #2 to reduce excessive torque in the wheels.

Once the car got on the speed, it is in the high gear and the torque at wheels is low. It is hard to accelerate at the high gear.

In bikes (and e-bikes), the drive-train acts either as torque multiplier (in low gears) or divider (in high gears). Again, a climbing cyclist in their granny gear delivers the most of the torque to the rear wheel at the cost of low speed. On contrary, a road racer is at high gear, delivering the least torque to his wheel (that's why Specialized 1.1 motor of Turbo Creo SL only delivers 35 Nm). It might happen that a mountain cyclist delivers too much of torque on climbing. If that's a wet slab, mud, etc, the wheel might slip because of excessive torque.

For the rest of us, the motor torque only translates to the acceleration ability. High torque, and you are at speed in seconds after you started from the green signal. Low torque (hub motors) and it is painful to cross a junction from a cold start. Once a good speed has been reached, the torque is meaningless.

Of two similarly built e-bikes, the faster one will be that with higher maximum power. If one motor can deliver 250 W and the other 500 W, the latter will be faster if unrestricted.
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I write all of this because the OP doesn't seem to understand the basic rules of the mechanics.

 

[PDoz]

Operative word being NEW, yes the current model year has 375 wh batteries. At least in my part of the world. Maybe it's different in Australia.

Can I assume you are in the states?

It looks like the operative word is ROAD - with the 2020 fastroad / revolt( ing) bikes trying to copy specialized and go for a lighter / cheaper 375 battery

It looks like the 2020 mtb all stick with 500 w , ie trance , reign, even the stance and fathom bikes.

 

[PDoz]

Perhaps I didn't understand that short sentence

Nah, we're on the same page - I was just making a bad joke about alleged reliability issues with the brose motor

 

[Johnny]

Funny the number of coffee grinder lovers here at EBR. Do you actually like riding the TQ? If you ask me it’s the WORST drive on the market. Power delivery SUCKS. It’s an 80s turbo car where all the power bursts in after you count to 3. It’s Utterly USELESS on technical trails. And the noise... Oh boy the drive music lovers are gonna harp on this one. You’d have to buy ear plugs to ride that thing on a daily basis. Not easy hackable either... It uses a disc sensor.
Have your TQ and have a good day.

We are not fortunate enough to try TQ in the States. Is power delivery delayed no matter the assist level? Maybe you can share your experience in more detail.

Imo current mid drives are good for trail riding and I really don't need more power for that. Keeping higher speeds regularly though is a different animal and in some cases the mainstream mid drives are not enough.

Btw Yamaha's increased support at higher cadences is a welcome improvement. Although at 120rpm/60nm you are pushing 750watts and I don't know how long it can sustain it.

 

[Captain Slow]

So Giant can put 500 wh batteries into those other models, they just choose not to?

I'm in Canada and I was considering the Road-E, but I shied away in part because of battery capacity. Ironic that I ended up with the Creo which has an even smaller battery. But just reading reviews I got the impression that the Creo had more range than the Road-E and it was lighter. I also didn't want a display like the Road-E has. I prefer the bike to be more stealth like the Creo.

A lot of people may not notice I'm on an electric bike. Bike geeks can tell for sure, but the average person probably wouldn't know.

 

[Johnny]

...The power delivery is really very brutal and unpleasant in the higher levels of assist. You could be thrown off the bike if you don't know what you're doing out there in the terrain. This is a warning that should be given to each and every novice Flyon rider.
...

Funny this is how I feel at turbo with my Bosch cx. A softer start at higher assist levels may remedy this issue up to a point.

Thanks a lot for the in depth write up. It feels like Tq is more suited for high speed commuting rather than riding on trails. Brose seems to be the best emtb mid drive out there.

 

[Ebiker33]

A couple who are friends of mine bought 2 Xduro All-Mountains with the Flyon drive last year. They live at the top of a 24% grade hill and they thought it would be a suitable bike for that reason. But they didn't demo before buying. After riding the bikes for a couple of months, they told me that they wanted to sell them because they demoed Levos (afterwards....) and found that they really liked them. I said I might be interested and so they lent me one of the Flyon bikes while they spent time in Greece. I was expecting a fabulous bike, but I was underwhelmed. The bike really makes a lot of noise and you notice it as soon as you start pedalling. It's not just when you're going uphill or when the drive is under load. It's always noisy. The power delivery is really very brutal and unpleasant in the higher levels of assist. You could be thrown off the bike if you don't know what you're doing out there in the terrain. This is a warning that should be given to each and every novice Flyon rider.

I rode the EU version, but it doesn't cut out at 25km/h. Instead it cuts off at about something like 27.5km/h. This is what it says on the counter and I suspect it's fairly accurate. It's definitely not like your EU Bosch e-mtb that starts cutting off at 23.5km/h. You can feel that the cutoff speed is notably higher. On the road, it's a powerful and torquey bike but yet it's not particularly pleasant to ride. The drive has a distinctly mechanical feel to it and sends small vibrations up through the pedals. However, I got used to that after a couple of days... The power delivery was much more tricky in technical terrain. I climbed a series of switchbacks in the Swiss Alps that are tight and rather steep on one of my favourite trails. I had a lot of trouble determining which level of assist I should use. It was either too much torque or not enough torque and assist. The problem with too much torque is that it will tend to "wheelie" the bike and throw you backwards. And it's brutal and unpredictable. After about a half of a crank revolution power/torque will suddenly kick in with mighty force. Therefore, you constantly have to anticipate. If I didn't know that this was a fundamental characteristic of the drive, I would have said that the torque sensor wasn't calibrated properly. But both bikes were taken into the shop and revised and they both exhibit this same characteristic. You can switch down a level of assist, and the power will surge less brutally but then you still have a noisy e-mtb. It literally sounds and feels like a coffee grinder.

Moral of the story: you can't reduce an e-bike to 120NM. There's much more that goes into designing a truly great bike and drive system. I agree with my friends that the Brose is infinitely better. They now own 2 Levos but their son kept one of the Flyon Habikes. The power delivery on the Brose is so smooth and linear. It just feels like a natural extension of your muscles. When you compare both drives side by side in the terrain, the Brose and its usable power is just on another level. For fun we went to the trail with the switchbacks and clocked ourselves with both types of bike. All 4 of us made it to the top of the trail faster with the nimble and versatile Levos. It was really interesting watching the others. All of them hesitated as they approached the fairly steep and dusty switchbacks with the Flyon. It was clear to me what they were thinking: when is the power going to kick in and how much will I get. With the Levos they just powered into the switchbacks as fast as they could go with absolutely zero second thoughts. On paper the Flyon should have won because it cuts off at a higher speed, but yet it didn't.

The folks at TQ might know how to engineer a drive for high torque, but when it comes to designing a drive for a e-mtb if you ask me they have a lot to learn. Anyone is free to disagree. But by all means, do demo if you intend to buy this bike. It's a really different feel.

,
Fair Enough, here is a video of somebody really enjoying this motor on the bike, I guess to each his own, just like cars.

Interestingly he says he can't climb the hill with Levo/Brose
Maybe if the total feel and the decibel level is more important, then these "other" motors are the way to go, but if you want the pure torque power, for now the TQ and the G510 Ultra rule the industry.
But they could really use some better tuning that these "other" companies have already mastered right out of the factory. Already at least 3 other companies are vastly improving the G510, tuning it after market with special customization's making it the king for ebike power in 2020.

 

[FlatSix911]

I'm confused. My 2018 giant has 500 wh stored ( full e pro) and all but the cheapest giants still have that - am I missing something?

They already have it in the 2020 range - they just didn't make much noise about making less noise

You are correct... Yamaha has been producing large capacity batteries since 2018 and has now added a 600Wh.

 

[PDoz]

So Giant can put 500 wh batteries into those other models, they just choose not to?

I'm in Canada and I was considering the Road-E, but I shied away in part because of battery capacity. Ironic that I ended up with the Creo which has an even smaller battery. But just reading reviews I got the impression that the Creo had more range than the Road-E and it was lighter. I also didn't want a display like the Road-E has. I prefer the bike to be more stealth like the Creo.

A lot of people may not notice I'm on an electric bike. Bike geeks can tell for sure, but the average person probably wouldn't know.

Correct, and it'd be reasonable to assume giant spent a suitable fortune working out what people would buy rather than what they think they want. You're a perfect example?

Read everyone whinging about the creo / levo sl having less battery / weight - yet they fly off the showroom floor

 

[Captain Slow]

I was concerned about range with the smaller battery, but every review I read about the Creo and owner experiences on the EBR forum indicated that range wasn't an issue. Road Bike Action tested a Creo and in it they talked about how efficient the Creo motor was and that it was unusually efficient. So that got me comfortable with the range and at the end of the day a roughly 29 lb to 30 lb bike seemed like it was going to handle more like a regular bike.

After riding my Juiced CCS at 60+ lbs and having it be so ponderous I was looking for something that was 40 lbs. or less.

I might still buy a Giant ebike. I have been eyeing the Thrive + for my wife.

 

[Manu]

The automatic mode use eco to hight,expw only user

 

[FlatSix911]

The automatic mode use eco to hight,expw only user

How long does the Flyon battery last at 820% boost... 20 minutes /10 miles?

I am fine with the maximum power available on the Yamaha PW-X at 320%.

 

[Manu]

The automatic yamaha mode has 3 levels tour, sport and race, but the expw only by the user.
In flyon, most users use Mid mode = turbo / expw = 45km range.
Weak points of the Flyon no option to unlocked the speed, 2 to 4 kilos more weight, without option to an automatic mode of selection like yamaha and bosch now.
Future strengths, speed unlocking option, much engine power used by an expert.
In very muddy terrain it solves by brute punctual force.