New Range Descriptions

[Roxlimn]

The way I ride my Dirt E ebike and how I think about my range is generally different from how they're marketed and how they're described even here.

One of the ways it's different is the idea that you'd never ride an ebike unassisted. This isn't quite true. I turn off my pedal assist sometimes. Sometimes it's to get a better workout from a shorter travel distance. Sometimes it's to save battery. Sometimes it's because I want a quieter ride. I even turn it off when I have double panniers on board, so I'm riding something like a 70 pound bike against engine resistance.

When you consider the idea that you can ride some electric pedelecs completely unassisted for a couple miles each if the terrain is flat, then the range is boosted considerably, and it's functionally infinite since you can always ride the bike that way. Pinarello describes their range as "elevation gain" with their Nytro bike, reflecting the idea that you really only use the motor to climb.

And yet not all motors and electric bike are made the same, so it's useful to be able to describe if the "infinite" range really is usable and what it's like if you're using it. For Giant's Dirt E using the PW Yamaha motor it's like this:

Free Range: 50 pound bike, minimal motor resistance. Rideable on flat terrain, moderate speeds (12-15 mph)
Eco Mode: Compensates for weight, 70 km functional range on flat terrain with stock 400 Wh battery, 60% capacity drain (90%-30%)
Normal Mode: Considerable assistance, 55 km functional range on flat terrain with stock 400 Wh battery, 60% capacity drain
Sport Mode: Powerful assistance, 45 km functional range on flat terrain with 400 Wh battery, 60% capacity drain

The ability to ride the bike without assist is a major advantage for Brose and Shimano motors, allowing you to conserve battery life and extend range by riding to and from the trails without assistance, using the power mainly only to power up steep ascents.

 

[rich c]

I don't see the ability for riding without assist as a major advantage. It may be useful, but in 2 years I've never run out of battery. Bosch gives you a suggested range remaining. I just watch the range, and adjust assist mode or speed to make sure I get home. It's very easy. There will never be an accurate way to market range. Riders on this forum range from only using a throttle and max speed, to others who prefer to never get over 12mph while always riding in ECO mode.

 

[christob]

I don't see the ability for riding without assist as a major advantage. It may be useful, but in 2 years I've never run out of battery.

I can dial my Assist down to Level 0 (vs 1 through 5) and I’ve done that several times when my route has long flats. I do it for some increased exercise / effort, and battery savings / potential elimination of a full charging cycle between 2 consecutive days of riding.

Unfortunately I did deplete the battery on a single ride and it was early on in my e-biking days this spring—only had 190 miles tallied on the bike at that point. While it has never happened since (and the specific combo of super windy weather, the hilly route and my notable lack of fitness early on, likely aren’t a repeatable scenario now) I still drop into L-0 from time to time — mostly if I remember to—not as say, a constant behavior of my riding.

I stay in L-1 predominantly these days, using L-2 as I approach hills I don’t want to lose speed on. Or near the end of a long day of riding, when I can feel my legs getting heavy... L-3 is often solely for when I’m at a redlight in traffic and need a fast take off. I rarely tap L-4 and L-5; they are intense in power (and a major battery drain of course!) My typical riding routes (mixed use trails) just don’t give me many spaces where I’d feel confident and safe flying up to 28mph in L-5.

 

[Bruce Arnold]

I can dial my Assist down to Level 0 (vs 1 through 5) and I’ve done that several times when my route has long flats. I do it for some increased exercise / effort, and battery savings / potential elimination of a full charging cycle between 2 consecutive days of riding.

Unfortunately I did deplete the battery on a single ride and it was early on in my e-biking days this spring—only had 190 miles tallied on the bike at that point. While it has never happened since (and the specific combo of super windy weather, the hilly route and my notable lack of fitness early on, likely aren’t a repeatable scenario now) I still drop into L-0 from time to time — mostly if I remember to—not as say, a constant behavior of my riding.

I stay in L-1 predominantly these days, using L-2 as I approach hills I don’t want to lose speed on. Or near the end of a long day of riding, when I can feel my legs getting heavy... L-3 is often solely for when I’m at a redlight in traffic and need a fast take off. I rarely tap L-4 and L-5; they are intense in power (and a major battery drain of course!) My typical riding routes (mixed use trails) just don’t give me many spaces where I’d feel confident and safe flying up to 28mph in L-5.

If the CCS had a zero level like yours, our riding style would be pretty much identical, Chris.

 

[Roxlimn]

I don't see the ability for riding without assist as a major advantage. It may be useful, but in 2 years I've never run out of battery. Bosch gives you a suggested range remaining. I just watch the range, and adjust assist mode or speed to make sure I get home. It's very easy. There will never be an accurate way to market range. Riders on this forum range from only using a throttle and max speed, to others who prefer to never get over 12mph while always riding in ECO mode.

Hm.

Let's split the difference. There are riders for whom riding with minimal or no assistance will never be an advantage because they manage their batteries well and will not or cannot ride without assistance. For these folks, the fact that a Bosch motor and direct drive hub motors offer significant resistance when shut off will never be a factor for purchase. Let's acknowledge that this market segment exists, and may even be the dominant market segment.

But for a minority of ebike riders, riding with little or even no assistance at all comprises a good fraction of their riding time. Indeed, the current range-setter here on a Giant 500 Wh battery on a Yamaha PW motor did so by mostly riding on Eco mode and using the motor not to replace motive power, but truly only to juice their speed up a tad and arrive less tired. They did 100 km on a charge.

It wouldn't be honest to say that the Giant Road E has this range. It does for some riders when they ride according to their use case, but companies market this as the maximum range. It would be more accurate to say that this is only achievable when the bike is used in a specific way.

That is, I don't ride unassisted only when I run out of battery. In fact, I only ran out of battery once in two years of almost daily riding and I was 2 km from home on a flat route. Hardly noteworthy for any experienced and healthy rider. Most of the time that I ride unassisted is when I'm with a weaker ride group and I want to even it up with a handicap.

Just now I finished a 40 km ride using only 17% capacity on a 500 Wh Giant battery using the Yamaha PW motor. I wanted a workout on the nicer segments of the route so I shut off the motor for those specific segments. Using this metric, I could do 120 km on this battery and only drain it 54%! This could be true, and as I'm not particularly tired, I'm fairly sure I could do this three more times today, but I can only really enjoy this specifically because the Yamaha has little pedal resistance when shut off and the bike itself is relatively light for an ebike.

The new ultralight ebikes seem to be banking on this specific use case. You only use the motor to counter winds and take the edge off the hardest climbs. The rest of the way, you use little to no assistance. For this, it is advantageous to cut motor power and battery capacity in favor of very significant weight savings. In particular, decoupling the motor completely when shut off is key.

 

[harryS]

All but one of our ebikes started as regular bikes. I have put on one Bafang mid drive and half a dozen geared hub motors, all of which have very little pedal resistance. The added weight ranges from 8-9 pounds to 16-18 pounds, so all are quite rideable w/o power, even the fatbike. To be fair, much of this comes from being a more fit rider than I was 3 years ago.

On a recent ride in the Wisconsin countryside, the lead biker here was only going 13-14 mph. No need to go any faster. It was a great ride. I could have kept up with power off.

At these speeds, my LCD says I'm only using about 100W in assist level 1 so I should get 4 hours of riding out of a 400WH battery, which is almost 50 miles. Indeed, I have gotten over 60 miles. Of course, this is geezer speed, but I'm happy with it. I get the cardio work and fresh air. I realize many wouldn't even consider this ebiking.

It all depends on how we use our bikes. If I were tramping thru offroad trails like RichC, I would likely be on the power a lot, and I'd bring a different bike.