The new Nyon MY21 was installed on my computer this week. I'd like to give a shout-out to Ravi Kempaiah who made it his personal project to get that computer on my bike. Thank you, Ravi!
The Bosch Nyon is, by far, the best bike computer I have ever used. It's elegant, intuitive, and robust -- quite an upgrade from the simplistic Purion display that came with the bike. It's got a beautiful touch screen that changes color based on the assistance level as well as a touchpad operating unit. My touchpad is mounted by the left brake lever which enables me to easily switch screens and change the assistance level without taking my hands off the handlebars; a real safety improvement.
Screen editing is simple and intuitive. Surprisingly, I already hit the limit of 24 data tiles, forcing me to remove redundant data (e.g., "Trip Distance" in multiple screens.) It's helpful to have the additional information, including power output (me vs. engine), time in assistance zones, granular battery status, ascent, gradient, cadence, and of course, navigation. I paired the Nyon with a Polar Verity Sense armband heart rate monitor, which is comfortable and worked flawlessly. All in all, I'm delighted.
I purchased both the Custom Riding Modes and Lock Feature. I might not ever use the Lock feature; I have an irrational fear of losing the computer and finding myself SOL. Isn't it like that? The more you worry about making a mistake, the more likely you are to do it.
Now, the Custom Riding Modes is another story. I couldn't wait to start messing with that. My bike, with an 85 Nm Performance Speed motor, is probably overpowered for what I'm doing, even though I'm an almost 68-year-old woman riding in hilly Western North Carolina. I insisted on a 1X drive train but now find that I am too often in the slightly cross-chained and decidedly noisy highest gear. I typically spend 55% in Eco; 30% in Tour and 15% in Sport. I never use Turbo. I've been fiddling with bringing the support levels down in all of the modes. Interestingly, a relatively minor change resulted in significant battery savings. Just taking each of the bottom three levels down 10% (60->50, 140 ->130, and 240 ->230) reduced my battery consumption from 53% to 40% on the exact same ride (27 miles, 2500 feet of climbing), with nearly identical speed and assistance. Unfortunately, I was still too often in the highest gear. I will continue tinkering with the assistance modes and report back. BTW, I like that I can change from custom riding modes to the Bosch default modes on the fly. It gives me the confidence to experiment.
Now for the wishes, questions, and problems:
- Navigation/Route Planning: Sometimes I can't turn a ride into a route. The Bosch ebike Connect site gives me the following message: "Could not map your route to existing roads. Your route will be visible on Nyon without turn by turn directions." This happens when I import the ride as GPX tracks from RideWithGPS and when I select Convert to Route in eBike Connect. None of the roads are new. This is a real problem for me, as I generally don't ride in the navigation screen and depend upon it telling me when to turn. Does anyone know of a work-around?
- Is there any way to see what the default Power Assistance profiles look like? Are they flat power, or are they curved? And how does the top Nm for each mode fit in with customized modes? There doesn't seem to be an option to fiddle with that when customizing the assistance modes. My guess is that it's a top-end limit, which wouldn't impact an old fart like me, but still, idle mind want to know. Also, I'm assuming that the Range is less meaningful for customized zones?
- There is data on the Nyon which is not accessible on the app or website, and is lost once the trip is reset (e.g., maximum slope, max/average power). I wish there were a way to select which data elements are accessible post-ride. I also wish that there were a field for battery watt consumption; my husband gets that on his Specialized Turbo Creo. It can be calculated reasonably accurately for a brand new, full battery, but otherwise is unattainable.
That's it for now. Should I post my navigation question to the Bosch Problems area?
I should have "stopped the ride" just at the ride-end instead of pausing it.
