OEM tire quality

[Mr. Coffee]

Not necessarily. It is enough the "demo" rider were a strong & lighweight person and used the least assistance allowed by a given e-bike. No headwind, of course.
My brother (who meets the above criteria) could ride for 130 km (80+ miles) in high mountains on a single 625 Wh battery.

Yeah, but the vast majority of the low-end brands do have ridiculously optimistic range estimates. And from direct personal observation I probably see a dozen RadRovers with dodgy brakes for every Specialized or R&M or Tern out there.

 

[spokewrench]

wow if you can get that much range just ditch the ebike and go for a standard bike with a good cassette,much less to go wrong and so much lighter.

I don't think the weight difference matters much; if it adds 10% to my gross, I can climb a hill on the same leg power by going 10% slower. I like having assistance on tap. On my first ride of the day, when I'm not warmed up, a little motor power helps a lot. If a storm comes up, I can get home twice as fast. If I need to use a narrow road with 35 mph traffic, I can stay out of the way better, minimizing danger to me and inconvenience to automobilists. If I'm going to the town hall, I'll add 150 watts of assistance on the hill so that when I arrive I won't step up to the beautiful young town clerk panting like the Big Bad Wolf.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

I'm a heavy old man. I don't live in the mountains, but almost all the streets around her are on 2 to 6% grades. I'd get 100 to 140 miles on my 1-speed Radrunner's 672 WH battery. I'd get under 100 miles on my smaller Radmission battery. I just checked the display on my 7-speed Abound. It says I've gone 37 miles and used 7% of the 720 WH charge.

Speed is a big factor. I average less than 15 mph (24 km/h). Above 15, the aerodynamic load can get huge. Besides, a hill I can pedal up at 10 mph would require motor assistance to climb at 20. What goes up must come down, so pedaling up a hill means I'll be able to coast.

I've modified the seat and handlebar positions of all three bikes to use my legs more efficiently. I'll enjoy pedaling up a 5% grade on my Radmission at 86 gear inches. Low gear on my Abound is only 37 gear inches, but I may have to turn on PAS to relieve my legs. I've set up the pedaling position almost the same as my modified Radmission, but I haven't got it quite right. What a difference an inch makes!

Testing battery range, a rider would leave PAS on. I think the biggest variable is not usually weight or hills but speed. On a level track with an upright posture and no motor assistance, I believe it takes a champion athlete to maintain 20 mph. If an ebike has that limit and the rider wants to maintain it, he'll pedal all the time except going down a hill steep enough for gravity to meet the air drag at 20. With a cadence sensor, the motor will run all the time he's pedaling, and it's likely to be supplying most of the power. If he settles for 15, he can often stop pedaling, relieving the battery as well as his legs. Depending on the steepness of a climb and the level of assistance, pedaling uphill can spare the battery by reducing the time it takes.

I do not deny your experience at all!

To climb from the level h1 up to h2, you need to accumulate potential energy in the moving body (yourself + e-bike + any cargo). The increase in the potential energy is Ep = (h2-h1) * object mass * gravity. It is a significant value. It directly depends on the moving body mass. A lightweight rider on a lightweight bike will spent far less work to climb than a heavyweight.

Regardless you do it slowly (even by walking the e-bike) or fast, the increase in the work spent is the same in any case. Only you need low power and do it slowly or you can muster high power and do it quickly. Technically, you could do the entire climb on the pedal power but where's the point in riding an e-bike then?

 

[spokewrench]

I do not deny your experience at all!

To climb from the level h1 up to h2, you need to accumulate potential energy in the moving body (yourself + e-bike + any cargo). The increase in the potential energy is Ep = (h2-h1) * object mass * gravity. It is a significant value. It directly depends on the moving body mass. A lightweight rider on a lightweight bike will spent far less work to climb than a heavyweight.

Regardless you do it slowly (even by walking the e-bike) or fast, the increase in the work spent is the same in any case. Only you need low power and do it slowly or you can muster high power and do it quickly. Technically, you could do the entire climb on the pedal power but where's the point in riding an e-bike then?

Exactly. Here are my Abound, weighing in at 384, and my Mission, weighing 282. It's hilly around here, and I didn't realize there was any difference! Maybe that's because I weigh in at 1180 when decked out professionally in Caterpillar bowling shoes, Amazon Essentials Classic Fit Polyester pants, and, for safety, my highly visible white plastic
cowboy hat, rain hat, sun hat, and wind hat. They're utility bikes, so I might have groceries weighing 150.

I doubt I could find a sturdy utility bike, with racks, weighing less than 230. Sure, the lighter bike could save 430 joules in the climb to the town hall, but I'd have no motor to help me supply the other 13,000. I might walk through the door breathing hard. Then I'd never be able to persuade the beautiful young clerk that my real name is Joe Cool!

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Sure, the lighter bike could save 430 joules in the climb to the town hall, but I'd have no motor to help me supply the other 13,000.

It is totally convincing!
In my own scenario, I would save 100 kJ on the lighter e-bike but would still need to contribute with the energy of 1180 kJ to do my climb. It is less than 10% saving of the energy input! Of course, it would be a way different if I weighed 50 kg instead of a hundred

 

[babycaptain]

With 30 miles on the odometer, the Innova IA-2128 rear tire on my Abound allowed a sand particle less than 4mm long to cut a cord and puncture the tube. The tread was 3mm thick with a very low thread count.

I ordered a Schwalbe Pickup and reviewed the reviews, which had led me to believe I was getting good tires. Innova's only description is "BMX," but two reviews, one published about the time of my puncture, called them puncture-resistant. Did that come from Aventon's script? Another called them thick tires that would handle any pavement. Any pavement without a sand particle? If the reviewer had checked personally, he would have found them thin. Was "thick" Aventon's misleading synonym for "wide?"

The old tire came off and the new one went on easily, as had been my experience with four other ebike rims. These were a welcome change from my struggles with motorcycle, car, and mower tires.

The fluctuating price was high when I bought the Pickup. In my experience, front-tire punctures are less common and easier to fix. In the next two months, I gradually realized that front tire was noisy in spite of its street tread and proper inflation. The Pickup price was now lower and I ordered another.

The front Innova was so hard to remove that I'm sure my tire irons marred the rim. I thought the front rim must have been different, but the Schwalbe went on as easily as the other Schwalbe had gone on the back. If Innova IA-2128 tires marked 60-406 don't have the same bead diameter, I call that the bottom of the barrel.

For a bike manufacturer ordering 100,000 tires, I imagine there's not much cost difference between bad tires and good ones. I can understand cutting corners on tires for kids' bikes retailing for $100, but the Abound cost 20 times more and is supposed to haul 440 pounds, including small children. Choosing tires that don't even have consistent bead diameters is disgusting. What's more on Professional deck builder in Marysville, Aventon made these tires a selling point; other reviewers were obviously required to say something nice about them. (The Cycle Weekly guy said they were Marathon replicas that didn't grip as well, but he had no issues with them.)

My Radmission tires are okay, but my Radrunner tires are horrible. How common is it for an ebike manufacturer to choose bottom-of-the-barrel tires?

Is it just me or do Tires fitted in the factory wear much quicker then tires purchased from a retail store? It seem every new vehicle I have driven, the factory tires wear out within 35k miles. It is my assumption, a lot of negotiation goes on between the auto manufacturer when choosing a tire to put on the vehicle from the factory. I believe the tire manufacturer will make a special production run. This production run will produce a tire that looks like all other tires, but is tailored for the new vehicle. Extra sticky rubber on the surface to make the vehicle handle well during the test drives, and the cut other corners to reduce production costs. The tires are safe, but not quite to the standards being sold at the local tire shop? Am I thinking crazy?

 

[spokewrench]

Is it just me or do Tires fitted in the factory wear much quicker then tires purchased from a retail store? It seem every new vehicle I have driven, the factory tires wear out within 35k miles. It is my assumption, a lot of negotiation goes on between the auto manufacturer when choosing a tire to put on the vehicle from the factory. I believe the tire manufacturer will make a special production run. This production run will produce a tire that looks like all other tires, but is tailored for the new vehicle. Extra sticky rubber on the surface to make the vehicle handle well during the test drives, and the cut other corners to reduce production costs. The tires are safe, but not quite to the standards being sold at the local tire shop? Am I thinking crazy?

You got me curious!

Are Your Factory Tires Good Enough? (OE vs OEM Tires) - TireMart.com Tire Blog

A factory tire set is perfect for everyday driving, but it comes with downsides as well. Mainly, they are unable to provide traction in inclement weather conditions. But, what exactly do they offer?

blog.tiremart.com

It says a car manufacturer wants rubber soft enough to absorb bumps. At least they also want puncture resistance!
It says OE means original equipment, and OEM means original equipment manufacturer. That confuses me. It sounds to me as if OEM means original equipment match. (It says you probably can't find an exact match.)
In the 60s and 70s, the Avon SM MkII motorcycle tire would run 20,000 miles and hold in the rain. Regardless of brand, newer tires lasted 10-12,000 miles. Besides the added expense, it meant I could find myself bald a thousand miles from a shop with suitable tires.