Pinarello

[stompandgo]

Wow. Just wow.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

I'll second that.

 

[Derosian]

I'll second that.

Thanks, it's been a great bike. It handles so well it is the only tandem I've ridden that feels like a single bike. Great in group rides and sprints. My wife and I stumbled upon it shortly after we got married in the early 90's and bought it from the original owners. We rode many miles together. When we had kids we pulled them in a trailer behind the tandem, and when they got older they rode as stoker. We don't ride it much these days, but it is still one of the coolest bikes we own.

 

[Chazmo]

What an exquisite tandem, @Derosian . Is that the original paint? Super cool. I have to admit, I know next to nothing about tandems, but that’s a work of steel tubing art!

 

[Derosian]

What an exquisite tandem, @Derosian . Is that the original paint? Super cool. I have to admit, I know next to nothing about tandems, but that’s a work of steel tubing art!

No, that's a repaint. The original color was a very dark blue. Italian bikes of that era had pretty bad paint so it's not uncommon to have to repaint after 5-10 years. In our case I wrote to Ciocc and got the decal set and had a local guy spray the bike back in the late 90's. He did a fantastic job.

 

[stompandgo]

I took my first ride today. TLDR: it's very different than the Tesoro, in mostly good ways.

I recently added the TQ remote, and when I had the fork off, I noticed that whoever built the bike ran the brake hoses wrong. There is a compression ring with cutouts for hoses and cables. It sits on top of the upper headset bearing. This is a key piece of the TICR internal cable routing system.

The split goes in the rear, so that the ports are on the left and the right. The brake hoses are supposed to be run into their respective ports, i.e. left on left, right on right. Whoever built it put both brake hoses on the left, which cocks the compression ring high on the left. I was able to get the headset presumably tight, but it would loosen over bumps. I felt that this situation was good enough for a test ride, but after that experience, it has to be fixed ASAP.

Anyway, back to the ride prep. I put on the pedals first. I use Crank Brothers Candy pedals on the Tesoro and love them. For the Allroad, I found a brand new set of titanium Candy 11's on eBay for $250 ($499 MSRP, $350 from QBP). I couldn't pass them up.

Next came the Garmin computer. I was not able to mount it to the Most square TICR stem. The top of the stem is flat, and the o-rings are too small, so I put it on the bars. I may be able to relocate the headlight to under the bars, and use an out front stem mount, but that's down the road. I added the three TQ sensors to the Garmin, and enabled the Garmin e-bike screen. That got me going. I have a lot of customization to do here. The good thing is that I was able to get power, cadence, range, and charge level immediately via ANT+ LEV. All firmware is old, and will be updated when I get the dongle.

The fit isn't quite right, and the Most saddle is just ok. I have a lot of work to do here, as well.

The first thing I noticed once I got started was how light the bike felt. If the Tesoro is an F-150 Shelby Raptor, the Allroad is a Tesla Roadster. The TQ motor is almost silent. It has very little pedal dynamics as well. That's with the factory settings, which had it set up with a 20mph assist limit. I've tried to change anything motor related with the TQ app, but all I get are errors. The TQ dongle should be at the shop when I get in tomorrow. It's probably just a region setting. I have TQ's USA dealer service number just in case.

The next thing I noticed was how much bad road juju the Tesoro suspension fork and 55mm tires took out of the ride. The Allroad rides like a carbon road bike. You don't feel every little bump in the road, but the larger ones can be startling. The carbon frame just soaks up all of the smaller ones. The handling is not race road bike crisp, but it's very, very responsive. Way better than I could have expected for an e-bike. It's fun to flick around. The tires are Vittoria Randonneur 40mm, and I have them set at 40psi per Silca. I'm going to try them at 37psi for the next ride. The Deore shifting is, well, Deore. Good but not great. With the current gearing, I spent most of my time in cogs 7,8,9, and 10. The brakes were supposed to be Deore, but they subbed in another brand I'd never heard of. They are brand new, so the jury is still ouit on them.

The HPR50 really likes cadence. From a standing start, the Tesoro pulls you back up to speed, where the Allroad takes a good bit of rider watts to get going, at least at the current settings, but once the windup is over, it cruises quite well with not a lot of rider power as long as you spin. I guess that's the headwind effect. I really like the way that the HPR50 delivers power. It's very natural, very analog bike-like. Unlike the Tesoro, nobody heard me coming, so I need to get a bell.

I did my 32 mile ride out to Skaket Beach and back. I've done this several times on the Tesoro. On the Allroad, set mostly on Eco, with a few pops to the other two settings, I had 47% of the battery remaining. On the Tesoro, with the main battery only, I'd use about the same, but a lot of it would be in Tour. I felt that I worked harder on the Allroad, but maybe that's just perception. It will take time to figure all this out.

Anyway, I'll fix the brake routing issue next. I'm looking at Deore XT Di2 for over the winter, and carbon wheels down the road. It's a beautifully made bike that I am eager to get to know better.

 

[Art Deco]

Challenge accepted! We have changed a few things like clipless pedals, phil wood bottom brackets and hubs, and even Ergo-8 index shifting over the years but I still have all the original parts saved.

Jusr a wow, I love tandem setups.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

The HPR50 really likes cadence. From a standing start, the Tesoro pulls you back up to speed, where the Allroad takes a good bit of rider watts to get going, at least at the current settings, but once the windup is over, it cruises quite well with not a lot of rider power as long as you spin. I guess that's the headwind effect.

Glad you finally got to ride your new bike. Sounds like a positive maiden voyage overall.

If the bikes' torque-cadence curves were identical in both peak torque and shape, the Tesoro's greater inertia (including rotational) would make it harder to accelerate than the Allroad. But you're seeing the opposite.

Simplest explanation is that the Tesoro delivers a lot more torque at the cadences you use to accelerate, however that comes about.

 

[stompandgo]

Glad you finally got to ride your new bike. Sounds like a positive maiden voyage overall.

If the bikes' torque-cadence curves were identical in both peak torque and shape, the Tesoro's greater inertia (including rotational) would make it harder to accelerate than the Allroad. But you're seeing the opposite.

Simplest explanation is that the Tesoro delivers a lot more torque at the cadences you use to accelerate, however that comes about.

I think that you are spot on. My Tesoro, a Neo X Speed, is the only Tesoro model that comes with the Bosch Performance Speed drive unit. That motor is heavily weighted towards cadence. The assist levels are not adjustable. The "windup pull" is there in Eco, but in Tour and above, it's like a rocket. That's the only e-bike experience that I have to compare to, other than short test rides at the shop.

When I was racing, my cadence was between 90-120 rpm. I'll need more rides with the TQ, but it felt like that was the motor's sweet spot as well, at least on the flats. It did not take a lot of effort to buzz along at 20mph, which was the current limit. Once the road hit a 2% grade, everything got a lot harder. Because of the firmware issue and lack of Garmin configuration, I don't know exactly what the power limit was set at, but the app showed 60 watts. That sounds about right. I'll figure all this out before my next ride.

 

[Chazmo]

Those pedals are really beautiful, Chris. I don’t think I’ve ever put that set of words together in a sentence before. But crickey that’s a lot of moola. Then again, you’re “stomp and go.” You’re probably paying extra for that anodized gold pedal and clip spring. I love beautiful engineering!!!!

Regardless of the cost, I’m glad you’re putting all this effort and time into that beautiful bike.

That’s great that the TQ motor is silent. As a strong rider, you probably need/want assist when you’re really pushing. It sounds like the TQ was designed for that. I hope you can bond with it and get it programmed as you like it.

Do you know who put the bike together? Were these mistakes made by Pinarello, or did this bike go through another shop before it got to you? It sounds unfortunate that they cocked this up pretty badly on such a special bike.

 

[stompandgo]

I don't know who built it, but it came completely assembled. The bars were turned sideways to fit into the box, but that's it. Both wheels were even installed. Every other Pinarello I've built from the box is in pieces. The bars have the levers installed onto the bars, with the shift cable inner wires coiled up. The brake hoses and shift cable housings are installed in the TICR stem, and it's up to the builder to trim, install, and bleed them. All cables and hoses are run through the compression ring properly. It's easy to tell, because they come through the stem left on left, right on right. The headset is adjusted and tight with no resistance when turning the bars. When I turn mine left, it pushes back to center. I'll fix it. My hope is that they are in good enough shape to reuse, and that the rear brake hose is long enough to be properly installed.

I found another cock-up this morning.

 

[Chazmo]

I found another cock-up this morning.

Oy!

 

[Derosian]

I think that you are spot on. My Tesoro, a Neo X Speed, is the only Tesoro model that comes with the Bosch Performance Speed drive unit. That motor is heavily weighted towards cadence. The assist levels are not adjustable. The "windup pull" is there in Eco, but in Tour and above, it's like a rocket. That's the only e-bike experience that I have to compare to, other than short test rides at the shop.

When I was racing, my cadence was between 90-120 rpm. I'll need more rides with the TQ, but it felt like that was the motor's sweet spot as well, at least on the flats. It did not take a lot of effort to buzz along at 20mph, which was the current limit. Once the road hit a 2% grade, everything got a lot harder. Because of the firmware issue and lack of Garmin configuration, I don't know exactly what the power limit was set at, but the app showed 60 watts. That sounds about right. I'll figure all this out before my next ride.

Have you tried the TQ app? On my Nytro I can access the TQ motor through the app to alter the parameters for the 3 levels of assistance. Pinarello was actually pretty useless for customer support on the eBike side of things, but TQ was quite helpful. I really like the TQ power delivery both on- and off-power. It is barely noticeable. I also tend to spin between 90-110 rpm and the TQ motor seems quite happy in that range.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

When I was racing, my cadence was between 90-120 rpm. I'll need more rides with the TQ, but it felt like that was the motor's sweet spot as well, at least on the flats.

Specialized mid-drive motors definitely have high-cadence sweet spots. Specialized documentation and videos generally encourage cadences above 70 rpm, sometimes 80 rpm. Have yet to see anything about the upper end of the sweet spot.

I can confirm that on my Vado SL. Already feeling a slight drop-off in power as cadence falls to 75-80 rpm, no longer subtle below 70 rpm, and loud and clear below 60 rpm. Can't produce useful rider power above ~110 rpm, but no clear drop-off by then.

Happily, my own strongly preferred cadence band is 80-95 rpm with an apparent peak at 88-90 rpm these days. So the motor and I get along just fine. Lowered the stock 12-speed 1x gearing to 26-100 gear-inches to keep it that way on local hills.

Highly recommend optimizing gearing on any mid-drive with a clear cadence sweet spot. In my case, all it took was an $80 chainring swap from 44t to 40t. Several other SL members in hilly areas have done the same to good effect, with 38t being a popular choice.

 

[stompandgo]

The TQ app is erroring out with any kind of configuration change. I'm also having trouble connecting the dongle.

 

[Calcoaster]

The TQ app is erroring out with any kind of configuration change. I'm also having trouble connecting the dongle.

Are you sure you have the latest TQ app update? I couldn’t change any parameters or see the firmware versions with a previous version a few months ago. TQ updated the app and that solved it.

 

[Chazmo]

Wow, pretty bad luck so far, Chris!!!!!

 

[stompandgo]

I got the dongle working, the app working properly, and the firmware updated on everything. The problems were due to my laptop, a 5 year old Dell XPS 15 that only has USB-C USB connections. I use an aftermarket USB-C hub for standard USB connections. I had to update the driver package from TQ, and then update the BIOS and Intel I/O firmware for my laptop to connect to the bike. Before this, I could see the dongle, but not the bike. Everything is up to date with no errors. The mystery box is indeed a Smartbox, which runs the lights and is Di2 capable. The bike was built in 2023. Once the range extender cable arrives, which should have come with the range extender, I'll update that as well. Now the TQ app does everything it's supposed to do with no errors. The maximum speed is set to 28mph, and all modes are set at default. It shows my last ride distance, where it didn't before. Within the Service Tool, I was able to turn on Walk Assist, turn off the battery light reserve, and enable display of battery level, range, power, cadence, and speed on the TQ display. That's everything that wasn't working or was missing. Now to fix the brake hose issues. I'm going to bring it into the shop and have the boss and the lead mechanic take a look at it. It may be a warranty issue, and if it is, I should do it now.