Poll - Did you upgrade from Cadence Sensing to Torque Sensing?

[Bicyclista]

It does not have to be either or. Both my bikes, a 2016 Haibike All Mtn with a Yamaha motor, and a 2022 Yuba Spicy Curry with a Bosch motor, have BOTH cadence and torque sensors. I may be wrong, but I believe that is the case with all the current offerings from Yamaha and Bosch. (They also have a speed sensor, which is not a subject of this thread.)

 

[AlanDB]

It "seems" like I get more consistent exercising, longer range, and more natural pedal feel with tq sensing compared to cadence sensing. I just have to re-train my brain and treat a mid-drive like a vehicle manual transmission and ALWAYS up/down shift compared to the rear hub like an auto-transmission (sometimes just leave my rear hub rover in 5th-7th gear at any speed and use more throttle to start).

Yes, this is the biggest advantage to having a throttle IMO. When I had a non e-bike with a derailleur, I was frequently forgetting to downshift before stopping. What a PITA to get going again! There were even times when I was stopped on an uphill incline where I would have to turn around and ride part way back down the hill to get downshifted and going again! Of course, an e-bike with a throttle solves this problem. It also isn't a problem on bikes with an IGH (internal geared hub) like my Bosch mid-drive Gazelle Arroyo with the Shimano Nexus 8 hub but no throttle. The IGH can be downshifted while stopped.

 

[TrevorB]

It does not have to be either or. Both my bikes, a 2016 Haibike All Mtn with a Yamaha motor, and a 2022 Yuba Spicy Curry with a Bosch motor, have BOTH cadence and torque sensors. I may be wrong, but I believe that is the case with all the current offerings from Yamaha and Bosch. (They also have a speed sensor, which is not a subject of this thread.)

Yamaha and Bosch only do torque sensing. In turbo mode its not lot different from cadence when comes to pedalling effort.
Some of Yamaha motors provide instantaneous power when applying pressure to pedal while Bosch requires about quarter turn. Yamaha makes MTB steep hill starts easier, downside is bike can takeoff unexpectedly when stopped and you don't have brakes applied.

 

[Bicyclista]

Yamaha and Bosch only do torque sensing.

I beg to differ.

From Bosch: "Drive units from Bosch eBike Systems give you a unique riding sensation. Three sensors measure the rider's pedal power [torque], cadence and speed over 1,000 times per second."

From Yamaha: "The center mount drive and triple sensor system delivers outstanding weight balance and an organic feel assist that constantly adjusts for torque, speed and crank rotation."

As I said, I have bikes with both Yamaha and Bosch motors, and I know they have torque, cadence, and speed sensors.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Rome, my apologies, allow me to clarify my question.
Electric bikes all have a PAS (Pedal Assist System)
In a "Cadence" controlled PAS mode, the power delivered to the motor varies with the speed of the pedal cranks. Like my first gen Aventon Level, or BBSHD Fat Bike. Cadence is defined by bike Radar as "the number of revolutions your pedals (cranks) make per minute as you ride"

"Broadly speaking pedal assist systems fall into two categories, basic PAS sensors which detect just the speed at which the cranks are turning (Cadence Sensors), and Torque Sensors which also sense how hard the rider is pushing on the pedals (Torque Sensing)." Like on my Bafang Ultra.

With the basic PAS sensors (Cadence), the control electronics only knows how fast you are spinning the cranks, but it does not know how much force you are actually applying. A Torque Sensor measures the force that the rider is applying to the pedals, and amplifies the rider's pedal effort. This is often expressed as a multiplier on the rider's pedal power."
~Pedal Assist Systems, Grin Technologies

Based on reports on EBR, some torque-sensing PAS implementations are clearly more sophisticated than others. The same appears to be true of cadence-sensing systems.

The most basic "cadence-sensing" systems — perhaps the most common — don't really track true cadence (crank RPM). They only detect the presence or absence of crank rotation and, after a lag, turn full power on or off accordingly. This implementation enables ghost-pedaling.

I've read here that some cadence-sensing systems are more sophisticated. Perhaps others know more about that.

Here's what I do know: I live in a hilly area crawling with ebikes. Most appear to function first and foremost as transportation, and these are typically ghost-pedaled or throttled around. Not for me, but fine by me, as every one of them represents a car not on the road. And if ghost-pedaling and throttles enable that, I'm all for them.

We test-rode 5 cadence-sensing hub-drives — which I believe were of the basic type — and neither of us liked the way power was delivered on any of them, though some were better than others.

Then we tested a totally natural-feeling torque-sensing hub-drive, the Surface 604 V Rook. Night and day for both of us. (I'd had decades in the saddle in an earlier life. She'd ridden only occasionally before then but still felt the same way.) More than we wanted to spend, but we bought 2 on the spot.

A year and 2,000 miles later, this was clearly the right choice for me, as I love to pedal at low assist. But not so sure about my wife. I go as slow as I can bear on rides together, but she still ends up on the (progressive) throttle a lot of the time just to keep up.

She makes it work, but a bike she could ghost-pedal might have been better choice for her.

 

[BikerG]

Ok, newbie question:
I recently purchased my first ever e-bike and I think it has a torque sensor as I feel the pedal assist kick in almost immediately as I increase my pedal input. It’s a mid drive Bosch Performance Line CX motor.
Am I correct in my assumption?