Smart Control or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying (and Love My Vado)

[Art Deco]

I guess I am such a person . I'm going to post more details in the Club thread, but I went on my first "realistic" (for me) ride with the 4.0 a couple days ago: 50 miles on a loop with mostly unpaved roads and rail-trails (no MTB stuff). I had it on a low Eco setting (15/30) the whole time and rode 10+of the miles in Off mode, keeping it at an enjoyable ~15mph max pace (except downhill!). When finished my overall average was 12mph and I had 43% battery remaining.

Rochrunner, does the figure for average assist or support(?) seem right to you? When I ride with assist off most of a (short) ride and use max boost at the beginning and end only (big hill), it still seems to report a large average support ... always over 100%, often over 150%... seems wrong for 5 minutes of boost on a half hour ride.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

I either have ebike leg

This. My brother rode my Vado with power off today and he says it is a normal bike.

 

[rochrunner]

I have tried to turn the assist to 0 or turn off the motor and ride. Just can’t do. To hard for me. Feel like bike is in break mode.
I either have ebike leg (most likely) or my Vado 5 motor is preventing this.

The bike does feel more sluggish to me, but pedaling at <15mph it's no different to me than any heavier bike. Of course it's worse on a soft surface. Of course, if I'm speeding along with assistance when I switch to Off, it gets tough because I can't pedal a bike like that at 18 or 20mph, but I usually don't ride that fast even on my road bike. Also when you say "turn the motor off" you don't mean turn off the power, right? I'm just pressing the "-" button when in Eco mode and the display changes from Eco to Off.

 

[rochrunner]

Rochrunner, does the figure for average assist or support(?) seem right to you? When I ride with assist off most of a (short) ride and use max boost at the beginning and end only (big hill), it still seems to report a large average support ... always over 100%, often over 150%... seems wrong for 5 minutes of boost on a half hour ride.

Where are you seeing those averages? I have a Garmin Edge on the bike that I use for recording my rides and don't use Mission Control on the ride -- only for setting the assistance levels. The bike does broadcast cadence and power that can be picked up by the Garmin, but not any e-bike-specific data.

 

[Art Deco]

Where are you seeing those averages? I have a Garmin Edge on the bike that I use for recording my rides and don't use Mission Control on the ride -- only for setting the assistance levels. The bike does broadcast cadence and power that can be picked up by the Garmin, but not any e-bike-specific data.

Those numbers are from mission control's recording. Never used a Garmin.

 

[Art Deco]

Those numbers are from mission control's recording. Never used a Garmin.

How do you get m/c data into a post anyway? I'm using a samsung phone and tablet that doesn't have a prtscr function available AFAIK.

 

[Nxkharra]

The bike does feel more sluggish to me, but pedaling at <15mph it's no different to me than any heavier bike. Of course it's worse on a soft surface. Of course, if I'm speeding along with assistance when I switch to Off, it gets tough because I can't pedal a bike like that at 18 or 20mph, but I usually don't ride that fast even on my road bike. Also when you say "turn the motor off" you don't mean turn off the power, right? I'm just pressing the "-" button when in Eco mode and the display changes from Eco to Off.

Thanks for good explanation.
I have tried changing the display by pressing - to no assist, and also turning the power totally off.
If I recall correctly turning to motor/battery off gives you a HEAVY bike feel. Turning the assist level to no assist by pressing - gives you a feel that the motor is resisting.
Mystery to me so I just ride on Eco if I want a workout as opposed to ride around for fun.

 

[rochrunner]

How do you get m/c data into a post anyway? I'm using a samsung phone and tablet that doesn't have a prtscr function available AFAIK.

On your phone, try pressing the power and volume down buttons at the same time. Works for me.

 

[Art Deco]

On your phone, try pressing the power and volume down buttons at the same time. Works for me.

Hey Presto - I got a screenshot -

 

[Safety2nd]

I have tried to turn the assist to 0 or turn off the motor and ride. Just can’t do. To hard for me. Feel like bike is in break mode.
I either have ebike leg (most likely) or my Vado 5 motor is preventing this.

I turn mine off regularly during my commute. Several of the bike routes through the city are speed metered to match the traffic lights at 13 mph. I’ve found that on the flats even with the lowest boost I have a hard time going that slow while maintaining a comfortable cadence. I don’t notice any drag on the driveline. It just feels like a very heavy bike.

 

[rochrunner]

I turn mine off regularly during my commute. Several of the bike routes through the city are speed metered to match the traffic lights at 13 mph. I’ve found that on the flats even with the lowest boost I have a hard time going that slow while maintaining a comfortable cadence. I don’t notice any drag on the driveline. It just feels like a very heavy bike.

That's one reason I turned my Eco setting down. With the default setting and riding with my wife on her Trek set to Eco, I had trouble going slow enough to match her. Her Trek does have four levels, so her Eco can be quite low and she can just up it to Tour for more typical conditions. You can't change the Trek settings, which is one reason why I was attracted to Specialized.

 

[Art Deco]

That's one reason I turned my Eco setting down. With the default setting and riding with my wife on her Trek set to Eco, I had trouble going slow enough to match her. Her Trek does have four levels, so her Eco can be quite low and she can just up it to Tour for more typical conditions. You can't change the Trek settings, which is one reason why I was attracted to Specialized.

I think there is some small resistance when boost is set to "off", but yeah, it's really like riding a heavy bike. Turning down the Eco settings is probably a better move, and what I'll do next instead of "off". Don't want to turn the battery off, lose lights, be fumbling for the switch etc.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Glad to hear Stephan.

Curious, what software screen shots are you showing there. I've been wanting to have something like that.

Not sure what you are exactly asking for?

 

[Stefan Mikes]

In your first post your show a screen shot from Mission Control, but then near the end of the post you show a screen shot of a map that shows your route and to the left there is a summary of your ride. Obviously there is some software there displaying the stats of your ride. What software is that? It's not Mission Control.

That's Endomondo.

 

[Art Deco]

By the way, this is really interesting as I used Smart Control for the first time about a month ago. Except I didn't choose distance, I chose HR and I similarly found the efficiency to be outstanding. In that case it was 45 wh used to travel 70 km's. I wanted to go faster to have more motor assistance but I kept dropping my ride companions who for some reason just wanted to ride slowly that day.

Very Interesting... a heart rate monitor...HR?

 

[BEC111]

Hopefully, someone will test it on a hilly route and report back. I've got the hills but lack knowledge of the real range I'm getting.

I was inspired by this thread to test Smart Control on my regular short ride today. (About 5.5 miles, several long shallow hills, MUP, higher intensity - for me.) There was a 10+ mph head wind going out. I used the distance option, setting for 5 miles, 150 feet climb, speed 15 mph (my past analog hard ride speed) 10% battery left. I was down to 28% battery when I was getting ready, but by the time I left it had gone down to 26 due to chatting with neighbors with the power on.

It started me off at 35% assist, but as I went up the first hill assist rose to 40% pretty quickly. I had down shifted and was peddling a bit hard. As I went along, peddling hard in progressively higher gears, the assist went up. For t(e last mile and a half or so I was at 100% assist and was going pretty fast. When I got close to home power was down to 12% and assist lowered. When and I still had 12% charge.

Stats for the actual ride were 5.5 miles, 162‘ elevation gain, and an average speed of 14.9 mph. Very close to my estimates when setting up.

I will definitely need to do some more testing on longer, more challenging rides, but it does seem to work. it can definitely help if you forgot to charge and need to tax the capacity to get home. Fun idea.

 

[Nxkharra]

I was inspired by this thread to test Smart Control on my regular short ride today. (About 5.5 miles, several long shallow hills, MUP, higher intensity - for me.) There was a 10+ mph head wind going out. I used the distance option, setting for 5 miles, 150 feet climb, speed 15 mph (my past analog hard ride speed) 10% battery left. I was down to 28% battery when I was getting ready, but by the time I left it had gone down to 26 due to chatting with neighbors with the power on.

It started me off at 35% assist, but as I went up the first hill assist rose to 40% pretty quickly. I had down shifted and was peddling a bit hard. As I went along, peddling hard in progressively higher gears, the assist went up. For t(e last mile and a half or so I was at 100% assist and was going pretty fast. When I got close to home power was down to 12% and assist lowered. When and I still had 12% charge.

Stats for the actual ride were 5.5 miles, 162‘ elevation gain, and an average speed of 14.9 mph. Very close to my estimates when setting up.

I will definitely need to do some more testing on longer, more challenging rides, but it does seem to work. it can definitely help if you forgot to charge and need to tax the capacity to get home. Fun idea.

88% battery usage for 5 miles??

 

[Safety2nd]

88% battery usage for 5 miles??

He said he started with 26%, so about 14%.

 

[BEC111]

88% battery usage for 5 miles??

Yup, 14%. Based on other riding, that’s still a lot, but with the parameters I’d set assist ended up much higher than I’d have set manually. I generally do the route at level 1, but for much of the ride I was in what would be full Turbo - 100%.
We’re in a intermit rain shower pattern for the next few days so I won’t really get the chance for more tests for a while.

 

[Art Deco]

Yup, 14%. Based on other riding, that’s still a lot, but with the parameters I’d set assist ended up much higher than I’d have set manually. I generally do the route at level 1, but for much of the ride I was in what would be full Turbo - 100%.
We’re in a intermit rain shower pattern for the next few days so I won’t really get the chance for more tests for a while.

So you intended to run the battery down? Is that correct ?