Specialized Creo (all models) - Longest Rides/Biggest Climbs

[kahn]

You realized that it was 65 miles with 50% battery? ;-)
I'm at a similar weight as YOU and get about similar distances as AMOTO65. My power settings are 25/50/100, while mostly with level 1/25% and on longer uphills level 2/50% and almost never level 3/100%.
But I think much more than the power settings the reason for our big ranges is the 25km/h limit. Even on hilly tours where I really need the motor, I cycle on average 1/3 on my own without motor, so over the limit. That's very different on a U.S. Creo I think.

Yes, I realized he had half of his battery remaining. I compare that to my 53 mile ride with almost 3,000 feet and had about 6-7% left on BOTH the regular battery AND THE Range Extender. Maybe the way the hills are situated affects the results. That is rather than a number of long uphill grades, there are a lot of shorter steeper pitches and some longer hills. And I don't recall my settings. I have no idea if the US UNrestricted model uses more power but I don't know how that affects climbing where the speed is not that great anyway.

But I need to give up potato chips and cheese (Kartoffelchips und Käse)!

 

[Amoto65]

I'm at a similar weight as YOU and get about similar distances as AMOTO65. My power settings are 25/50/100, while mostly with level 1/25% and on longer uphills level 2/50% and almost never level 3/100%.

Settings at Eco 35% not sure of rest as I never use them.

 

[jodi2]

Yes, I realized he had half of his battery remaining. I compare that to my 53 mile ride with almost 3,000 feet and had about 6-7% left on BOTH the regular battery AND THE Range Extender. Maybe the way the hills are situated affects the results. That is rather than a number of long uphill grades, there are a lot of shorter steeper pitches and some longer hills. And I don't recall my settings. I have no idea if the US UNrestricted model uses more power but I don't know how that affects climbing where the speed is not that great anyway.

But I need to give up potato chips and cheese (Kartoffelchips und Käse)!

Don't do it, Chips and Käse are so delicious!!!
But I think our "secret" is much more simple, let's just compare our average speeds. My ones are about 12-13 mph on my really long rides. I do mostly gravel, so 50-70% mild offroad, which slows down a lot. Maybe Amoto65 is riding only road? Anyway I guess you will find you average speed significantly higher than ours and there you have the higher battery consumption due to a motor with 45 instead of 25km/h limit.

 

[Amoto65]

Maybe Amoto65 is riding only road?

Yes 95% road where I can keep above the 15.5mph cut off on the flats and obviously the down hills, uphill quite long stretches ie 5mls averaging about 6% and sometimes short stretches of up to 12%, Age 64, heart attack 2 years ago and 4 stents fitted.

 

[jodi2]

and your average speed for example over the whole 65 miles tour?

 

[mschwett]

here is a few months of my ride data, excluding the first handful of rides before i knew you could turn the motor "off" fully! x axis is distance, y is battery used, color/size of bubble is elevation climbed.

the stronger correlation is elevation climbed to battery used, with a reasonable maximum for the internal battery only (i don't have a RE) being a bit under 10,000 feet. the one 5000+ bubble which shows very high usage was a grueling ride at high altitude, starting above 5000 feet, with a bit of a hangover, and no hydration or food. not wise. remove that outlier, and there are lots of rides in the 20-40 mile range using less than 20% of the battery, and lots of rides in the 3000-5000 foot climbed range using around a third of the battery. for reference, this is a creo comp carbon, lightened just a tad from stock, gatorskin hardshell 32 tires, i'm around 192lb/87kg, 6'2, not a well trained rider but generally putting down around 200w weighted average power on a long ride. variation in average speed is not meaningful, more dependent on wind than anything else, ranging from 14-16mph.

given that i don't use the motor on flats and brake a LOT on the corresponding downhills to these, a rear-drive hub with regenerative braking would likely result in a huge boost in range for my use case, presuming that it didn't introduce excessive parasitic drag when turned off. another very interesting concept would be a tiny battery, say 50wh, which would provide power for at least a 2000' climb for me, which charged by sapping 10% of my input power while pedaling on the flats. of course with the math above it would take 2.5 hours of riding at 200w to charge the thing, so the ride would have to start with flats, not hills, but it would be really interesting to have an e-bike which never used power from the wall, only from your legs. essentially it would "flatten" hills by slightly steepening the flats!

 

[Amoto65]

and your average speed for example over the whole 65 miles tour?

14.5 mph but I do descend pretty fast (the best part of climbing is the coming down)

 

[kahn]

Today, a refreshingly cloudy and cool day I did just under 36 miles and almost 1,700 feet of gain. One stiff hill that we had to take as a detour around the barricaded normal lower angle hill. And some other hills.

I had the Range Extender connected. Remaining battery was about 46%. So I'm not getting the best distance per charge(s). But I've not done that steep hill in probably over 20 years!

 

[Shuji]

I wanted to see how CREO performs against Yamaha e-bike. Riding the same route with similar effort. Battery charge left after the ride Yamaha 27%, CREO 48%. No range extender.

 

[jodi2]

And time/average speed was the similiar with the Yamaha? Both are "umlimited", support up to 45km/h? The Yamaha has 500Wh?
If I compare my Stromer Class 3 45kph/28mph rear hub motor ebike with my 25km/h Creo, the results with full motor support on both (what I never do on the Creo) are like:
pure road&flat: Stromer average speed 23mph and about 30Wh/mile, Creo 20mph (16mph motor limit) and about 1Wh/mile
road and "forrest highways" and almost flat and some traffic lights (my usual way to work): Stromer average speed 21mph and about 29Wh/mile, Creo 18-19mph and about 2Wh/mile
pure road&hilly: Stromer average speed 20mph and about 28Wh/mile, Creo 14mph and about 6Wh/mile
gravel (offroad with a little bit off road and hilly, my usual use case for the Creo): Stromer maybe 16mph (and a lot of pain for the heavy rear wheel without suspension and my back) and 20Wh/mile, Creo 13mph and about 6Wh/mile

The main difference apart from the bad offroad usability of the Stromer is the fun the bikes give you with low ore no support. Stromer is great for high speed but terrible without support and even no fun with low support in Level1. This takes 10-15Wh/mile, depending if it's flat or hilly (but I've never used it for a whole battery, it's only acceptable for a few miles to reach your destination (or together with slower riders). Creo an the other side is great without support or only little support, everything between 0-4Wh/mile is great (I normally don't use/need more).

given that i don't use the motor on flats and brake a LOT on the corresponding downhills to these, a rear-drive hub with regenerative braking would likely result in a huge boost in range for my use case, presuming that it didn't introduce excessive parasitic drag when turned off. another very interesting concept would be a tiny battery, say 50wh, which would provide power for at least a 2000' climb for me, which charged by sapping 10% of my input power while pedaling on the flats. of course with the math above it would take 2.5 hours of riding at 200w to charge the thing, so the ride would have to start with flats, not hills, but it would be really interesting to have an e-bike which never used power from the wall, only from your legs. essentially it would "flatten" hills by slightly steepening the flats!

Regenerative braking offer only very few ebikes, I know only two brands today (Stromer and Klever). Both with similar and very heavy motors, the rear with tires wheels ways about 8,5-10kg/18-22lbs depending on the model! There is no small assist drive like SL or Fazua with a small light hub motor with regenerative braking. All the small ones like Mahle/ebikemotion X.35 and others are without that, as this needs quite some effort/costs, extra weight, and bigger motor and battery to produce and stand the currents.
And the effect is much less than one would expect, on my Stromer on usual rides (not that hilly...) I get maybe 2% back. On very hilly rides/mostly in real mountains it would be 5-10%. You can get more if you always put in Regenerative breaking on all downhill parts going down only with 15-20mph. But I guess most of us will let it roll there and enjoy speeds up to 40mph.
You also never get back all energy with regenerative braking, there are quite some losses, usually you can recover only maximum 50-60%.
I tried sometimes to recharge my battery siginficantly with "full power pedaling" on slight downhills with full regenerative breaking or with some in the flat. It's not fun and you are fed up with it after 2-3% recharging.

 

[Shuji]

And time/average speed was the similiar with the Yamaha? Both are "umlimited", support up to 45km/h? The Yamaha has 500Wh?

Average speed for Yamaha was 19.6kph. It has 480Wh battery. Both e-bikes restrict motor assist per Jananese regulation.

 

[Elkman]

Air drag is the primary factor where I have ridden. At 20 mph the air drag is 4 times as great as it is at 10 mph. A cross wind has 2/3 the vector force of a headwind so a 12 mph cross wind is like riding into a 8 mph head wind. With the same effort I can go more than 5 mph faster with a tailwind than with no wind and with a head wind I work a lot harder to maintain a speed that would be easy with no wind present and use a lower gear and more rpm's needed.

I much prefer working my way up a steep grade as compared to fighting a head wind. When I get to the top of the grade I get the benefit of gravity going down the other side but when the wind stops there is no real gain from the effort expended.

 

[Art Deco]

Air drag is the primary factor where I have ridden. At 20 mph the air drag is 4 times as great as it is at 10 mph. A cross wind has 2/3 the vector force of a headwind so a 12 mph cross wind is like riding into a 8 mph head wind. With the same effort I can go more than 5 mph faster with a tailwind than with no wind and with a head wind I work a lot harder to maintain a speed that would be easy with no wind present and use a lower gear and more rpm's needed.

I much prefer working my way up a steep grade as compared to fighting a head wind. When I get to the top of the grade I get the benefit of gravity going down the other side but when the wind stops there is no real gain from the effort expended.

And as @Marci jo said in another thread you can see the hill, but the wind is invisible . It just silently eats your battery.

 

[mschwett]

It just silently eats your battery.

… and your soul! i hate it. our weather is generally very conducive to cycling - rarely hot, rarely cold, rarely rains. but every single spring/summer afternoon, gusty relentless winds from the west.

currently, almost 20 mph.

 

[mschwett]

this last weekend i took my longest creo ride yet; flatter than my usual rides of this distance so i managed to use only 57 watt hours! 18% of the battery.

of course, had i kept going too much further, my consumption would likely have increased.

 

[Shuji]

My longest ride with Creo on last Friday.

33% of charge left on the main battery at the end.

 

[kahn]

My longest ride with Creo on last Friday. View attachment 98128View attachment 98129View attachment 98130View attachment 9813133% of charge left on the main battery at the end.

Did you first use the Range Extender and then switch to the Main Battery? That's still quite impressive - 100 miles and 7,000 feet of gain with 30% left. I guess I will have to lose weight if I want better distance or use a second Range Extender.

 

[Shuji]

Did you first use the Range Extender and then switch to the Main Battery? That's still quite impressive - 100 miles and 7,000 feet of gain with 30% left. I guess I will have to lose weight if I want better distance or use a second Range Extender.

Thank you. I don't have a Range Extender. I generally switch on the motor assist above 5% climb. Enjoyed a rice bowl topped with sashimi at a famous sea food restaurant. https://goo.gl/maps/5iYMD2A3db2dsjiZA

 

[Scott Eakin]

Not a CREO but a Vado 5.0 SL. 38 miles, 2% battery consumption, 2000 ft of climbing, slow 12.1 mph average, sore leges. Mostly flat but a couple of good climbs around Stone Mountain. I am trying to use my legs more and the battery less and with this bike its possible. I have de-tuned the motor using the Mission Control app. I have done a metric century on the bike at about 14 mph with 35% of battery remaining. I about 165 lbs, 70 years old, US spec class 3 bike and don't carry anything but a few tools, tube and water.

 

[kahn]

Not a CREO but a Vado 5.0 SL. 38 miles, 2% battery consumption, 2000 ft of climbing, slow 12.1 mph average, sore leges. Mostly flat but a couple of good climbs around Stone Mountain. I am trying to use my legs more and the battery less and with this bike its possible. I have de-tuned the motor using the Mission Control app. I have done a metric century on the bike at about 14 mph with 35% of battery remaining. I about 165 lbs, 70 years old, US spec class 3 bike and don't carry anything but a few tools, tube and water.

View attachment 98462View attachment 98463View attachment 98464

That clinches it - I need to lose weight and five years!