This is one of the the most fascinating threads on here! I got my Vado SL back in October and missed this thread back then. I used EBR a lot to look at the various bikes I was considering in the run up to getting the SL, but didn't notice this useful information.
A couple of thoughts and questions - first of all I didn't realise Mission Control had a cadence monitor, I'll be checking that out on my next ride, very useful! I trained in spinning back when I road raced as a teen in the mid 80s, but no idea if I've developed bad habits since so very curious to see if I'm mashing nowadays and interested in correcting if so. It's tricky here with all the hills, as Steve says above, you are either going straight up or down. But there are a couple of long cycle paths, the Wray Way and the Granite Way both converted old railways so the gradient is very shallow. I'll use that for testing. Steve, it might be worth you looking into fitting a 38T front chainring for the South Hams/Dartmoor hills as it will help you with cadence and the S1.1 motor will work better on the 20% gradients, you'll find it's less of a slow hard grind, made a big difference to me.
Stefan all this cadence & motor info has raised a question for me. One of my main routes out of town has a mile long rolling hill. I use this road a lot as the gradient is only 10-15% and it's a good 'wake up' for me at the start of my rides. First couple of months on the Vado SL I would do it in Sport assist at the factory setting of 60%. Then I started playing around with assist levels. The factory Eco setting of 30% was useless on all the hills here (and with my weak fitness level) so I bumped that up to 45% and now I do this long hill in Eco @ 45%. But, and here's my question, is this a false economy, both in terms of my fitness and the battery use? What I mean is, I push myself to do the hill in Eco. I can find a comfortable cadence but aerobically it's tough. I assume this is good for me and I'm also preserving battery so that later on in the ride I can go to Sport on other, steeper hills and so have enough battery to get home.
But now I'm wondering if I did the hill in Sport @ 75% but with a much faster cadence would the battery use be much different? As I wouldn't be mashing as much. And I'm wondering if going easier on the pedals with the extra assist, might make me push faster/ do a faster cadence and so get a similiar work out to the lower assist level?
This is all very interesting and something I hadn't given much thought to.
