This is my Radrover...

[Ericmacfan]

Hey RadLovers,
I feel time has come to launch a new thread to actually give their first impressions on the unboxing, assembling and actually RIDING the RadRover.
Let's hear from you guys !

 

[pxpaulx]

There are many like it, but this one is mine!

So far - setup the bike up, changed grips to some white with red accent SRAM foam lock on grips (cut to fit throttle), and de-badged yesterday (sorry Mike, I did leave the stem one!). Also swapped the stem for the suntour nxt suspension and am using the seat from my sold BH neo xtrem.

After riding a couple of miles yesterday, I confirmed the front fork wasn't for me. Today I swapped it with the fork from my Motobecane Boris X7, which is a fleck burnt orange, it looks pretty good and is almost a perfect fit (will need to get a couple of very small shims to fill in a few millimeter gap on both ends). The front end is much more responsive, the front end is dropped about 2.5 inches and I don't feel like the fork is pulling like the suspension fork did (note, it didn't feel like self-steer with the suspension fork, more like it wanted to lean into a turn more than it should, or more than I preferred anyway). The pull wasn't bad or anything, but still noticeable.

Took it out after the swap for a ride around the block and loved it!

Also, the new fork is 1.6kg lighter, and the rim/tire (despite being a 4.5 inch, which you should be able to tell it is quite larger with larger knobs) is also half a kilogram lighter, for a total of 2.1kg, or about 4.5lbs right off the front end - definitely the change is obvious.

 

[pxpaulx]

I just started my own, but anyone can contribute!

 

[Ericmacfan]

Wow ! Great mods, great pics !!! Lucky you !!
So tell us how is the power, range etc...?

 

[pxpaulx]

No report for range, I have been working on it, not much riding it! I did take it down into a little hilly path by our house and the motor has plenty of torque, with pedaling the bike had no problem on pedal assist 1 making it back up (hill one way!), where my bh easy motion neo xtrem would have struggled along at about 7mph the radrover was running 11-12 the whole way up. The cadence pedal assist isn't quite as intuitive as the torque sensor on the neo xtrem. That said, on the neo xtrem I think I maxed out the torque when I rode (bigger guy!) - I barely noticed any difference on that bike between all of the different assist settings. On the radrover it is another story, bumping up even to assist 2 or 3 makes a big difference, and I can actually feel the motor outputting differing amounts of power at the different levels. So, with my minimal riding so far I am definitely happy!

 

[PowerMe]

where my bh easy motion neo xtrem would have struggled along at about 7mph the radrover was running 11-12 the whole way up. I barely noticed any difference on that bike between all of the different assist settings.

Interesting observation pxpaulx!

That's about how my easy motion evo (350w) handles hills too. Any idea what grade hill you were on? At a 6% grade my ebike can do about 7-8mph with me pedaling. I also reported that it was difficult to discern the different assist settings above 'Standard' especially when going up an incline.

 

[pxpaulx]

Well, the full run is about 0.2 miles where I rode down to. Using an online calculator, the overall grade (including a flat portion) is only 3%, however when I put in the coordinates of the two steepest portions they were 8-10% over about 100 feet of distance. Small scale for sure, but the difference is definitely noticeable.

 

[pxpaulx]

I'll have to start tracking with my phone - have you been using any particular app, have a recommendation?

 

[Nachoman]

Strava is used by a lot of cyclists and runners. Not sure if it calculates overall grade and stuff like that. but it does all the standard stuff like speed, distance, elevation, etc so you could calculate the grade pretty easily.

 

[PowerMe]

ridewithgps

shows grade levels

 

[pxpaulx]

Cool, both downloaded and I'll give them a try - ridewithgps first!

 

[Nachoman]

Just played around with ridewithgps and I like it... you can input your trip ahead of time and it'll show you the hill grade along the entire way.

For instance, going back to look at the rout for my initial test ride, the Radrover tackled a 0.5 mile 9% grade hill... and also a longer 1 mile 3-5% grade hill among other smaller hills.

Not bad for this bike, it's quite the hill climber!!

 

[George S.]

It looks great to me. Like the color contrasts. Those are fat tires. The app PowerMe recommends really does the job for grades. It will give you a neat map with the grades down on the bottom, and you can run the mouse along the route and see the grade. I use Android.

With a throttle and a watt meter you can really tell what the motor can do, mostly because you can just run the motor. From what you are saying it probably pumps out 1000 watts, and that gets me up 14% grades with some help. The 48 volts and the big battery, upgraded motor, not much more you can do without a mid-drive. You can figure out if you need MD.

That's a pretty serious bike.

 

[Nachoman]

What's your impressions of the peddle assist? For mine, I start peddling slowly and then.... vroooosh...... the motor really kicks in hard. Even on PA1, the torquey nature of the motor is really felt. In fact it's hard to maneuver slowly with PA on, since small peddles cause the motor to kick in hard. Do all of yours do a similar things?

This is my first ebike, so not sure what I should have been expecting.

For the throttle, i have to twist it signficantly before it kicks in, might be an adjustment thing though.

 

[jazz]

Cool bikes and mods. I now wish I would have contributed to the campaign. At the time I wasn't sure about fat bikes, however, now I want one but not for $1499.

 

[pxpaulx]

Since it just a cadence sensor, I think those are generally all or nothing, at least the levels actually provide some measurable difference! On my bh neo xtrem the assist was more curved, but not hugely different in my experience. The throttle was essentially the same on my neo as well, no change there that I could tell.

 

[Nachoman]

Thanks Paul, good to know my bike is operating as expected.

 

[pxpaulx]

@Nachoman I got out for a five mile ride. i tried setting the bikes max speed to 25kph, or 15mph for part of the ride. it may have just been placebo, but i could swear that at least on level 1 assist the motor was providing a more subtle amount of power that you might like. either way i found starting in 1 then bumping to 2 or 3 once at speed seemed to keep the watt consumption relatively low.

tonight i signed up on the ridewithgps app, touched the ride button ...but failed to hit the record button, haha. i will attempt again tomorrow! i have this feeling the boke is traveling faster than the speedo is indicating, we shall see.
e s

 

[Nachoman]

@Nachoman I got out for a five mile ride. i tried setting the bikes max speed to 25kph, or 15mph for part of the ride. it may have just been placebo, but i could swear that at least on level 1 assist the motor was providing a more subtle amount of power that you might like. either way i found starting in 1 then bumping to 2 or 3 once at speed seemed to keep the watt consumption relatively low.

tonight i signed up on the ridewithgps app, touched the ride button ...but failed to hit the record button, haha. i will attempt again tomorrow! i have this feeling the boke is traveling faster than the speedo is indicating, we shall see.
e s

gotcha, thanks Paul. I'll give that a try... especially when i was maneuvering around tight turns, i quickly learned not to peddle and just use throttle, since any peddle quickly shot me off. Almost ran into a someone when I was doing that.

I also need to try messing around with the tire sizes in the computer. I think by selecting the smallest size option, you can trick the bike into going faster than 20mph since it calculates your speed by measuring the number of revolutions and then using the tire size you select. Picking a smaller one should trick the computer into thinking you're going slower than you really are. the speedo will be off though.

 

[pxpaulx]

gotcha, thanks Paul. I'll give that a try... especially when i was maneuvering around tight turns, i quickly learned not to peddle and just use throttle, since any peddle quickly shot me off. Almost ran into a someone when I was doing that.

I also need to try messing around with the tire sizes in the computer. I think by selecting the smallest size option, you can trick the bike into going faster than 20mph since it calculates your speed by measuring the number of revolutions and then using the tire size you select. Picking a smaller one should trick the computer into thinking you're going slower than you really are. the speedo will be off though.

Yeah the turn thing is a little funny, only because you're generally going slow but the bike wants to jump - that is where a torque sensor would win out as it would ease the power more in that situation; if you lightly hold the brake you should be able to pedal still without engaging the motor, that might be a good technique to learn for me too, will have to try it!

I speculated as much myself about the different tire sizes, just hadn't tried it out myself! Will probably give it a go this evening.