Trek super commuter 8

eliot3b4

Member
Looking t upgrade to a super commuter 8. Any thoughts? What is the distance and how long does the battery last with constant peddling?
 
Looking t upgrade to a super commuter 8. Any thoughts? What is the distance and how long does the battery last with constant peddling?

eliot-Not sure if you have seen the review here on EBR or not, but it is a good place to start to get a feel for the bike. Hard to say what the distance would be and is based on many factors: Rider weight, terrain (hilly or flat), wind resistance, rider output, assist levels used throughout the ride, etc. These all need to be factored in when determining your actual or average distance for each full battery charge.

I have test rode this bike and the newer SC7 model back to back and I have to say the SC+8 model beat it hands down in ride quality, performance and components. The bike has very good build quality also and with Trek, you get what you pay for, not to mention their reputation for great C/S IMO. Good Luck with your intended purchase.
 
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eliot-Not sure if you have seen the review here on EBR or not, but it is a good place to start to get a feel for the bike. Hard to say what the distance would be and is based on many factors: Rider weight, terrain (hilly or flat), wind resistance, rider output, assist levels used throughout the ride, etc. These all need to be factored in when determining your actual or average distance for each full battery charge.

I have test rode this bike and the newer SC7 model back to back and I have to say the SC+8 model beat it hands down in ride quality, performance and components. The bike has very good build quality also and with Trek, you get what you pay for, not to mention their reputation for great C/S IMO. Good Luck with your intended purchase.
 
I did read the reviews and greatly appreciate the work on these reviews. What do you think of the Trek Crossrip+?

I own a Raleigh Spirit and have ridden this 636 miles (since april 1st) and am getting stronger as each day goes by. I am now looking to ride farther than what the Spirit can do and also am now getting annoyed with he 20 mph limit the bike. Thoughts?
 
I did read the reviews and greatly appreciate the work on these reviews. What do you think of the Trek Crossrip+?

I own a Raleigh Spirit and have ridden this 636 miles (since april 1st) and am getting stronger as each day goes by. I am now looking to ride farther than what the Spirit can do and also am now getting annoyed with he 20 mph limit the bike. Thoughts?

Another great candidate. The speed motor is a plus for the Trek bikes and the way they are tuned for their E-bikes. Drop bars and SRAM components are also a plus for this bike as well. I am a big fan of the Trek Police Bike which is discussed on this forum. The bike is equipped with the speed motor and is a nice choice for a XC hybrid.

I get it with wanting more speed as I am in the same predicament with choosing my next purchase. My personal goal is to find the lightest weight with the fastest motor. Some of the 2019 series E-bikes have that, however, some are still stuck overseas until next year.
 
I have the super commuter 8S+. Please feel free to ask me any questions here.

To answer your initial question:

What is the distance and how long does the battery last with constant peddling?

This does depend on a number of factors, such as terrain, weight, assist level, speed etc. I usually cruise at around 22 mph on tour (120% boost), with a couple uses of sport and turbo with winds, hills, or traffic. I use it for work commuting (20 miles round trip), and I charge it when I get home every day with 2-3 out of 5 bars left. I think 30 miles is a good average estimate you can expect, but I've seen as low as 10 (in turbo) or as high as 60 (in eco) on my range estimator with near full battery.
 
Hi not sure if this helps but I bought one of these this August and my hubby was so impressed with mine that in September he bought his own so now we have two of them, we are in our late 60’s and we love our bikes.

So far I have ridden nearly 800 miles on mine, we are in the Uk so that was up and down many of the hills in the Peak District, Leicestershire, Derbyshire, and Nottinghamshire. We are trying to use the bikes to keep fit so we try to do what we can in ECO and use TOUR for the hills though there are some pretty steep hills in these three counties so for the longer, steeper hills we have to use EMTB or TURBO. Also we changed the rear rack that came with the bikes to one that takes a Topeak quicktrack bag and panniers so we can carry a flask, extra drinks, food and extra clothes, etc so with the rack and bags that adds about 5kg extra weight each trip.

As people have said how far you can go on a single charge will depend on the mode you are in, weight the bike is carrying and the terrain but we haven’t run out of power yet so we haven’t pushed our bikes to the limit. But we have doubled the distance we can do each trip to almost 50 miles and the way we ride there is usually at least a couple of bars left when we get back home despite the hills.

The maximum assisted speed in the UK is 15.5mph though the motor doesn’t usually cut out till about 16.8mph 1728DCB6-E1A4-4F97-BB09-8C02B39B9723.pngand on a fully charged battery my bikes guesstimator seems to think we can do about 78miles while my hubby’s bike usually shows a few miles less but for both of us the estimate rapidly drops as we go up hills and need to use the higher modes, especially against a headwind, while the miles seem to build up again with the wind behind you or going down hill so we have learned to ignore the indicated number of miles the computer says we have left and just go by the number of bars. For a 40-50 mile trip we both go out with a full battery and come home with a couple of bars and the one time I did a second shorter 10 mile trip and a trip to the shops on the same charge (all in hilly terrain as I live at the top of a 1 in 9 hill and there are plenty of others around here) and I still had 1 bar left when I got home so that was over 60 miles on a single charge with some spare.
 
Although they have the same name and visually look the same, the US and UK Supercommuter 8 are pretty different bikes. The US bike has a different motor and almost double the max speed, so range will probably be much better on the UK model. One thing I have realized is that anything over about 20mph and wind resistance will start to play a big part in your range.

I do have a question for you though:

Also we changed the rear rack that came with the bikes to one that takes a Topeak quicktrack bag

How did you do this? It seemed to me like the rack was pretty integrated and was a big support structure for the rear fender. Did you somehow attach the new rack to the fender, or just left those previous support points unsupported?
 
Hi my husband has been around bikes for over 60 years, time trailling trikes when he was younger he is also a pretty good engineer so when I wanted my old topeak quick click he invented a custom solution.

Basically he took the original rack off the bike and engineered a little block so he could attach my rack to the mudguard.

If it would help I can ask him for more information and see if I can get a couple of photos.

As to what you said about the bikes being different I was told by the UK rep they were the same bikes unless you get the 350 watt version of the Bosch motor (which is illegal for general uses as it can only be used on private land in the Uk) Otherwise they have with the same Bosch performance line CX motor that peaks at 612watts only the Uk one has been limited to 15.5mph and yours is limited to 25... is that not the case?

He went on to say if Uk regs change after Brexit that limit could be altered with a software upgrade giving us a higher speed.
 
If it would help I can ask him for more information and see if I can get a couple of photos.

As to what you said about the bikes being different I was told by the UK rep they were the same bikes unless you get the 350 watt version of the Bosch motor (which is illegal for general uses as it can only be used on private land in the Uk) Otherwise they have with the same Bosch performance line CX motor that peaks at 612watts only the Uk one has been limited to 15.5mph and yours is limited to 25... is that not the case?

If you could get details/pictures of the install I would be interested. I have a similar Topeak click in on my old bike that I can't use on my supercommuter.

The USA supercommuter 8 comes with the 350W, 28mph motor. Based off the specs online, the gearing is different between USA and UK (which makes sense, you don't need 28mph gearing on a 15mph bike) and the motor is different. It looks like you have the higher torque version of the 250W motor (commonly used for mountain bikes in the USA, hence the MTB mode). There is also a lower torque version of the 250W motor, which is used on the Supercommuter 7 USA and UK model, but again the speed limit is 20mph for the USA model and 15mph for the UK model

I think what your sales person was saying is that the motor you have is the same as one sold in the USA, but the difference is yours is limited to 15mph and in the USA that motor is limited to 20mph. If laws changed you could unlock your motor to 20mph, but I doubt you will ever get the 28mph speed that the USA model can do
 
Hi again Chris, thanks for the clarification I did not know what speed the 350 watt motor was capable of, just that it was faster and illegal on our roads and parks etc.

I have passed your question about the rack fitting on to my hubby and he is going to take some pictures for you so you can see what he did. Once he has done that he can answer you properly, as he said it’s connected in a couple of places.
 
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