smorgasbord
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
This weekend some friends came over and we decided to go for a ride. Since they don't own eBikes, we stopped by our local Pedego dealer to rent a couple. Although they wanted a mountain bike layout, because they admitted we were staying on pavement, the dealer steered them from the Trail Tracker to the Roadrunner.
About halfway through the 29 mile ride, we stopped by a lake to take some photos and have a snack. I commented that they must be having fun because every now and then one of them or the other would just take off and accelerate to a higher speed. We'd then catch up and we'd all go back to our normal pace. I asked if they actually wanted us to go faster as the normal pace. They looked at each other and discussed what was happening and they both realized that the same thing was happening to both their bikes, which was that they had assist level minds of their own. The way they described it was that they'd be pedaling along and seemingly without reason the bikes would just respond differently and take off. Other times they'd pedal harder but that didn't have any effect. One of them thought the power might be modulated by what physical gear the bike was in, but I pointed out that there was no "output" from the gearing to the electronics.
We were on wide paved roads with almost no traffic of any kind, so this wasn't dangerous, but the unpredictability of the assist provided was a bit disconcerting, if entertaining to the rest of us being left in the dust without any advance notice.
About halfway through the 29 mile ride, we stopped by a lake to take some photos and have a snack. I commented that they must be having fun because every now and then one of them or the other would just take off and accelerate to a higher speed. We'd then catch up and we'd all go back to our normal pace. I asked if they actually wanted us to go faster as the normal pace. They looked at each other and discussed what was happening and they both realized that the same thing was happening to both their bikes, which was that they had assist level minds of their own. The way they described it was that they'd be pedaling along and seemingly without reason the bikes would just respond differently and take off. Other times they'd pedal harder but that didn't have any effect. One of them thought the power might be modulated by what physical gear the bike was in, but I pointed out that there was no "output" from the gearing to the electronics.
We were on wide paved roads with almost no traffic of any kind, so this wasn't dangerous, but the unpredictability of the assist provided was a bit disconcerting, if entertaining to the rest of us being left in the dust without any advance notice.
