Who gets underway with the motor off?

[spokewrench]

In February, my Aventon Abound began making a brushing or scraping noise each time the right pedal passed 5 o'clock, approaching bottom dead center. Eliminating external rubbing, the pedal, and my shoe, I decided it was the right BB bearing, which handles both the pedal load and the chain wheel load, which is 75% higher. I thought it was a bad bearing until I realized it happened only when the metal was below 60 F. It seemed that the cold lube was too stiff to keep the whole race covered.

There hadn't been a problem in December and January, so I thought the lube had thickened. I bought squeeze bottle of Liberty synthetic oil, which has an 18 gauge needle, intending to inject oil through the rubber seal in order to thin the lube. After it arrived, I thought of something else. If I used the throttle to get underway on my driveway, I could pedal around with no bearing noise even with the BB at 40 F.

I'd bought my first ebike in 2020 and added another in 2022. They were one-speeds, so I always used throttle to get going. The Abound arrived about December 1. I used PAS to get underway because I had trouble seeing what gear I was in. It took until January to get a cable long enough to replace the shifter. I guess in January I continued to get underway with the motor much of the time, out of habit.

I prefer using pedal power alone because it's silent. A cyclist accelerates as fast as possible up to 5 mph or so, where the steering response is fast enough to stay up. That requires maximum pedal pressure, and in a given gear, peak pressure lasts 10 times longer at 1 mph than at 10 mph. One way of looking at viscosity is that it's how much oil resists being squished from between bearing surfaces. High and slow peak loads could leave little lube in the section of the race that bore the load. In cold weather, the lube might be too slow to seep back in.

Low gear on a traditional English bike was about 53 gear inches, which I think may correspond to 5th gear on my Abound, but getting underway at any temperature didn't cause bearing noise. It seems the Abound wasn't designed to ride without motor assistance. What about other ebikes? Do other riders like to get underway without motor assistance?

 

[Roamers]

I do it all the time; in general, only use power when needed. (Gazelle)

 

[mrgold35]

I always set to PAS 1 at a minimal for my cadence sensor 750w rear hub 80Nm Radrover (70lbs) and tq sensor1000w mid-drive 160Nm Himiway Cobra Pro (90lbs). I do feel a difference in PAS 1 with my tq sensor feeling more natural ramp up of power compared to sling-shot instant power of my Rover. I do find it easier to ride my tq sensor ebike at a much slower speed naturally at any PAS level compared to my cadence sensor.

 

[AvalancheRun]

This is exactly why I ordered a lightweight e-bike. I want the motor to flatten out hills, and to ride in silence otherwise.

On my heavy Gazelle I'll turn the motor off whenever possible for the same reasons. Interestingly, the pedal pressure required to move the 70 lb Gazelle is so linear which feels awesome to pedal, and since it's heavy it provides a great workout when you want it to.

 

[spokewrench]

I do it all the time; in general, only use power when needed. (Gazelle)

I've had my eye on Dutch ebikes for years but haven't had a chance to ride one. Many have the seat tube angled back about 30 degrees from vertical, like the classic Raleigh Roadster and Sport. That positions the seat aft, and for every inch you raise it to accommodate a longer inseam, it moves back half an inch to accommodate longer arms and a longer thigh. Accommodating longer arms means more upper body stability for safety and handling. Accommodating longer thighs lets you pedal without doubling your knee over, for better torque and less knee strain. ( Imagine the knee strain climbing a ladder with rungs more than 12" apart. Lance Armstrong advised that if an exercise causes knee pains, it will instead help your knees if you change it so they don't bend so far.)

Dutch bikes often have swept back bars. I think they originated before pneumatic tires, to make bumps easier on wrists by acting as torsion bars. I don't like them because it seems that usually they put the hands too far behind the steering axis. Raleigh bars might be called swept back, but they had a forward offset that kept the hands well positioned. A limit of 2 inches before or behind works for me. If it's more, my body inertia interferes with steering control, which could lead to a crash through clumsy handling or oscillations. I had to be careful about that any time I loosened the clamp on my Radrunner.

 

[Roamers]

On my heavy Gazelle I'll turn the motor off whenever possible for the same reasons. Interestingly, the pedal pressure required to move the 70 lb Gazelle is so linear which feels awesome to pedal, and since it's heavy it provides a great workout when you want it to.

Surprizingly, to me the difference between the 63ish pound Gazelle and my 30ish pound Raleigh Hybrid is insignificant when pedaling unpowered. But I've got 290# sitting on it.

 

[indianajo]

I only use electricity if the wind is >12mph or on the 60th to 78th hill. Winter I park the battery in the garage and run errands without it. Even in summer I get going unpowered before I attack the hills. I found a route to avoid a 20% grade at a stop sign that crossed a 60 mph highway. That one I used the throttle or pushed the bike across the road to my lane.
I'm glad I did not have to buy a dutch bike. I have an extra long torso and short arms and legs. 23andme says I am 97% northwestern European and 70% English/Irish, but I have no idea what UK population were my ancestors. Certainly not the swordfighting Angles/Saxons/Danes/Normans.

 

[spokewrench]

This is exactly why I ordered a lightweight e-bike. I want the motor to flatten out hills, and to ride in silence otherwise.

On my heavy Gazelle I'll turn the motor off whenever possible for the same reasons. Interestingly, the pedal pressure required to move the 70 lb Gazelle is so linear which feels awesome to pedal, and since it's heavy it provides a great workout when you want it to.

I once got 140 miles on a charge with my Radrunner; 90 was more typical. I'd get about 90 with my Radmission, which has a smaller battery. Since I last charged my Abound, which is heavier, I've been 120 miles, and the display says I have 48% left. I don't mind adding a nickel to my power bill to charge a battery. I just love to pedal.

English bicycle cops receive an allowance to provide their own mounts, and one who can acquire an antique Raleigh Roadster is the envy of others. It's was a heavy bike even in the days of steel, but it seems an efficient pedaling position matters more.

Some studies indicate that rolling resistance is pretty trivial, but I've discovered that it makes a big difference on the bumpy pavement around here. Riding with my thumbs and forefingers circling my Radrunner grips, I found that the predominant relative motion from hitting bumps was aft, not up. In other words, each bump caused the bike to decelerate sharply. Depending on size, pressure, and construction, a pneumatic tire can recover some of that energy, pushing you forward of the back side of a bump.

Based on several reviews, I thought the Abound came with good tires. After 30 miles, I removed the back tire to repair a puncture caused by a particle of sand, which had cut a cord besides getting embedded in the rubber. When I saw its construction, I decided it wasn't even safe and ordered a Schwalbe Pickup.

On my way home, there's a thousand-foot downgrade, maybe 1% average, leading to a stop sign 300 feet from home. I was always amazed that my Radrunner and my Radmission slowed almost to a stop without brakes. I guess the bumps absorbed a lot of energy. I'm amazed at how much faster my Abound is going when I reach the sign. I wish I'd paid more attention during the brief period before I replaced the back tire so I'd know if the original one would glide over bumps as fast.

 

[harryS]

My bike rides start coasting down the slight hill from my garage, and if I am lucky with the timing of the stoplights on my regular route, I never have to touch the ground for an hour. Nonetheless, if I am starting from a stop I will use throttle on my hubmotor bikes. If I am crossing a street at a light, I want to get across as fast as possinle before some car makes a turn and runs me over.

 

[harryS]

Talking about tires, Schwalbe markets their balloon tire Big Apples as having exceptionally low rolling resistance. I thimk it's true. I put 20x2.25" on my wife's bike, and she was passing me downhill on my cheap 20x1.75" Kenda Kwest. Now my bike has them too.

 

[spokewrench]

I found a route to avoid a 20% grade at a stop sign that crossed a 60 mph highway. That one I used the throttle or pushed the bike across the road to my lane.
I'm glad I did not have to buy a dutch bike. I have an extra long torso and short arms and legs. 23andme says I am 97% northwestern European and 70% English/Irish, but I have no idea what UK population were my ancestors. Certainly not the swordfighting Angles/Saxons/Danes/Normans.

20%! My 750 watt Radrunner was advertised at 80 newton meters, but when it would barely climb a paved driveway at 10%, I knew it had only 53. On my way to the post office, I have slow way down to turn sharply right, through an opening in the curb onto a narrow sidewalk between a utility pole and a concrete block. In the first 10 feet, the walk climbs at 15%. I don't know how I managed it with the original controller, but it was easy when I upgraded to a 35 amp model. It might pull a 20% grade, but I'm sure it would appreciate hard pedaling.

In Chaper 45 of Moby Dick, Herman Mellville says, "So ignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world that without some hints touching the plain facts they might scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable or still worse and more detestable a hideous and intolerable allegory." Naturally, English teachers say it's an allegory. If they ever read it, they ignored what Melville said. Teacher ignorance was why I could always get an easy A by reporting on a book I hadn't read.

According to Melville and other sources, George H W Bush was, and I am, descended from Queequeg, who in real life was not tattooed and was called the governor because he looked, talked, and behaved like an English gentleman. The white whale Ahab hunted represented the Yankees, who could be detected only by their twang, which a lot of English kids picked up the way many white American kids talk like rappers.

Queequeg had stowed away at age 6 to see England, in part because he wanted to know ferrous metallurgy. He returned at 19 to say the English didn't know much about metallurgy, buy he knew where to start. In the following years, Yankee smiths reinvented Damascus steel, from which they could make cutlasses weighing only a pound with 20" blades. This was a vital deterrent against the Pilgrims, who on Myles Standish's orders, liked to burst into houses with swords to slaughter unarmed, peaceful natives. The Pilgrims quit carrying swords because they realized that indoors or in brush, they would be no match for a lightning fast cutlass.

Queequeg's wife was nicknamed Mary No-Pee because she'd grown up in a house with a Yankee iron anchor as a yard ornament, and the bill had broken off. In those days, the only meaning of "pee" was the bill of an anchor. She knew several immigrants who agreed that a violent death would be too kind for Standish. Under her direction, they made his room a no-piss zone by including yew berries in his diet. He lived 33 years in agony before succumbing. Jubilant Yankees (and immigrants) honored Mary's role by making English the only language where "pee" is a euphemism for "piss."

Nearly three centuries after Standish's atrocities, in the 1880s, there were Yankee smiths who still knew how to make that super steel. It made Victor bicycles the greatest in the world. One that weighed only 17 pounds had a far more rigid frame than a far heavier British bicycle.

My bike rides start coasting down the slight hill from my garage, and if I am lucky with the timing of the stoplights on my regular route, I never have to touch the ground for an hour. Nonetheless, if I am starting from a stop I will use throttle on my hubmotor bikes. If I am crossing a street at a light, I want to get across as fast as possinle before some car makes a turn and runs me over.

Now I remember... I was using torque PAS to exit my driveway in January, and that works as well as throttle. Built in the Bicycle Age, before there were automobiles for sale, my driveway has enough pea gravel in the soil to be firm in all weather, but the grass causes a lot of rolling resistance. When I reach the pavement, I turn right, uphill. I guess starting without motor assistance was always a bad idea.

 

[charlieboom-boom]

I confess that most of the time I use the motor to start up with the pedals. But on those rare occasions when the power level is down to 1 bar and I'm not sure if there is enough juice left to get home. I start with power level at zero pedaling and switch to level 1 or maybe 2 only when needed to make the battery last enough to get home.

 

[6zfshdb]

It depends. There is a delay in the PAS system on my bike and the assist doesn't kick in until the crank makes a half turn. Tech support tells me it's a safety measure designed to avoid sudden starts. If I remember to downshift before stopping, and I'm not on a hill or at a road crossing, I can start without motor assist. Otherwise, I blip the throttle to get moving.

 

[AvalancheRun]

It depends. There is a delay in the PAS system on my bike and the assist doesn't kick in until the crank makes a half turn. Tech support tells me it's a safety measure designed to avoid sudden starts. If I remember to downshift before stopping, and I'm not on a hill or at a road crossing, I can start without motor assist. Otherwise, I blip the throttle to get moving.

That seems like a weird justification. My Bosch bike can even be set up to scoot forward immediately with the slightest pedal pressure.

 

[6zfshdb]

That seems like a weird justification. My Bosch bike can even be set up to scoot forward immediately with the slightest pedal pressure.

I agree. I bought the bike in 2018 and the 2023 models are the same. Go figure.

 

[charlieboom-boom]

I once got 140 miles on a charge with my Radrunner; 90 was more typical. I'd get about 90 with my Radmission, which has a smaller battery. Since I last charged my Abound, which is heavier, I've been 120 miles, and the display says I have 48% left. I don't mind adding a nickel to my power bill to charge a battery. I just love to pedal.

English bicycle cops receive an allowance to provide their own mounts, and one who can acquire an antique Raleigh Roadster is the envy of others. It's was a heavy bike even in the days of steel, but it seems an efficient pedaling position matters more.

Some studies indicate that rolling resistance is pretty trivial, but I've discovered that it makes a big difference on the bumpy pavement around here. Riding with my thumbs and forefingers circling my Radrunner grips, I found that the predominant relative motion from hitting bumps was aft, not up. In other words, each bump caused the bike to decelerate sharply. Depending on size, pressure, and construction, a pneumatic tire can recover some of that energy, pushing you forward of the back side of a bump.

Based on several reviews, I thought the Abound came with good tires. After 30 miles, I removed the back tire to repair a puncture caused by a particle of sand, which had cut a cord besides getting embedded in the rubber. When I saw its construction, I decided it wasn't even safe and ordered a Schwalbe Pickup.

On my way home, there's a thousand-foot downgrade, maybe 1% average, leading to a stop sign 300 feet from home. I was always amazed that my Radrunner and my Radmission slowed almost to a stop without brakes. I guess the bumps absorbed a lot of energy. I'm amazed at how much faster my Abound is going when I reach the sign. I wish I'd paid more attention during the brief period before I replaced the back tire so I'd know if the original one would glide over bumps as fast.

I agree with you about the Schwalbe Pickup being a great tire. I put one in 55-406 115kg rated 65psi on the rear hub motor wheel of my T3CX tadpole trike to take advantage of the "air" suspension of the 32-406 70kg rated 100 psi Kenda tire that came on the e-trike. I had broken 3 13ga spokes next to each other on a frost heave crack on a paved trail. It was almost impossible to get it mounted on the 19mm I.D. rim with a HD thorn resistant tube. It a pain to take off the rear motor wheel or to put one on a e-trike or e-velomobile and I wanted it to be as bullet proof as possible. And it was. A few months later I hit some road debris that sliced a flap of the tread down to the double thick (2 ply) 60tpi carcass. When I got home I just put a dab of "Shoe Goo" to glue the flap in place and turned the wheel so that the glued flap was sitting on a sheet of wax paper. 2000 + miles later no problems. When I had Grin Tech/e-bike.ca build the wheel to motorise the RV-2 velomobile that was in shipment from Melbourne. Austrailia I had them build the wheel with a 24mm I.D. rim. It was much easier to install the 60-406 Pickup tire. Which seems to be wearing a bit faster after 1,900 miles, Than the Schwalbe Green Apple tires that came on the front two wheels. I am thinking that the rear wheel has more weight on it and the 8T GMAC motor does REGEN braking is causing the faster wear. Any thoughts?

 

[Brian-s]

I almost always use torque assist to get me started. My knees are shot, so the motor is primarily there for any acceleration or hills.

I typically downshift to level one. Just enough to get me moving.

 

[spokewrench]

I agree with you about the Schwalbe Pickup being a great tire. I put one in 55-406 115kg rated 65psi on the rear hub motor wheel of my T3CX tadpole trike to take advantage of the "air" suspension of the 32-406 70kg rated 100 psi Kenda tire that came on the e-trike. I had broken 3 13ga spokes next to each other on a frost heave crack on a paved trail. It was almost impossible to get it mounted on the 19mm I.D. rim with a HD thorn resistant tube. It a pain to take off the rear motor wheel or to put one on a e-trike or e-velomobile and I wanted it to be as bullet proof as possible. And it was. A few months later I hit some road debris that sliced a flap of the tread down to the double thick (2 ply) 60tpi carcass. When I got home I just put a dab of "Shoe Goo" to glue the flap in place and turned the wheel so that the glued flap was sitting on a sheet of wax paper. 2000 + miles later no problems. When I had Grin Tech/e-bike.ca build the wheel to motorise the RV-2 velomobile that was in shipment from Melbourne. Austrailia I had them build the wheel with a 24mm I.D. rim. It was much easier to install the 60-406 Pickup tire. Which seems to be wearing a bit faster after 1,900 miles, Than the Schwalbe Green Apple tires that came on the front two wheels. I am thinking that the rear wheel has more weight on it and the 8T GMAC motor does REGEN braking is causing the faster wear. Any thoughts?

You got me curious. I went to sunseeker.bike to see the T3CX Tadpole. They don't mention any motor or battery. Did you customize yours?

 

[spokewrench]

I almost always use torque assist to get me started. My knees are shot, so the motor is primarily there for any acceleration or hills.

I typically downshift to level one. Just enough to get me moving.

Lance Armstrong says if an exercise is hurting your knees, you could stop doing it, but modifying the exercise so they don't bend as far can help them recover. I'd encountered that accidentally. My first ebike was so unstable that it was hard to make a u-turn. Moving the seat back ten inches improved the handling, and I discovered that I could pedal harder with less effort. Moving the seat back meant that it was farther from a pedal at top dead center. That meant my knee wasn't bent as far, so my leg worked better.
It was a single-speed bike, and sometimes I'd start to get knee pain going up a hill. Instead of using PAS or throttle, I'd slide a couple of inches back on the seat, which straightened my legs a little more. That would stop the pain. It occurred less and less often, so I guess pedaling without bending my knees so far, strengthened them.

 

[Brian-s]

Lance Armstrong says if an exercise is hurting your knees, you could stop doing it, but modifying the exercise so they don't bend as far can help them recover. I'd encountered that accidentally. My first ebike was so unstable that it was hard to make a u-turn. Moving the seat back ten inches improved the handling, and I discovered that I could pedal harder with less effort. Moving the seat back meant that it was farther from a pedal at top dead center. That meant my knee wasn't bent as far, so my leg worked better.
It was a single-speed bike, and sometimes I'd start to get knee pain going up a hill. Instead of using PAS or throttle, I'd slide a couple of inches back on the seat, which straightened my legs a little more. That would stop the pain. It occurred less and less often, so I guess pedaling without bending my knees so far, strengthened them.

Although I don't have Lance Armstrongs' Emma O'Reilly to dope my knees up, I do have a tibial platue fracture with lots of lovely bolts holding things together. If it weren't for that PAS assist getting me going, I would have given up biking. I tried for a couple years before I got the e-bike.