Sunday, April 13, 2014

Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

I'm still primarily driving the 996. It's not because I don't like driving the Turbo, but most of my driving is back and forth to work, and that's only barely far enough to get the car warmed up. Meanwhile, there are lots of excuses not to bike. I did manage seven days between January 1st and March 31st where I biked both to and from work, plus a bunch more that I didn't track where I biked one way and drove the other.

The major issue is that we live on a hill. I'm struggling to find a good map showing the grades of the streets around us, but I did find one showcasing some of the steepest rides in Seattle, and they list the street you take to get from the bottom of the house to the top at 18%. The secondary issue is being able to take the dog to work, or dealing with the local produce box, etc. When I do bike, I wind up walking the last block or two. Throw in a bike trailer to let Stewie come along, or to hold the the produce, and I'll be walking a lot more than that, dragging the extra weight of the trailer with me. I've been given an alternate route suggestion, which has two issues: it's longer, and it involves going another block or two south after

I used to have an electric bike conversion, with a motor and controller made by goldenmotor.com. Looking at their website, what I had is no longer available, but I see they've added "failure detection" and "high reliability" to the image of their controller. Those certainly weren't features of the controller I had. When it was working, it had plenty of power, and turned the cheap mountain bike I had, which Vicki got free with the purchase of a mattress and box spring, into a very capable hill climber. A 750W front hub motor will do that for you. I remember one commute home where another cyclist seemed to take the fact that anyone might try to pass him as a challenge. I saw him bear down for a few seconds in order to accelerate. He looked over when he realized he couldn't pedal fast enough to stay ahead, and then gave up. Compared to that, the bikes I've tried haven't stacked up terribly well so far.

Currie eFlow E3 Nitro

Currie eFlow E3 Nitro
Currie eFlow E3 Nitro
I liked the ride of this one a lot. Very smooth, and the power delivery was seamless. The controls left a little something to be desired, as they're located on the digital display, but overall a good package. The non-standard seat post would have been a bit of an issue for attaching a Trail-A-Bike, but the bigger issue was that I struggled to climb up the 18% grade test slope with it just carrying me.



Stromer ST1 Elite
Stromer ST1 Elite

This one also had a very smooth ride, but power delivery wasn't nearly as seamless. I could distinctly feel the motor pulsing while I was pedaling. The controls were better than the Nitro, and it had a standard seat post, but I also struggled with the test slope more than I should with the help of something like this.










Currie iZip E3 Peak

Currie iZip E3 Peak
Currie iZip E3 Peak
The first mid-drive bike I've ever ridden. With the motor being able to use the mechanical advantage of the rear gears, I made it up the 18% grade test slope going about 10mph, somewhat tired from the exertion. This is a vast improvement over the 4mph and panting that I got from the other two. The ride was rougher, in spite of the front suspension, apparently due to the off-road tires. I think the dash was similar to the other iZip E3 bike, but there was a 3-4 month gap between riding those and riding this one. The controls were reachable with the left thumb, rather than on the digital display, which is an improvement over the Nitro.

I still haven't purchased one yet. Electric & Folding Bikes Northwest is expecting to get a kit in within the next couple weeks using the Bosch mid-drive control system and a motor from the same manufacturer that iZip has been using. Details of the battery weren't mentioned, but I believe the motor options were 350w and 750w. I expect the 750w is going to be the winner, although that'll still mean finding a bike to convert.

There are two other options on my radar: the Optibike SIMBB 29C and the Specialized Turbo. I haven't seen an Optibike in person. I've briefly ridden a Turbo, but only on the flat. The Turbo matches well the things I like about the Stromer, but with the smooth power delivery of the iZip E3 line. Unfortunately for both of these, there are no local shops demoing them or, more importantly, servicing them. 

2 comments:

  1. Have you looked at Pedigo or Prodeco?

    ReplyDelete
  2. The two local shops I've checked don't stock either of those. Looks like there's a place down by the stadiums that has Prodeco, but not Pedigo. That said, I don't see anything in their descriptions to make me optimistic they'll beat the bikes I've tried. In particular, the top of the line Prodeco looks like they cap out around 20mph using a twist throttle, where the others I've looked at are in the 24-28mph range and trigger off pedaling, sometimes with an additional hand throttle (the E3 Peak).

    ReplyDelete