Ribble Endurance ALe Sport for commuting - Part 4 - .... More time saving on the way in than on the way home.

[IanSmithCSE]

Good morning,

As last week it was sub freezing the commute was quite gentle anyway, this week it has been more representative.

Going in I am saving 10-15 minutes, so the 18 miles in are now taking a bit over the hour, which is a big saving but the ride home is only about 5 minutes shorter.

This can be partially explained by Strava telling me that there is 1,000 feet of climbing on the way in but overall only 500 feet up. Also the profile of the road is mostly steeper inclines and shallower declines on the way in so on the way home the assistance rarely kicks in.

I suspect that the main reason though is that I crawl out off bed at 05:00 and am on the road by 05:30 and after about 100 yards I meet up with two hills that are typical of edge of town hills, shortish and not too steep, 9% and 7% gradients. Yet not the sort of thing that you want to meet until you have warmed up a bit, when the Tour Of Britain went through them about half of the peleton got out of the saddle, so they definitely do go up :-)

It is also apparent that I am putting in more effort on the ride in as the inclines often see me at the cutoff point for the motor, leaving me with the choice of slowing down or speeding up and I have chosen to speed up. Even though assistance is reduced as you reach the cutoff speed there is still an uncomfortable “pulse” as you slow down and then assistance restarts so you speed up and so on.

Overall as a method of transport to work it is working well as I never bought it for time savings, which are a bonus, but to take out the little bit too much effort that 5 days a week all year adds up to.

The really positive part for me is the removal of the hills at the start of the ride each way makes the rest of the ride so much more pleasant, it also helps to explain to me why my first impression was so negative. I met the start of the ride hills on the way out when warmed up and then came back home which experiance is showing me is mostly unassisted.

I have settled on riding with assistance set at the middle 175watt setting and am recharging every other day with the battery down to about 10%. So about 80 miles on the “Orange” setting. I have played with changing it mid ride, but using the iWoc controller continues to worry me … as I ride into a parked car whilst looking down. and don't need the high setting.

What I have also noticed is that acceleration from rest is greater than might be expected, I have a right turn where I need to stop and then very shortly after that one of those speed indicators on a lamppost. On unpowered bikes I meet that at between 14-18mph, on the ebike it is 17-21mph. (Just to be clear the 15.5mph speed limiter is working correctly)

As an unpowered bike I am still not in love with it, it is heavy, has too many gears and rides harshly compared with the Raleigh, so I, me, myself, wouldn't buy it as fun ride with a motor just in case, but this type of bike, Orbea D50 etc. does seem to be advertised this way.

Have you ridden into a full headwind yet?.........

Thanks to @wiggydiggy for jinxing me this nice 40 mph headwind on the way home!

It was so bad that I actually walked part of the way!

The hydraulic brakes seem to have highlighted a really unexpected problem, I have Lezyne lights where the rubber mounting band is screwed to the light and Halfords lights where the light has a Garmin type mount. Getting the rubber band under the brake hoses is very tricky so I no longer use the Lezyne as I am concerned with damaging the brake hoses as they are very tight as they enter the stem.

Bye

Ian

 

[biggs682]

@IanSmithCSE thank you for another week's worth of experience and the related findings.
Does sound like you are gently warming up to the overall bike.
Shame you had that first week.
And cycling in 40mph wind is now fun , quite a few years ago I got blown off my commuter by a sudden gust of wind thankfully I went to the hedge rather than in to the road .

 

[albion]

Worth mentioning, 10% is probably too low so a bit more battery wear will happen.
A daily charge of about 75/30 would ensure the batteries survives at least doubt the time period.

 

[IanSmithCSE]

Good atfernoon,

Worth mentioning, 10% is probably too low so a bit more battery wear will happen.
A daily charge of about 75/30 would ensure the batteries survives at least doubt the time period.

Thanks for this thought, as I get used to the e bit of the bicycle I am beginining to understand my battery usage.

Running costs are definitely an issue in my mind, especially as I can find very, very few real world reports of X35 bikes with over 5k-6k miles on them.

I did ask Ribble about milage and lifspan before purchase and I did get an answer but no accompanying references to support their position so I don't put any faith in their answer.

The web is our course full of such nonsense as but the longevity of an electric bike motor is solely dependent on maintenance and usage. My highlighting as most ebike motors have no user servicable parts or maintainance schedules and similar phrases are often accompained by a suggestion of 10k miles. I have no idea where that number comes from but as it was compared with the life span of tyres, chains and brakes I did have to smile a little even more so at the idea that this is a lot of miles.

As this bike is likely got get little recreational use I am looking at a bit under 9k miles per year, am I going to be buying a new motor once a year, every 18 month or every two years?

If I charge as I am doing now every other day then there will be about 120 cycles (from low to full) per year, if I charge every day avoiding extremes there would by 240 & some part of a charge cycle (about 0.4,[40%] to 0.5 [50%]). So it is looking like I could easily get two years out of the battery before hitting that quoted 20% of capacity loss. What I don't know is how the battery will perform after that, would it still be viable if I accepted that I need to do a daily charge and use all of the remaing capacity?

As it is a commute bike the battery will also be discharged during winter, a couple of months close to and slightly below freezing, but will be allowed to warm up before charging.

If I could get two years out of a battery and motor I would be happy (£600 a year?), if it is only a year much less so (£1,200 a year?).

It is also unclear to me if the quoted 0% and 100% values have been adjusted in any way. For example when apps shows a 0% charge does it actually mean 10% as a 10% charge value is too low to offer useful assitance it can be considered zero in that context but not in the context of the battery's chemistry.

Bye

Ian

 

[albion]

No idea, but anything below 50% battery I tend to ease off the higher assist modes, just to be certain the battery is not too strained.

I have 5 bars on mine. 1 bar means 20 % or less. Then I get a flashing bar which likely says 'turn off the power'.
I forget whether I get assist when I lose the flash.

 

[kingrollo]

Loving the honesty of this thread. Im considering an ebike myself for health reason.

I wonder what e bike the OP would buy with hindsight ? @IanSmithCSE

 

[biking_fox]

What I have also noticed is that acceleration from rest is greater than might be expected

Wife's ebike is like this too. It's a proper kick when she sets off and I have to be really working hard to keep up for the first few metres.

 

[albion]

Loving the honesty of this thread. Im considering an ebike myself for health reason.

I wonder what e bike the OP would buy with hindsight ? @IanSmithCSE

There is no real perfect ebike. For that specific task it is possibly the right bike, at least if you are not forced to penny pinch.

 

[kingrollo]

As a slight aside are the hub motors interchangeable ? - If you find in a couple years you need a new motor - but the one on your bike is no longer in production - could get a motor from another supplier fitted ? - or a you left with a very heavy training bike !!!!!

 

[albion]

Worth mentioning but when items use 'deep cycle batteries' you can bet a dollar that by not deep cycling, same batteries will simply have incredible longevity. Also, higher capacity batteries sometimes undervolt them to squeeze a out more capacity, these also benefitting even more by sensible charging.

To above, it is likely a yes and no. Controllers do tend to have a training mode, often actioned by connecting that 'strangely' disconnected wire

 

[IanSmithCSE]

Good morning,

.....Loving the honesty of this thread. Im considering an ebike myself for health reason......

@kingrollo has a thread here https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/road-e-bike-suggestions-questions.295920/ where he is looking to ride with a heart rate at no more than 130bpm.

I have pondered this over the last week and I am not sure that the X35 would be the way to go.

I dilly-dallyed for a year before going for an ebike during that time I went over the commute in my head working out where a motor would help and by how much, the reality has been pretty much the same for the commute home. For the commute in I had massively under estimated the benefits of the motor when riding up hill when I haven't yet warmed up.

I see two big issues with using an X35 system to keep the heart rate down, battery capacity and motor torque, the X20 system includes a rider power sensor which the X35 doesn't. As far as I can tell the X35 system throws full battery power, for the assistance level, at the battery all the time until tapering off at close to the speed limiter. So if I pick the mid setting I can gobble battery power and have an easy ride, rather than the bike deciding that I want less help, I don't think that either approach was designed with minimising heart rate in mind.

At first glance a 250Wh battery sounds like a lot of power, but is it? At the 25% battery level the maximum assistance level seems to be disabled, you may not start out with a full charge and as charge cycle degredation kicks in the full charge could be 10%-20% less than this. Add in to this the power that you have used riding on flatish roads and towards the end of the ride you may have to go up a steep hill in a low assist mode.

It wasn't clear to me how critical limiting the heart rate is, but if it means getting off and walking then that would be disappointing after spending all than money on an ebike.

It is also not clear if you will be riding alone or in a group, this may be important as I find my power consumption to be all over the place and if you are forced to ride at the group speed you may end up using battery power in the background.

This is where the iWoc controller may be an issue, it is not suited to frequently changing power levels, if you do go for an external power level controller the Pulsar One is ANT+, but mobile devices may very well be Bluetooth and this may not be reliable enough. Surprise, surprise the web os full of horror stories about incompatabilty, firmware upgrades that render the e bit of the bile unusable not to mention the cost for this bit, that bit, t'other bit and my phone went flat.

Once you get to a hill will the motor help if you do have some electricity? This is where the heart rate requirement really complicates the answer, the blurb quotes a certain torque (angular "force") but it is very hard to map that number to electrical power input, in other words will you always been needing to be riding with full assist.

With a rear wheel motor you don't get the advantage of putting the electrical energy through the gearing system so once you hit the hills you may have the watts needed to do the climb from the motor but do you have the torque or will you be needing to add too much to stay within your target heart rate?

I tried the 10% hill that comes after about 15 miles and I go from breathing hard to breathing at uncomfortable to talk level of exertion when riding without or with the motor. In practice I find that using full over mid power just means I go faster rather than easier and in bothe cases stay on the big ring, how this would work out for you if you are a spinner or grinder I don't know.

There does seem to be a cadence/speed point where the motor seems a lot less effective so you can't just spin in34x32 at 5mph.

And then what about the future, how much fitness will you be losing to the motor over the first few months and then the whole next year?

So along comes range extenders, I am a bit unsure but I think that the X35 one is a battery charger not a battery, it tops up the main battery rather than supplying power to the motor so may be of limited help if you are drawing a lot of power in short period of time.

.........I wonder what e bike the OP would buy with hindsight ? @IanSmithCSE.........

Price is a big issue for me as the bike is a fairly high mileage tool and the premium for ebiking a bike seems high, possibly to cover increased returns due to battery/motor issues. I once told myself that I wouldn't mind the cost of commuting on Utegra, until the day the chain ring£100 needed replacement and it all seemed a bit silly.

I see the X20 as being a big step up from the X35 but it was not in my price range, especially as it is still new so I would want to buy locally which also means being close to RRP not mail order prices.

I paid £2,048 for the Ribble including delivery, an Orbea D50 from the LBS with £2,750 or around £2,100-£2,300 on line and I was very tempted by the D50 as it has a better commute spec 2x8 not 2x10 and cable not hydraulic brakes. I just couldm't bring myself to pay £700 more for a lower priced spec.

Given the 14kg weight swapping the aluminum frame for a CF one doesn't seem like a great idea but I have started to settle in to the low (100W) setting on all the time and the other two settings hardly being used. So it is a worthwhile weight saving but not at the probable increase in price.

Despite being a Di2 fan, it doesn't seem so attractive to me anymore as it means going 12 speed and the Ribble is already effectively a 1x with enough gears. The motor coming and going means more gear changes than there would be if I naturally had the same power as me plus the motor.

Instead of throwing money at the ebike I would buy a nice human powered bike if I didn't already have one and use the ebike in a higher power mode less often, something I plan to experiment with. This could allow hard unpowered rides mainting or increasing fitness along with almost rest days as I drain the battery in day's commute.

As a slight aside are the hub motors interchangeable ? - If you find in a couple years you need a new motor - but the one on your bike is no longer in production - could get
a motor from another supplier fitted ? - or a you left with a very heavy training bike !!!!!

I am working on the basis that battery/motor/switch gear will only ever work together, having had and watched Di2 and the necessary and "unnecessary" incompatabilities this seems to be prudent, if there is any compatability between say the X20 and X35 it would be a pleasent surprise.

If you go for the X35 you are getting a product from a big company selling world wide, as far as I am aware the UK/EU/USA hubs are machinically the same so it seems reasonable to expect some crossover between 1st gen X35 and 2nd gen X20. But the X20 is on sale now so it seems likely that we are starting to look at the beginning of the end of the X35. As I would be suprised to get more than two years out of the system that doesn't worry me.

What is much less clear is whether or not the X20 battery and controller will fit into the frame, the same if I changed to say the FSA rear hub motor/controller.

Bye

Ian

 

[kingrollo]

Good morning,

@kingrollo has a thread here https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/road-e-bike-suggestions-questions.295920/ where he is looking to ride with a heart rate at no more than 130bpm.

I have pondered this over the last week and I am not sure that the X35 would be the way to go.

I dilly-dallyed for a year before going for an ebike during that time I went over the commute in my head working out where a motor would help and by how much, the reality has been pretty much the same for the commute home. For the commute in I had massively under estimated the benefits of the motor when riding up hill when I haven't yet warmed up.

I see two big issues with using an X35 system to keep the heart rate down, battery capacity and motor torque, the X20 system includes a rider power sensor which the X35 doesn't. As far as I can tell the X35 system throws full battery power, for the assistance level, at the battery all the time until tapering off at close to the speed limiter. So if I pick the mid setting I can gobble battery power and have an easy ride, rather than the bike deciding that I want less help, I don't think that either approach was designed with minimising heart rate in mind.

At first glance a 250Wh battery sounds like a lot of power, but is it? At the 25% battery level the maximum assistance level seems to be disabled, you may not start out with a full charge and as charge cycle degredation kicks in the full charge could be 10%-20% less than this. Add in to this the power that you have used riding on flatish roads and towards the end of the ride you may have to go up a steep hill in a low assist mode.

It wasn't clear to me how critical limiting the heart rate is, but if it means getting off and walking then that would be disappointing after spending all than money on an ebike.

It is also not clear if you will be riding alone or in a group, this may be important as I find my power consumption to be all over the place and if you are forced to ride at the group speed you may end up using battery power in the background.

This is where the iWoc controller may be an issue, it is not suited to frequently changing power levels, if you do go for an external power level controller the Pulsar One is ANT+, but mobile devices may very well be Bluetooth and this may not be reliable enough. Surprise, surprise the web os full of horror stories about incompatabilty, firmware upgrades that render the e bit of the bile unusable not to mention the cost for this bit, that bit, t'other bit and my phone went flat.

Once you get to a hill will the motor help if you do have some electricity? This is where the heart rate requirement really complicates the answer, the blurb quotes a certain torque (angular "force") but it is very hard to map that number to electrical power input, in other words will you always been needing to be riding with full assist.

With a rear wheel motor you don't get the advantage of putting the electrical energy through the gearing system so once you hit the hills you may have the watts needed to do the climb from the motor but do you have the torque or will you be needing to add too much to stay within your target heart rate?

I tried the 10% hill that comes after about 15 miles and I go from breathing hard to breathing at uncomfortable to talk level of exertion when riding without or with the motor. In practice I find that using full over mid power just means I go faster rather than easier and in bothe cases stay on the big ring, how this would work out for you if you are a spinner or grinder I don't know.

There does seem to be a cadence/speed point where the motor seems a lot less effective so you can't just spin in34x32 at 5mph.

And then what about the future, how much fitness will you be losing to the motor over the first few months and then the whole next year?

So along comes range extenders, I am a bit unsure but I think that the X35 one is a battery charger not a battery, it tops up the main battery rather than supplying power to the motor so may be of limited help if you are drawing a lot of power in short period of time.



Price is a big issue for me as the bike is a fairly high mileage tool and the premium for ebiking a bike seems high, possibly to cover increased returns due to battery/motor issues. I once told myself that I wouldn't mind the cost of commuting on Utegra, until the day the chain ring£100 needed replacement and it all seemed a bit silly.

I see the X20 as being a big step up from the X35 but it was not in my price range, especially as it is still new so I would want to buy locally which also means being close to RRP not mail order prices.

I paid £2,048 for the Ribble including delivery, an Orbea D50 from the LBS with £2,750 or around £2,100-£2,300 on line and I was very tempted by the D50 as it has a better commute spec 2x8 not 2x10 and cable not hydraulic brakes. I just couldm't bring myself to pay £700 more for a lower priced spec.

Given the 14kg weight swapping the aluminum frame for a CF one doesn't seem like a great idea but I have started to settle in to the low (100W) setting on all the time and the other two settings hardly being used. So it is a worthwhile weight saving but not at the probable increase in price.

Despite being a Di2 fan, it doesn't seem so attractive to me anymore as it means going 12 speed and the Ribble is already effectively a 1x with enough gears. The motor coming and going means more gear changes than there would be if I naturally had the same power as me plus the motor.

Instead of throwing money at the ebike I would buy a nice human powered bike if I didn't already have one and use the ebike in a higher power mode less often, something I plan to experiment with. This could allow hard unpowered rides mainting or increasing fitness along with almost rest days as I drain the battery in day's commute.


I am working on the basis that battery/motor/switch gear will only ever work together, having had and watched Di2 and the necessary and "unnecessary" incompatabilities this seems to be prudent, if there is any compatability between say the X20 and X35 it would be a pleasent surprise.

If you go for the X35 you are getting a product from a big company selling world wide, as far as I am aware the UK/EU/USA hubs are machinically the same so it seems reasonable to expect some crossover between 1st gen X35 and 2nd gen X20. But the X20 is on sale now so it seems likely that we are starting to look at the beginning of the end of the X35. As I would be suprised to get more than two years out of the system that doesn't worry me.

What is much less clear is whether or not the X20 battery and controller will fit into the frame, the same if I changed to say the FSA rear hub motor/controller.

Bye

Ian

I won't proffes to understand all that. I thought e-bikes made it easier to get up hills ????? - that seems to be the case for people I ride with who have them ???