Boardman ADV 8.9 E

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Cycleops

Legendary Member
Location
Accra, Ghana
Very nice but you might illicit cries of 'Oi, cheat' when other cyclists spot the thick downtube as you speed past.
 

goo_mason

Champion barbed-wire hurdler
Location
Leith, Edinburgh
I have one on order, and an application submitted for a 4yr interest-free loan from the Energy Saving Trust :okay:

It's going to be my autumn/winter bike - it has the clearance to fit spiked tyres for when it gets icy (which my road bike can't do), plus the pedal-assist will remove the sheer dread (and reason to opt for the bus instead) of cycling 10 miles to - or from - work into ferocious winter headwinds.

Of course, it'll also occasionally be my spring/summer bike on the days when strong headwinds are forecast!

Can't wait. Anyone already got one?
 
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goo_mason

Champion barbed-wire hurdler
Location
Leith, Edinburgh
Picked it up on Saturday, but so far have only ridden it home from the shop. I had hoped to be commuting to/from work on it from today, but I'm having trouble getting my insurers to acknowledge my request to add it to my policy and I don't want a to leave a £2.5K bike around at work whilst it's uninsured!

The 10 minute ride back from the shop felt great though - very nippy, even without assist on.

I spent the afternoon with it up on the workstand, swapping the toe-clip pedals for my usual SDP-SLs, fitting lights and a Garmin mount, adding a set of 3rd-party Garmin-compatible speed and cadence sensors, attaching a saddlebag and fitting mudguards.

I couldn't ride it on Sunday as I was out with my parents and my daughter.

I've got a day off on Friday so I'll be taking it out for a decent ride then (unless the insurance is sorted before then and I can start commuting straight away).

More thoughts on the bike as and when I've put a few miles in on it.....
 

goo_mason

Champion barbed-wire hurdler
Location
Leith, Edinburgh
I have a Kryptonite Keeper 12 Long Shackle U-lock and Kryptoflex Bike Lock Cable permanently in the secure bike cage at work, which I've been using on my road bike for the last year. We have the double-decker bike racks in there, which the bike is stored on and locked to. It's accessed via an alpha-numeric keypad, but for the last few months the cage door hasn't been closing properly the lock isn't engaging (even slamming it hard no longer works). I've reported it twice to Property, who claim it's been fixed - but it hasn't been. I've come out to pick up my bike to go home, only to find the cage door open for anyone to walk in and steal the bikes.

After a number of thefts of bikes this year from the company multi-storey car park where the cage is situated, I'm not chancing my new pride and joy without having it covered by insurance.
 

goo_mason

Champion barbed-wire hurdler
Location
Leith, Edinburgh
I finally got the bike insured last Thursday, and took it out for a ride along the seafront at Cramond after I'd done a three mile run earlier that morning. I thought it'd be a good test of tired legs plus a stiff headwind!

Thoughts and learning points so far:

1. Ensure that the battery pack is locked properly into the frame. Mine dropped out within 30 secs of setting out on my first proper ride, and I didn't realise because the sound it made hitting the cobbles outside the flat was the same sound a plastic bottle being run over makes. I thought I'd just run over an empty bottle & thought no more of it. It was only a mile later when I thought I'd power the bike up that I realised with slowly dawning horror why nothing would switch on. A quick feel under the downtube confirmed my fear. There's nothing like a panicky ride back, wondering if any of the frequent buses and cars along the road outside my flat had demolished my £400 battery pack before I'd even got a proper ride on my new bike. Fortunately it was still in the road and hadn't been run over. It just had a few superficial scrapes (removing the matt black paint) and tiny dings.

2. The bike is so much lighter than the eMTBs I've ridden for the day on holiday over the last few years, so most of the time no assistance is required and I was able to turn the power off and ride as normal. Unlike the big Bosch, Yamaha or Shimano Steps drives, there's no resistance or drag from pedalling against the motor when it's switched off or you've exceeded the assistance speed, as it disengages completely.

3. You need to get used to backpedalling where the chainring and chain don't move. It's like having a freehub in the bottom bracket and the loud ratchet-clicking comes from there. It's annnoying when you're giving the chain a quick wipe - I'm used to turning the pedals anticlockwise on my road bike whilst running the chain through a rag!

4. That battery is fast and heavy when it drops out of the frame when you're unlocking it to turn it off. On my first commute to work this morning, I dropped it twice from the frame onto concrete because the autumn full-fingered gloves I was wearing were slipperier than I thought. The poor battery now looks like it comes from a bike that's been ridden for years through the wars, and this is only my 2nd real ride on the bike!

5. The assist works best at a certain cadence; I've not measured it yet, but you can feel when it starts to come in with the power once you hit that rpm with the legs.

6. Smooth pedalling and keeping that cadence going is best - I noticed that if you don't keep the same pressure on the pedals all the way round a pedalling rotation, there's a definite 'clunk' that's louder than I get with lazy pedalling on my road bike. I'm not sure if this is a consequence of the Fazua drive system or if it's just the nature of the bigger resonance chamber of the enlarged downtube amplifying the sound/vibration.

7. Even on the lowest assistance level (green, 'Breeze'), you get a good boost. It was enough to make the strong headwinds vanish without feeling like you weren't still having to make a bit of an effort.

8. Larger tyres make the rides so much smoother and less teeth-rattling than my 23c road tyres!

All in all, so far it's rewarded me with a lovely ride and seems worthy of the investment. I just need to be a hell of a lot more careful with that battery.....
 

Smudge

Veteran
Location
Somerset
I really like the look of this bike. I would be tempted if it was more reasonably priced.
£2.5K is too much.
 

goo_mason

Champion barbed-wire hurdler
Location
Leith, Edinburgh
Yeah, I was lucky that I had the money (many years of living frugally and saving any spare money after being broke for a long, long time following my divorce has left me with a decent pot).

I've been thinking about getting an eBike for about 4 or 5 years, so it's taken me a lot of time to decide to spend that much. However, when you look at the prices of many non-eBikes, they're about the same price for a semi-decent one.

The other thing to look at when you consider the bike cost is the price of the battery, motor, drive system in the BB and even the controller on the bars. A spare battery alone is over £300, the charger is over £100, the control unit on the handlebars is £100, and I dread to think what the motor and BB units would each cost. Even buying a plastic cover for the battery hole in the frame for days you wanted to ride without the battery and motor will set you back £70 - £100). Altogether, they'll be much more expensive than my current road bike was when I got it in 2008 (it was £550 - a Giant SCR2, now a Defy frame with SCR2 components after the frame cracked within warranty and the SCR frame was no longer made).

Chuck in Sram Apex 1 hyraulic disc brakes and levers where the shifters alone are around £180 each, and it all soon adds up. Frame, bars, stem, carbon fork, through-axle disc-compatible wheekset, tyres, saddle etc - none of them cheap either.
 

goo_mason

Champion barbed-wire hurdler
Location
Leith, Edinburgh
Blimey ! I thought having a removable battery was an advantage over the fixed one on my Orbea Gain, however after reading your report above I am not so sure ? Interesting read, thanks. I guess your learning curve was a bit of a crash course.
Yeah, I really thought I was being careful and ended up being cack-handed instead! If I do it one more time, I'm going to see if I can devise some kind of restraining strap & hook that I can attach to both the inside of the frame and the battery casing, so if it drops again through my own stupidity, it doesn't fall to the ground.
 
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TyrannosaurusTreks

TyrannosaurusTreks

Formerly known as Giantbadge
Location
Somerset
Yeah, I really thought I was being careful and ended up being cack-handed instead! If I do it one more time, I'm going to see if I can devise some kind of restraining strap & hook that I can attach to both the inside of the frame and the battery casing, so if it drops again through my own stupidity, it doesn't fall to the ground.
Never had any problems with the giant road e or the trek battery, admittedly I don’t need to remove it very often as I turn off via the controller.
Is your battery tight when it’s in the frame as there is adjustment on the catch.
How about a pillow below when you remove it.😀
 

goo_mason

Champion barbed-wire hurdler
Location
Leith, Edinburgh
Never had any problems with the giant road e or the trek battery, admittedly I don’t need to remove it very often as I turn off via the controller.
Is your battery tight when it’s in the frame as there is adjustment on the catch.
How about a pillow below when you remove it.😀
Nah, just being cack-handed!

I did manage to turn it back on yesterday as I left work without dropping it on the ground, so that's a start. I might have finally mastered the 'hold on to the dropping battery' grip .... :laugh:

I hadn't realised until last night that there's a standby mode where you turn it off on the controller only, and the battery will then turn off after 8hrs of inactivity - so from today I'm not removing it to turn it off/on unless it's shut down by itself after 8hrs; I'm just turning it off at the controller (which puts it into standby).

(I also realised last night that there's a mobile app which links to your bike drive system via bluetooth and gives you all kinds of drive info, stats, mapping and bike computer-like functions. Cool!)
 
Nah, just being cack-handed!
I had same problem with battery first few times, dropped the blasted thing as it was heavier than I thought. Now my system is to unlock battery, pull battery into frame, this I feel releases the tension on the lock, push lock and gently drop the battery on to the front tyre, turn lock and release key, switch on battery, pull battery back into frame until I hear it click home, then push lock to test it wont fall out. Well it works ok for me.
 
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