Le Tour de Scammonden - a lumpy little forum ride from Hebden Bridge. *** Saturday, Oct 21st, 2023? ***

[Sea of vapours]

Re mirrors; this Zefal Spy mirror is very neat, stays in place (unless actually knocked), and it's quite significantly convex so getting the view right when moving along is easy. I'd say it's easier to get it right than wrong in fact.

 

[ColinJ]

I think these adjustable mirrors should come with adjustable endstops so we could get the mirror position right then set the stops to that.

I did think about trying to make my own endstops to limit the range of movement.

 

[Dadam]

A bottom bracket-based motor would certainly help, but I think I would still be struggling on the steepest climbs with a hub motor the way that I am at the moment.

I know we chatted about this on the last ride, but don't necessarily write off hub motors. They vary a lot and some are very powerful. The motor on my Orbea is intended to be "just enough" assistance and is only something like 17nm "real" torque (they quote 44nm as a crank drive equivalent, which is somewhat unhelpful).

I'm in the process of converting my old hybrid to an ebike using a legal rear hub kit from Woosh with a (presumably) more genuine 45nm torque rating. Feedback on the pedelec forum is it has plenty of oomph for steep hills.

 

[ColinJ]

Ah! Yes, I was going on what you told me.

Well, hopefully my muscle-powered climbing isn't quite behind me yet. If I could just shake off this bug I would be attacking the hills again.

Maybe 'tackling' would be a better description - I think my hill-attacking days are probably over. I don’t think that the combination of my damaged lungs and age will allow me to get super-fit now, but I could certainly improve by 50%, say.

I am sure that I will love e-biking when the time comes but I don’t want to get into it yet.

 

[Dadam]

Yes I remember telling you about the sweet spot, as all hub motors are essentially single speed and deliver the best shove around that speed. I was finding I was working really hard on some of your hills even at max assist and I had to keep near the sweet spot or risk getting bogged down on some parts. Now that I know the Orbea's motor is on the weedy side it makes sense. Not a criticism, I think for the style of bike it's fine. I would consider a bigger big cog when I come to change the cassette.

The eMTB is a different beast. There's a couple of off road 20% ramps near me and the bike laughs at them. The bigger challenge is keeping the front wheel down while having enough weight on the rear to keep traction.

Anyway I hope you're back up to the climbing soon.

 

[ColinJ]

The eMTB is a different beast. There's a couple of off road 20% ramps near me and the bike laughs at them.

That would be up to 250 W from the motor and extra from you, so I'm not surprised. When I was younger I used to climb at about 250-300 W. The combination of you and the motor would be significantly more than that.

I have a power crank to fit to my CAADX. Once that has been done I will start using that bike on the Cragg Vale climb to see how low my power output currently is. I would try to nudge it back towards 300 W, though I doubt that I would actually get back to that level, except for very short bursts.

 

[Dadam]

That would be up to 250 W from the motor and extra from you, so I'm not surprised. When I was younger I used to climb at about 250-300 W. The combination of you and the motor would be significantly more than that.

I have a power crank to fit to my CAADX. Once that has been done I will start using that bike on the Cragg Vale climb to see how low my power output currently is. I would try to nudge it back towards 300 W, though I doubt that I would actually get back to that level, except for very short bursts.

It's potentially way more than the 250w, as that 250w is the continuous output rating for the motor, i.e. it will happily run at 250w all day without overheating. It can legally deliver more for shorter periods due to the way the regulations are worded. I think the Bosch motor can do up to 3x that.

 

[ColinJ]

Getting into pro cyclist bursts of power there!

 

[Dadam]

Getting into pro cyclist bursts of power there!

The only way I’ll ever get that kind of power!

 

[Jameshow]

I know we chatted about this on the last ride, but don't necessarily write off hub motors. They vary a lot and some are very powerful. The motor on my Orbea is intended to be "just enough" assistance and is only something like 17nm "real" torque (they quote 44nm as a crank drive equivalent, which is somewhat unhelpful).

I'm in the process of converting my old hybrid to an ebike using a legal rear hub kit from Woosh with a (presumably) more genuine 45nm torque rating. Feedback on the pedelec forum is it has plenty of oomph for steep hills.

Good thing about hub drives is that they save drivetrain wear....

 

[ColinJ]

Good thing about hub drives is that they save drivetrain wear....

I think the biggest cause of such wear is not keeping the drivetrain clean and properly lubed. Even a weak rider can trash a mucky chain in a few rides and that would not be great for sprockets and chainrings either.

 

[ColinJ]

Re mirrors; this Zefal Spy mirror is very neat, stays in place (unless actually knocked), and it's quite significantly convex so getting the view right when moving along is easy. I'd say it's easier to get it right than wrong in fact.

I may end up trying one of those mirrors soon...

I lost the second of my four cheapo mirrors this evening! The mirror reflector doesn’t sit securely enough in its plastic holder. What's more, because of that it can rattle when riding on rough surfaces, such as most UK roads...

I forgot that I had intended to use a layer of Blu Tack inside the mirror to secure the reflector and thereby kill the rattle.

I have one spare mirror here. I will try the Blu Tack bodge on that.

The fourth mirror is on my Devon bike. I will take some Blu Tack down on my next visit and bodge that one too.

As for the adjustment issue... I will try marking the correct position somehow so it is easy to reset to that when unfolding the mirror from its safe storage position.

If I still have problems with them I will either buy another Zefal Spin or try a Spy.

 

[Sea of vapours]

The Spy is pretty cheap; £8 from some places right now. I'm still on my first one after a couple of years use and nothing's ever gone wrong with it, despite incompetently leaning it against things a few times, when it just moves and you move it back. It fell off once and bounced down the road - well, I knocked it off - no damage.

 

[ColinJ]

The Spy is pretty cheap; £8 from some places right now. I'm still on my first one after a couple of years use and nothing's ever gone wrong with it, despite incompetently leaning it against things a few times, when it just moves and you move it back. It fell off once and bounced down the road - well, I knocked it off - no damage.

That isn't what I've seen on the downtube of your bike is it? I remember that as being a long rounded rectangular shape.

Mind you, I don't trust my memory these days... It used to be excellent, but now it's, er, I forget the word... NOT excellent!

 

[Sea of vapours]

No, I've adopted the Spy as I didn't want to have any cable ties on the bike, which the downtube one demanded ....