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The industry is trying to push the SL emtb sector in a big way right now, which is cool, but to expect actual XC parts to withstand the stresses of a motor isn't realistic. I think we'll see a correction, probably with an emphasis on durable drivetrain parts, and find weight savings elsewhere as the SL bikes mature.
saw this site today and they have a handlebar display thing that looks a lot like the mclaren one. assuming same company?
https://nplusbikes.com/pages/technology-bikes
Or simply try to think when shifting with the additional power of a motor. Shifting over the whole cassette in boost on the bottom of a steep ascent while being a heavy rider might not be the smartest idea. I avoid shifting in boost or even trail mode and never broke a chain on the ebike. The shimano aluminium sprokets I mainly use wear out too quick tho.
I've had a Heckler SL a couple months now, and just put a Vivid on it a couple weeks ago. I think it made the biggest difference on high speed chatter. The stock Super Deluxe with HBO had a good tune and managed its travel well, especially bigger hits, but tended to skip over smaller stuff. The Vivid's Touchdown (open damping on first bit of travel) makes the initial travel way more coil-like.
Of course! I think anybody who’s been riding a reasonable amount of time knows to avoid shifting under power, or to let off a little bit before shifting. I’m talking about analog bikes here…
Honestly, those kinds of breakages could even happen to most Ebikes in Eco mode as well. They still put off an impressive amount of power. The biggest thing though is dealing with crummy or rusty cable housings, stretched cables, and other things that could cause a misshift. It’s minimized with T-Type.
I didn’t want an electric drivetrain when I was shopping for a bike, but knowing that it protects my chain other components is a nice plus.
Going from an SLX to XTR chain has made a big difference in performance of my drivetrain. I'm going to get a race specific XTR Chain also and hope she holds together through this 4 race series. Test laps today and I think I got the Bosch assist modes I need for the race figured out to go as fast as I can and not explode the drivetrain. :-)
Hopefully just using XTR chains is the long term solution and I don't have to do a complete drivetrain swap. If I do it will be 10 speed XT I'm pretty sure, already have the cassette and mech. Just need hub body and a shifter. Thinking one of their XT Touring shifters that tells you what gear you're in may be the cats pajamas.
Another thought: I thought flip chips were a gimmick, but I gained .7mph avg on my test loop in the high setting and definitely felt more comfortable in very tight turns. Pretty neato.
Curious to hear how other people custom tune their motor settings. There are infinite factors that come to play when it comes to matching or comparing one brand’s power output to another, (motor power, rider weight, tire selection etc.), but I thought it would be cool to catalogue different riders’ settings here and talk about how the different modes feel and how they are used.
I have my Rocky Altitude Power Play set at full torque for all settings but differing power outputs: eco at 65, trail at 75, trail+ at 85, and ludicrous at 100. I mostly ride in eco as it seems to be equal to the shimano ep8 trail power that my friends ride. Since the motor has so much torque, I rarely find myself bumping up the power because I need to—only in the steepest climbing scenarios. It seems like a juiced up eco strikes a good power to range balance for me at 150 pounds.
On my Norco Fluid VLT, eco (green)is 0 (factory setting), trail (blue) is full torque and +3, emtb (purple) is +3 and full torque, and turbo (red) is +5 and all other settings boosted.
When riding alone or other mid-powered bikes, blue does the trick. It has enough pep and range to keep momentum moving up all but the steepest sustained pitches. If I’m tired or trying to keep up with full-powered bikes, or the climb is wicked steep, I’ll pop it into purple emtb mode. I don’t have the emtb settings maxed out in order to extend battery range since it feels plenty powerful as is. The difference between emtb and turbo is only felt after a handful of pedal strokes when the power really takes off. I haven’t ridden completely in turbo for an entire ride, but I imagine the range would suffer quite a bit—probably in the 10-12 mile range in steep terrain. I’ve managed to get 20 miles of range when using a combo of eco, trail, and emtb on 2000+ feet of climbing.
I ride a Gen 2 Turbo Levo and found that life got better once I increased my Trail setting to max out at 80. The stock Trail setting felt a bit underpowered on tougher climbs while Turbo made things too easy and was wasteful if I wasn't exhausted. Trail at 80 seems to be the sweet spot for me to grind out most of the difficult climbs and save the Turbo for the most nonsensical stuff. My buddy doesn't have a power range for his settings, just sets the high/low to the same max number, but he's also pretty light and can get away with trying silly stuff like that.
I'm a very heavy guy at about 235lbs geared up and the hills here in Korea are stupid steep so my settings can be a bit off from the "norm". Screw my buddy that weighs 80lbs less than me! Mid-power bikes are very unpopular here. The first-generation Levo/Kenevo SL's sold out quickly but ended up on the second-hand market just as fast. As great as the Gen 2's are, they just can't climb some stuff with even the fittest of riders.
DJI Avimox e-bike motor coming july 3 at eurobike
Would be the first booth i'd see at Eurobike, pretty impressive they have come out with a bike and motor!
Subscribing. Love the thread title lol
Looks like its actually happening
I just want the core 4 Decoy 29 to come back into stock... if it isn't and this is a "better" replacement I have my money in hand!
Im guessing it will be a light version with similar travel of the core 29. That seems to be tge popular thing to do.Hopefully it can be either mx or full 9er if so . I prefer mx with emtb's to offset the added weight moving the bike around corners and jumps.
I'd like an sl 44-46lb system in a long travel 180/190 and 150/160 and a full fat/full power current mx 165/170
I don't know if there's a market for light and long travel. Most guys in the 170mm+ crowd I've talked to just want to smash the trails all day and the Taco stand all night. Overall weight means little to them. Light, short travel (150mm +/-) seems logical but from what I've been picking up as I learn about the e-market is with current, commonly available tech most "light" full power options means scaled down battery capacity or the flip side, a light motor that's half the power of full fat. Obviously I'm leaving out nuance but if I want to "live uncaged," I want all the power! I'm thinking the big change is the power/battery supplier. Full power Bosch since that has some of the best power to weight ratio or the joker card is full SRAM. Maybe a full power DH bike! We'll see soon I guess.....
Ya im with them on that the 155-175r/170-180f full power big battery do it all in a pinch.
Im talking longer travel and a triple clamp in the mid 40lb range. Basically a dh/park bike with a lighter motor and smallish battery and extender capable. Spin up fireroads for dh trails, shuttle and lift laps. Im ok smashing my 55+lb decoy (165/180 ) around a bike park but in a perfect world 46-47lb is now possible and i dont need the full power big battery for bike park and fireroad climbs. As always n+1. 3 eeb quiver ftw/goes to buy lotto ticket
Going to test some new ebike cranks this week, a prototype 150mm crank from a local company.
Should be interesting, I've never tried anything that short before.
I think the full power, mid 40 pound big travel bikes are the future and not far off.
Thats the dream. Nothing left to do after that. Just go smash them
I bought some 160 mirandas a few yrs ago and have been thinking 150/155 now. Those cranks youre testing look pretty sweet. It'd be good to hear your feedback on those after your test. Get the deets on them
I had 150 Miranda's, they were OK while they remained straight.
At first it feels like you are riding a kids bike, you literally can pedal while bombing a downhill track, the clearance is crazy!
I heard of someone else bending their miranda 150's as well. My 160's are still straight after many hard rock strikes and landings gone wrong. I'm wondering if we have different models of mirandas?
Hopefully YT switches to bosch Or could be good option to go DJI.
Shimano motor is still behind even with its 'race' updates...
It's a shame, The new Merida's ride so well but stuck with shimano so havnt purchased one.
Currently on a Reign with the yamaha pwx3 Syncdrive Pro, while it doesnt have the outright top HP the bosch has it still makes the shimano look silly.
New Decoy is a bit of a let down to me. I totally understand the desire to fill the gap between SL and full power, but the middle ground leads to a bike that's ok for most things and not great at any one thing. Either blow peoples minds and go full DH sled with that motor/battery set up, or all mountain and make it closer to 40lbs. For one the Propain Sresh is full power at the same weight as the Decoy SN. Also, there's always a lot of mixed feedback around the quality of battery/motor manufactures but Fazua usually seems to catch the most flak.
Edit: https://ebike-mtb.com/en/yt-decoy-sn-2024-review/
Counter opinion: I weigh ~160 lbs without gear, and previously owned a Levo built up with burly components but still tried to make it light. It was 52 lbs with pedals. That thing was a pig to wrestle around in tight fast corners or to get airborne off smaller rollers. All it wanted to do was monster truck. I sold it and got a Heckler SL which I've also built up similarly (Zeb, Vivid, DH tires) and it's 44ish lbs. It's way more playful and handles tight stuff way better. Those 8 lbs make a big difference when you don't weigh 200 lbs. I've actually come to prefer how my HSL tracks compared to my Nomad because it tracks so well, but also is easy to load up and pop. I wouldn't say no if you offered me a chance to make 2 lbs disappear and keep the exact same components, but it rides really, really well as it is.
Yep, don't underestimate those "few" extra pounds... I wrote something very similar in the tech rumors thread (I'll probably be tarred and feathered now for derailing it haha despite this "not derailment" thread existing):
To me, there's a big difference between 45 and 50 lbs in terms of how the bike feels on the trail, and in life in general. The 45 lbs bike I just spent two days on really did have me forgetting I was on an e-bike at times. Even hoisting the thing up onto a lift is "OK" (granted, I'm not a small dude and even though I'm old, the Viking genes are still going strong :-) ). A couple of months ago I spent two days riding a 50 lbs Turbo Levo, and although for general "shredding" that's a very fun and planted ride, I definitely noticed the extra heft. Popping the bike around on smaller features, moving it around in the air, all those little things feel a bit sluggish with that extra battery and motor weight.
As for the builds...yeah, a "real" enduro build will certainly add up to some weight. There's a 350 gram difference between a Fox 36 and a 38, just for starters. If you're gonna actually smash into stuff, you're gonna need real wheels and tires. Of course an "SL" e-bike with 140 mm of travel, a Fox 34 and flimsy trail casings, a 350 wh battery and a 50 nm motor will be significantly lighter, but let's not kid ourselves - it's not an enduro bike even if you can still point it down some rowdy stuff. To me, it's interesting that most of the Super Light e-bikes tend to be actual trail bikes, whereas the full-power ones are the proper enduro bikes. Because the manufacturers are either racing to make the "lightest one" or the one with the most power for climbing. Going forward, maybe we'll start to see bikes divided into 4 quadrants, defined on the one axis by type of riding, and the other by motor size/type.
With emtb i dont want anything under 43ish lbs and probably 10ish mm more travel than the comparable acoustic bike in that category.
With the next gen bosch cx having the same mount pattern as the sx id like to see brands have 2 emtb's with an option of cx or sx, slim battery sold seperately in 5,6,700 size all extender compatible. Motors should be as ez to swap as a battery or a wheel with wiring harness quick connects and motor thru axles. One bike would be a 150-155r frame and one would be 175-180r thats triple clamp compatible(boxxer is only 200g more that a zeb or 100 more than a 38).
Some days i want the full power huge battery for big alpine routes, some days its a quick rip on tight xc trails on a light small battery or longer w the other battery options, then a lot of days spinning the big travel bike up logging roads to dh trails , or shuttles or lifts and the small battery light motor would be perfect keeping the long travel bike under 50. I'd get one bike with the cx and one with the sx.
I guess manufactures could have the same frame do all tgat as well to save manufacting cost and keep the price more reasonable
This low weight Ebike conversation has me laughing in Norco Range.
haha agree... 57 lbs Kenevo from a few years ago (hence proto 38mm boxxer). I broke everything drivetrain wise on this- cassette, hub, derailleur, chain etc. Found an old EX8 kit- that finally lasted.
I have ridden dirt bikes in the past, so this felt like a nice in-between. Definitely didn't ride like a normal MTB.
yep my range is 30kg, I'm a pretty big tall strong lad and it's too heavy.
Bunnyhopping something the size of a curb takes incredible effort. I can literally feel my back and tricep muscles hurt.
My old Merida E160 was around 23kg and that was fantastic. Full power but external battery.
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