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I can only think of one explanation: there are common components (like connectors and controllers for example) that weigh the same for each size of battery (since they are weighing the battery as a whole and not just the energy cells). So that "fixed" weight stays the same as you add cells, meaning it becomes a smaller part of the total battery weight - and so the energy density of the battery as a unit increases.
This is the one. 10 speed linkglide for the win. Dirt cheap & super durable. Plus the deore LG mech works with the 11/48 cassette, despite shimano saying 43t max, so a nice short cage, dont even need to use the clutch. The chain is the same as a normal 11 speed, nothing special.Cheap though & change at .5 wear.
Personally I dont understand the need for expensive 12 speed electric foolishness on an emtb.
Also, typically they make all the batteries fit into the same length, so the smaller batteries might not have the cells arranged as optimally as possible, so you have extra casing.
Either way, great to see >250Wh/kg batteries appear, that's basically "free" 20% extra range for the same weight as Bosch.
I have no idea why you would ever fit anything other than the 900Wh though:
KELLYS MAXXPRO 900 Wh → 3.50 kg
KELLYS MAXXPRO 820 Wh → 3.47 kg
KELLYS MAXXPRO 725 Wh → 3.39 kg
Man the Yeti isn't pretty, but the geo and adjustments are 100% what I dream of, shame only them and Crestline have great geo, but such a high cost of entry!
Sorry for double post, I forgot why I came here:
For Ebike drivetrains, while I don't think overall bike weight is that important, running a light drivetrain out back makes a huge difference in ride feel. I run SRAM 11s with an X0 10-42 cassette. It is way lighter than electronic sram stuff and anything shimano makes. Very reliable and cheap to replace (cassette is €250 but lasts over a year).
My ideal ebike drivetrain would be the shimano linkglide 10 speed with the short cage deore derailleur and the xt shifter. I think its the best of all the worlds. The only reason I don't have that is with a family of 5 we have over 7 bikes that are all 12 speed. Its nice to have them all the same so I can keep spares that fit them all.
That said, I haven't really had any issues with the 12 speed stuff on the full power bikes. I just swap deore chains every 500 miles and cassettes every 1000-1500 and they don't really mess up.
a battery consists not only of just cells. there is also the battery managment system which should be the same weight all the time, hence the better ratio on bigger capacities
I honestly typed up a bunch of shit but it was getting too complicated and rambly... this post goes into detail of a few things I was trying to summarize and failing at https://www.emtbforums.com/threads/ebike-battery-pack-energy-density-ta…
TLDR Starts here:
The one thing you cannot beat is packaging. In that, each individual battery has a casing, internal wiring, etc. If you are using lower capacity cells, you have more of this casing/packaging material, per unit capacity (Amp Hour / Watt Hour). The newest/most common cells being used in ebike batteries and cars, are the 5ah, 21700 cells. There are some slightly higher capacity cells out there, giant uses some panasonic 22700 cells that are bespoke to them. I'm not aware of anyone (other than fire hazard cheap chinese bikes) using 18650's any longer.
We have been finding the latest Bosch update is making shimano XT/XTR 12 speed cassettes commit suicide. They groan and creak like crazy.
Put a steel deore cassette on and groan be gone. Steel is real!
Is that an aluminium cassette? I can't imagine that lasting long on an ebike?
Yes, but X0 and XX have a specific coating that make them twice as durable as a regular GX cassette (so roughly same cost per mile). I have been running SRAM 11s on my ebikes since 2018, pretty much always in Turbo, climbing heinous stuff in the alps. Never broken a single chain, and I replace the chain every 6 months and the cassette every 12 months roughly. You need to be very diligent with the chain changes.
I'm on the Bosch with 750w now so maybe I'll change my tune, but my setup is 200g lighter than linkglide 9s (not as bad as I thought), but nearly 500g lighter than most 10-11s versions!
I really like electronic shifting, but am aware of the benefit of reducing weight on rear wheel. If they ever release the Transmission DH, I'll be tempted to throw it on my full power ebike. If it was 9sp, it'd be a no-brainer, but 7sp might make some of the climbs hard even with motor and dropping to a 32t chainring.
Transition just put the Repeater on sale (today?) with a pretty hefty discount. The 1st version was updated in less then 2 years and its been 2 years since V2 came out. Any word of a V3?
Anyone running Microshift 10 or 11 speed on their ebike?
I've got 500km on my RM Instinct SL C90 now and I've been having a blast on this thing. I wasn't sure at first if adding an E bike was the right move for me, but I like having a garage full of bikes anyway. I did put about 200km on a GASGAS Enduro 3.0 before getting this bike, getting my feet wet in the Emtb world.
Just did the update from Rocky as well, and I have been having such a blast on this bike, it's incredible to me. I still put more miles on my Analog bike, but I take the instinct out at least once a week now. It's also a great buddy bike, I've had two friends that haven't ridden in recent years come out, I ride Analog while they ride this and it helps bridge the gap between us and insure they have fun.
I was never a hater, and now that I've got this in the garage I don't think I'll ever not have one, especially for the type of riding I do.
This thing is such a hoot to ride. What was the recent update from Rocky?
A hoot indeed, I was drooling over it after my first ride haha.
"With the new firmware update, the Instinct Powerplay SL’s motor jumps from 65 Nm / 550 W to a strong 75 Nm and up to 700 W peak power"
Here's a link to what they released on their site and a Insta screenshot:
Firmware Update Rocky Mountain Instinct Powerplay SL
Wow! That’s huge. I hope dyname can clean up their motors and get into some other frames
75Nm was what the E8000 had…in that first Norco Range VLT. It was enough for that beast, seems sick for a lighter bike
Yah, I love that RM Instinct SL Powerplay. I think does a lot of things right and the sales right now are huge. If they offered a frame only CF mullet (BC edition) with a short crankset I would have bought it for sure, but I was going to need so many changes to get where I wanted to be at.
yep, long story but the bike in question had mechanical XTR mech and XTR cassette
Then swapped to new electronic XTR mech, all the sudden groans galore
The solution after much troubleshooting was Digi Mech, Deore Cassette, the owner couldn't go back to cable shifting after running the new stuff lol.
Has anyone been paying attention to the Sodium battery advances out east in China? Similar power density, lower cost, and way lower risk of combustion will be huge for e-bikes. I could picture DJI, a Chinese company, being the first on these in the mountain bike world
I've ridden full power rigs between 22 to 25 kg and 25 feels definitely too heavy and sluggish for me. Yeah it's OK in straight rough sections but that's it. Everywhere else it feels worse than a lighter bike and I'm not sure it feels better if we're talking about otherwise similar bikes.
I can also compare my Lego Gen3 with the 500 vs the 700 battery and like the feel with the smaller batter although the difference is only 800-900g I believe.
I also feel like the higher center of gravity with the heavier battery makes the handling of the bike worse as in small corrections of leaning the bike over to not run out of trail is harder and less intuitive. Like the point of no return comes faster where I need to basically jump off the bike. Therefore I remove the small frame bag in the top of the frame triangle with a tube and tools that weighs about 400-500g which I can ride with the smaller battery.
Weirdly enough it's better to carry it in the backpack.
I'd agree that where the weight is makes a noticeable difference. For backcountry rides where I carry more emergency crap than I would for a local ride, I prefer to carry it in my hydration vest as opposed to strapped to the bike. I'd rather have the weight on my core (stronger) vs on something I have to throw around with my arms. Adding 100g of weight on the front tire I can feel vs 100g of cranks is imperceptible. I've owned a Levo gen3 that was ~52 lbs and exhausting to ride in a playful fashion (popping doubles etc.), then went to a 44 lb "SL" bike that felt easy, and now have a ~47 lb full power that takes more effort but I can still ride it like I want to. As soon as I add on the 3 lb range extender, that extra weight up high adds up over the course of a full battery ride.
Yeah, I rarely ride acoustic bikes these days but when I do the playfulness and jumping/bunny hopping ability is miles better. And I'm a bad jumper so a lighter bike improves my jumping/manual/bunny hop abilities a lot. On a 25 kg bike it feels very exhausting getting it to do anything different than straightlining stuff and staying calm. I think riding a heavy bike well requires the rider to be physically strong and be a very good rider.
I never really understood the constant need for range extenders vs just having a bigger internal battery.
Yes, you get more mileage, but the added weight penalty, and more importantly, the fact that that weight sits (most of the time) in front and above the bike's CoG just make them a non-starter for me. For having tried one a bit on my full power ebike, I hated it. It made the front end of the bike much heavier and harder to manage, while also making things weird the second the wheels were off the ground. I much prefer simply taking the weight hit of a larger battery, manage power consumption a little if the plan is an epic ride, and not have it drastically change the bike's ride feel as much.
duh, you only ride up with the RE on, else it lives in the backpack
I get what you're saying, but arguably the weight of a range extender is a little bit lower and more centered between the wheels when mounted to water bottle bosses compared to stacking the weight on the top of the downtube (by the headset), which is what just making the main battery bigger would do.
This caught my eye on the Intense website. Looks sweet! Anyone have any intel ?
Custom Mountain Bike 3D Configuration Tool – INTENSE LLC
How’s the range been after the latest update? I really like what RM did with that one. My first eMTB was a YT Decoy it was decent at the time but just too heavy for me (around 23 kg). I ended up selling it and moving to a Shuttle SL, which felt like a whole different level compared to the Decoy.
I know some people aren’t big fans of the Fazua system, but I always liked how natural it felt. My only real complaint was the range, so I’m curious what kind of numbers you’re getting with the Instinct now. That power increase from the update definitely helps close the gap with the full-power bikes.
I’m on a Shuttle AM (Bosch Gen 4) now it’s great, but I’m still looking for something under 20 kg. I find the lighter eMTBs feel much closer to riding an analog bike.
Gonna guess this is not folks here's idea of the perfect ebike (though they will let you spend $200 to slap on some Kenda's with the "offroad" package), but Rivian spin-off "ALSO" announced their thing today: TM-B – ALSO
Apparently features in-house suspension, anti-lock brakes, and (most interestingly to me) a super unique mid drive motor system. From what they've released so far, there is no gearbox or mechanical connection to the cranks whatsoever. The cranks drive a motor, while the main motor direct drives the rear wheel at whatever it guesses feels about right. Presumably this also means that the cranks do pretty much nothing when the battery dies (or the bike is "locked"). No idea if the execution is any good, but it's a seriously novel way to sidestep needing a traditional derailleur or even a gearbox. Sadly, sounds like they locked it up with a patent -- though I haven't looked for it.
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