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The non rattling motor is nice but apparently that doesn't matter to most people.
I thought they might work on the sx. Stop the rattle, make it 75-80nm, trim little bits of weight, fast charger and lighter battery tech. Seperate them selves from the needless, at this point, power wars
I would love to see them make something to compete with TQ. The SX is great but kinda pointless in my opinion. Any SX bike, by the time you add a range extender (which is almost mandatory with the 400 battery) is pretty damn close in weight to the CX and 600 battery. I originally said it would be awesome to have a SX bike with a 600, but it just doesn't make sense. Give me a 60nm, 350-400 watt motor that's actually light. Right now there's really no competition for TQ in that market.
The SX rattles, is inefficient & the battery is a bit small.
The F60 is superior and the TQ60 is FAR superior. Heck even the RM SL motor is a better package in my estimation.
Soon we'll have the Maxon Air S in a similarly sized package.
Quite a few people seem to like the tq. Are they durable? Rebuildable? Are parts available if need be?
This Maxon air motor is possibly gonna be less weight vs the Tq 60?
It’s slim pickins when looking for a lightweight emtb with dual 29 wheels. MTE or fuel + really all there is.
I put just under 1000 miles on an EXe HPR50 before the spindle snapped. It happened little bit out of the warranty period but Trek begrudgingly sent a replacement motor.
I still have the old motor and I’ve been meaning to take it apart to see how hard a hypothetical spindle swap would be.
Thats decent. I remember snapped chainstays were a thing with trek a number of years ago and it could be a pain getting warrantee despite it being relativdly common. Ill take that as a good sign
But those are great fantastic choices in bikes.
They are not super reliable. The Bosch Gen5 is the motor to buy to optimize reliability and was a significant factor in my own selection of one.
None of the motors are factory supported for out of warranty rebuilds in the US, my current understanding. I recently asked Bosch about it, and they only handle warranty repairs at the service centers. There are a few independent shops that will work on motors.
Yes im aware of bosch and yamaha having a number of spots that can rebuild them. Bosch and yanaha parts seem to be readily available. I'm not sure on any others
I am in the process of selling my eeb and back to riding actual bikes exclusively, so decided to share a rant without any goal or much reason.
Context: young dad, mid 30s, 25 years riding (first and bigger part of them on BMX street/dirt). Moved closer to Alps last year, got jealous of people passing me on the ups and doing triple of my downs. I patiently test-rode on trails literally dozen of eebs, decided on a mid-power option because it still provided a rather slow climbing speed, so the brain could switch off, get bored and enjoy nature around. Riding full power seemed fun but not mind-clearing at all. Making a ride easier while preserving the same/sane experience was the goal. Which I later realized was delusional.
New e-bike day! Finally I’m free to ride more and better. Arriving at work without a need for a shower afterwards – awesome. Spending that little amount of precious time riding only one bike everywhere everyday – cool. Attempting a usual yearly enduro race without suffering – nice… I guess. Trying to ride without battery (removable) and realizing “why even bother” – slightly concerning. Forgetting to charge battery thus driving to work – annoying. Riding along with a mate in a much better shape who has no motor and climbs almost at the same speed – final call. I did rode more miles but remained at worst overall shape ever. Theoretically I got a bit faster on descents yet it never stood out as an overwhelming or justifying accomplishment.
Perhaps for some/many eebs do help get their fitness back. I personally know people with disabilities for whom eebs is such an amazing, efficient tool. But in my case all efficiency was on a side of the desperate industry (which I used to work at myself) to get some cash from a customer who would otherwise buy a new bike once the current one falls apart. I was bombarded with “you but better” marketing like there are no downsides at all, pure joy. And I’m professionally a marketer myself, no less. I must admit that I did catch the hype and even got some mates to join the e-side in the meantime. Guilty as charged (pun intended). Luckily their experience has been positive so far, which makes me much less bitter.
Eventually I found out that motor is not an enhancement, it is an imitation of bike riding. Disclaimer: FOR ME.
To end this rant on a positive note, I’ve been enjoying riding actual bikes more than ever. Lighter, nimbler, slower in some cases, while faster in others, harder on my body, better for my body. I wouldn’t discourage anybody to try an e-bike out. Maybe it will work out just fine. But do mind that in a long run it’s a very different game compared to mountain biking, especially if you go “full time” with it. Now I’m off for an actual bike ride
The smoking deal right now is on the Pivot Shuttle SL. Its marked down significantly and a really good deal on a hell of a bike.
Fazua being the elephant in the room there
Fazua doesn't really bother me anymore. I have over 700 miles on mine and its still ticking. It did arrive dead out of the box and in the US, QBP handles the service and they are wonderful. I don't think they are as bad as they used to be.
Plus, power to weight wise they are really hard to beat. I would love for a manufacture to work on making a motor that is the size and weight of the Fazua that would make 80-85nm instead of working on making a million-nm motor.
EU has right to repair law going into effect July. I believe any motor sold new in the EU at that point requires repair parts for 7-10yr. So theoretically there will be parts out there somewhere in the world, hopefully parts trickle down to US.
E-bikes have always been about gonzo downhill madness for me and my crew. Nothing mellow about em!
Great that you enjoy them! A crew is a big deal for sure and social aspect of bike riding can be as important as the activity itself.
Without any kind of fast charging available the Bosch SX system paired with the 400wh is not making any possible sense, just go CX / 600wh and detune to get better range at this point.
TQ HPR60 with the 580wh is ahead of the whole SL segment, we need more bikes with this system.
Yeah, I still really like my Nebo Peak with the Ride60 drive unit. Mine started making a grinding noise pretty early on, but it was warrantied and replaced before it ever died. The replacement drive unit hasn't had any issues. I wish I had the newer, slightly larger battery. But I can get ~20 miles and 3,500' without being too conservative on assist.
I assumed Ride60 was a dead platform, but I heard there's at least one more new eMTB coming out with it.
Is the sx rhat bad with power consumption? I still have my 55lb 70nm/e8000 equipped yt decoy with the 540w battery and it's enough battery half the time and i thought bosch was almost 40% more efficient in all the range tests ive seen. I figured a 45ish lb bike with the sx and a 400w battery and the 250w range extender option would cover everything except the occasional big alpine day or longer day of tech climbing. I do crawl home in eco more than i'd like but my 6yr old battery prob iant the freshest
Maxon AirS
bosch updates - https://www.vitalmtb.com/forums/hub/bosch-cx-goes-120nm-600-support-mor…
That new fast charger is pretty compact. Im not sure i'd need the extra power that often but a fast charger adds some nice options
I bought an EXe when they first came out and bought a second battery at the same time. Back then, you could purchase a second battery for a couple hundred dollars more than the range extender. They weren't really anticipating people doing this. You had to separately buy all the brackets to attach to the battery to attach it to the frame. I think the pricing spread has moved substantially.
If you ride places where it's common to cruise back by the trailhead during the ride, this setup is amazing. I also picked up a power station on black Friday for $200, so I can ride through one battery and then recharge it while I ride through the second battery, which allows me to ride through three batteries without any downtime. I am can run lots of assist (for that bike), and I'm cooked long before I run out of battery. The whole time I'm riding something that feels very, very much like a real bike. I want my ebike to feel almost like a real bike, but turn nearly 50-year-old me into really fit, 21-year old me, and that's the experience I get.
I don't think that's where the industry is headed, but I do think there is a substantial minority that want that bike/experience.
When it comes to e-bikes, I can only speak from my own experience—and it’s been entirely positive. I’ve been riding a Pivot Shuttle LT as a full-power e-bike for 1.5 years now, and it’s also my first e-bike. Before that, I always rode heavy enduro bikes in the 17–18 kg range.
I don’t miss the days of having to pedal those 17–18 kg bikes up 1,000–1,500 meters of elevation, even though my fitness level is quite good. Now I enjoy my e-bike rides much more, as I can gain elevation more easily and quickly.
However, my next bike will probably be an SL model, because you do start to feel the 24 kg weight as a disadvantage in tight and technical terrain. My fitness hasn’t changed in my case. That said, I still have two non-electric bikes (an XC and a gravel bike) that I ride regularly—and I wouldn’t want to give those up either.
I think my sight is 23ish with dh casing/cushcore/800wh/coil rear/38 and the only place I notice the weight is jumping. And overall my upper body gets more sore but that might just be because of more laps.
I mostly notice extra weight when popping off of stuff that isn’t intended as a jump, like gapping off a root etc. For my straight air “style” of jumping I don’t feel a real difference on proper built jumps unless I’m trying to do a nose bonk or yank the front up higher.
Something i noticed in the video report from bosch - When they release the 12A charger the Flow app will be able to control max charge state such as 40-80% etc - for me this is huge, as i do alot of quick local rides and get several quick late night laps over a week without recharging and id rather not leave it at 100% when i do a recharge.(ie ill ride 4 nights in a row and then not ride for a few days due to whatever reasons)
Anther note is Bosch said The 12A charge current is well below the threshold for their batteries and implied that leaving at 100% is worse, It was mentioned the battery will not show any degradation from the fast charging over its current life cycle
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