treborfifty8 wrote:A 200 watt hub motor with six average gears doesn't get up hills where i live i have to get off and walk it up
If the government was serious about e bikes they would allow bigger motors and could then tax you with a registration fee
I just bought this bike as an experiment and discovered how lame they are.
Not only don't climb hills they retard your effort to ride faster than about 25 kph as you end up pushing against the motor
ive had this ebike 3 days and im returning it as a it is next to useless.
Back to my road bike at least i can go faster than 25 kph on it.
Also something noone has mentioned they warn you not to ride Ebikes in the rain thats great if you live in Melboune
and get caught in a sudden downpour.
Hi Treborfifty8
Sorry to hear about your experience. Would you care to advise other readers of this forum the brand of bike you tried so that they may benefit from your experience? I reckon that there must be something wrong with your bike. On mine, I can go up the steepest hills (with assistance) in the middle front chainring and third lowest rear chainring (2,3 on the rapidfire shifters). Without assistance I'd be in the lowest gear on these hills.
Let's troubleshoot your problems:
It sounds as if you are a strong cyclist and found that the gear range on the six speed (?Nexus?) bike was insufficient for you to climb a hill. That sounds similar to my experience when I hired two Ezeebikes. As an experiment my brother and I tried to ride them up a really steep hill (Sydney Rd, Manly) without assist. It was really hard: a combination of heavy weight, high rolling resistance tyres and insufficiently low gear. With the motor assistance, it was no problem.
Is it a pedalec bike? They might not have told you but the power assistance is determined by how fast you rotate the pedals. So if you try climbing the hill in too high a gear you won't get full power assist. With these bikes it's best to hit hills at speed in a low gear so that you can spin the pedals really fast all the way up. Starting from still up a hill on a pedalec is a pain because you don't get full assist from the start.
Being a strong cyclist, you can out pedal the bike over 25kph. If it's a good bike it should have a no-resistance freewheel in the motor so above 25kph you just cut the throttle and pedal along to your heart's content. At this point you have to fight against the additional weight and rolling resistance of the bike so it's probably harder than your road bike for that reason. Perhaps your motor doesn't have a good free wheel. Try lifting the wheel off the ground a spinning it. Does it spin without resistance. If the motor is designed for regen. it will offer resistance (yuk).
If you are able to return your bike, I would suggest that you go to EVS in Knoxfield and ask to try Scott's converted Jamis Coda Sport. He's got a 200W motor designed for a 20" wheel laced into his 700c wheel. This means that it has a higher top end speed at about 35kph (and less assistance on hills). The Jamis Coda Sport is a lightish flat bar roadie with 27 speeds so even at 22kg (bike + ebike kit) you would be able to ride it up any hill without motor assistance. I would think that this combination would probably be the best for a strong cyclist like yourself.
Here's their website:
www.evehicle.com.au
Watch this video for a review of the performance of a converted road bike going up the 1in20 (5%) hill. I think that it's a Kona from memory.
http://youtu.be/qNjFvL4uzO4
Hope that helps.
Cachexian.