Barrettscv 

The Specialized Vado SL 5.0 fits this criteria except power assist drops out between 26 and 28 mph (45 km/hour) in the US.

BCAC

That seems like a great plan.

Don’t mind the DH’s that can’t see beyond their own preferences.

350htrr

But there IS an in-between, IMO... IF... One ride's the E-Assist bike as it was meant to be ridden, as an assist...

I ride it about 10% no assist, 80% level 1 assist at 30%, and 10% level 2, 3, at 75% - 150% assist, it works out to about...

240 Km under 100% my own power...
2,160 Km with 30% assist...
240 Km with 75% -150% assist...

That is equal to riding the bike 1752 Km Per year, under my own power, compared to only riding the bike for 400Km under my own power Per year, if my math is correct... Why am I riding the bike more? Because it is way more fun...

Edit; Oh, I actually pedal as hard as one would need to on level ground when I go down hills... Why? Because I have a re-gen system, where I want to make power to use on the next hill going up, sometimes I up the re-gen to the point where I almost need to stand, that is how much resistance it can make, but most times I just pedal normally...

donheff

Good for you. I am not quite ready to buy but keep lurking like you did. My criteria match your to a T. The Vado you bought would be a good possibility but I have a question about the battery in these sleek machines. I live in DC and get a few moths of cold, including stretches in the teens and twenties. I have read that ebike batteries will deteriorate in the cold. My DC town house is does not make it reasonable to bring the bike indoors so it would stay in the garage. Do you know if the battery/cold concerns are a real issue? If so, is the battery difficult to extract? It doesn't look like you could just pop it out and take it in the house.

Barrettscv 

Battery care is critical on an E-bike and I'm sure replacing the battery is costly. The Vado owners manual requires the the bike to only be used from -4f to +140f. I don't think it's possible to damage the battery from use in the cold weather temperature range you describe. However, some loss of range should be expected in sub-freezing weather. So the battery is probably not going to be damaged by riding the E-bike in cold weather, but the range provided by a fully charged battery could be reduced. This is typical of hybrid or electric cars and probably applies to an E-bike as well.

Hot weather provides more of a risk of damage to the battery than cold weather. The manual alerts the owner not to store the bike above 95f. This implies that the bike needs to be stored in a climate controlled space during the summer, if temperatures get above moderate levels. Even resting the bike outdoors in the sun on a very hot day should be avoided, I assume. I plan to treat the bike like my cell phone in hot weather.

There is a warning not to allow the battery to discharge during long periods of storage and to fully charge the battery every three months.

The battery is difficult to remove. The motor assembly must be removed first and the battery can then be removed through the area that normally houses the motor assembly. I'm sure that doing so voids the warranty unless an authorized dealer does the work.


Let me know if you have other questions.

donheff

That’s a better range than I expected. Maybe I don’t need to be as concerned as I thought.

rm -rf

Good rules. But the speed cutoff 32 kph / 20 mph wouldn't work well when riding along with non-e road bike riders. It's not that my small groups are blasting along at 23 mph on the flats, but it's not unusual to be pedaling on very shallow downhills at 25+ mph -- my favorite (but rare) downhills.

I ride the local bikeshare e-bikes, which have a sharp cutoff at 17 mph due to the 3-speed gearing and a sensor that boosts the assist at low cadences only. 16 mph: easy cruising. 18 mph: a big pedaling effort on this heavy, slow bike! That works great for a casual rider bike share program. No need to go faster, and it's a lot safer.

I am concerned that e-bike riders might start zooming too fast on paved bike trails. But an enforced 20 mph speed limit for all riders would help.

350htrr

Yes, the sharp cut off kind of sucks... BUT, there are, E-Assist bikes out there that start to lower the assist the faster you go, so I would not be against an E Assist going 25 miles/Hr, with lets say 10-20% assist only, even tho one may have the setting on as high as possible... The present E-Bike rules allow for full power up to 27MPH.? 750 watts with a throttle, and even I am against that type of E-Bike being considered a bicycle...

JanMM

My guess was that the battery is in the downtube and would be removed through where the motor is!
I've enjoyed riding with my wife while she rides her Trek Verve+ for the last year and a half. Not nearly as sporty/fast as yours - about 45 pounds hybrid style class 1 e-bike.
No interest in an E-assist on my part now but who knows in the future...........Better chance of an e-assist than a motorcycle, though. (Too many motorcycle pics in this thread! )

unterhausen

Posting motorcycle pics in here is trolling and will be treated as such.
Please take this into consideration while drafting your future posts.

cb400bill

Thread moved form 50+ to E-Bikes.

Leisesturm

You aren't kidding. I'm a musician (pipe organ) and the music the French compose, the keys they compose in, creesh, they are pretty much the only ones who can play any of it well!

Leisesturm

Honestly, mention e-assist and people just go nuts. I don't currently have an e-assisted bike but without any motor at all and without trying too hard I can sprint to 25mph (@61y.o.) to catch a stale green light. Why shouldn't someone with e-assist be able to do the same thing?! The 20mph limit was never meant to be a hard cut-off of SPEED. It is a hard cut-off of assist! If you can go faster than 20mph, more power to you, just know that the motor won't be providing anymore assist to you once you go over that. But now we have a situation where just because there is a big honking battery pack (which may well be dead) on a downtube the rider of the e-bike will get h8 from the h8ers who assume that he is just sitting there and the motor is doing all the work. What if it is? You're not his/her bossy mom. Live and let live. I live in a pretty bike dense part of the country and I can't say that I see hordes of e-bikes terrorizing the citizenry. I can't really say I see many e-bikes at all, actually. I'm sure the price of them puts most people right off. On a trail, ANY bike is a nuisance. Yes. I said that. I don't think bikes and peds belong on the same trails! But I really don't think on a trail it makes any difference whether the bike that passed you was powered or not!

fooferdoggie 

From what I have seen most of the e bikes I see are the lower end hub drive fat tire bikes. Most riders See are not working too hard. but I do see some good mid drives and people are actually peddling them. my wife and I on our e tandem we crows around 18.5 mph right about where the motor cuts off. had one guy on a rad using only a throttle could not quit pass us he had to start peddling to get that little bit more. then once ahead of us he had to keep peddling off and on to keep ahead of us. I almost feel sorry for him I ride a e bike so I can keep my speed up even on days I feel like crap because of my heath issues. but I can work harder on days I feel better. Just just makes riding fun so fun that between my commuter e bike and our e tandem we just got in June I got 9000 miles in. during the summer that was 30+ miles a day 7 days week. I ride everywhere and with the e tandem my wife who is blind now goes everywhere to never have to ride the bus anymore.

andychrist

While it is generally okay to store Li-ion batteries in the cold, they should never be charged when anywhere near freezing and ideal range is between 60º-80ºF. So if you’re planning on actually riding an e-bike throughout the winter, it would be advisable to purchase one with an easily removable battery pack that you can carry into your living quarters to charge. Also advisable to find a protected space for doing so in case the cells should ever burst into flame (an extremely rare occurrence but for which it is certainly prudent to be prepared!)

KPREN

I could not believe your numbers so I checked it out and did some calculations. It depends on your definitions as to whether this bike meets the criterion or not. You might not be average. Real world numbers is going to give a range of something like 20-55 miles on a single battery full charge. If you can contribute more than average to the watts then you can achieve much more.
28 mph class 3 performance? If your definition of class 3 performance is not cutting the power until the max speed of 28 mph, then this statement can be said to be true. If you want the full 28 mph you will need to contribute more than 300 watts per hour to sustain that speed at zero wind and slope. It's more likely that the average person will top out somewhere around 24 mph sustained (39kph).
This bike is very light by my standards and does pretty much what you say it does. Road type bikes are far more efficient than what I am use to.
It's often instructive to look at someone's ideas that are vastly different than my own. It makes me realize that there can be big differences in criterion and, as a result, possible vast improvement with some changes in one's own criterion.
With my own criterion and experience on an e bike, a fat bike for long distance remote dirt bikepacking/touring. The numbers on the Vado seemed like total fantasy. That is why I had to check them out. That exercise points to the fact that I could possibly improve things by changing some of my criterion. Right now that criterion is 28 mph class 3 with 22 mph sustained (35kph), normal 16-17 mph (25-27 kph). High assist from the motor and moderate assist from the rider. Light weight under 85lbs (39kg) and long range 70-275 miles (113-443 km) on dirt. Me the bike and gear under 350lb (160kg)

fooferdoggie 

I think on my bosch its about 200 to 250 watts to get to 28mph. but its been while since I tried that. but thats in full turbo.

Barrettscv 

I'm definitely not interested in ultimate speed and have no ambition to average above 25 mph unless I'm going downhill. I have a powermeter on my stationary trainer and it tells me I can produce 173 watts average during a two hour ride.

I currently can average 17-19 mph on my non-assist drop bar road bike. My goal when using the Vado is to average 18-20 mph with a 25% boost but to use the 50-100% boost when climbing. This should extend my range.

KPREN

What you want to do is very doable and practical. At that speed you should exceed 50 miles unless its really hilly. I only put out about 125-140 watts or so. the watt requirement really starts to jump above 20 mph and overheating of motors becomes an issue near max output.
I find that I start to disconnect with nature. That is the sounds of nature above 17-18 mph and lose much of what I bike for.

DomoNishiki

Wow, nice bike. Not ready to join the ebike crowd just yet. Soon though.

Barrettscv 

I've had a variety of rides on the Vado SL, now that milder weather is permitting dry pavement and above freezing temperatures. At first the pedal assist Vado feels like a high quality bike and not much different from my conventional Trek Dual Sport. Both the Trek and the Specialized are well made fully rigid flat bar hybrids and both feel like well designed bikes. Steering is precise and control on faster decents is confidence inspiring.

What the Vado does best is climb. It will climb a 15% grade at 6 to 10 mph with moderate effort. My 180 watts becomes a total of 360 watts in turbo mode. This makes any climb possible. If the rider wants to complete the climb in half the time normally needed, a strong effort mashing the pedals will pick up the pace. If the cyclists just wants to climb while maintaining an sub anaerobic pace, The bike will climb with reduce effort needed and the pace is maintained.

Where the bike doesn't deliver a bionic response is at speeds above 17 mph on a flat road. While using any of my good road bikes, I can hold 17 mph with moderate effort. The Vado SL requires the same or greater effort at 15-25 mph on a flat road. Yes, putting the bike in Turbo mode will deliver 20 to 25 mph. However, both the rider and the battery would be drained in 30 minutes.

The best use of the Vado SL are rides from one hour to three hours at speeds in the 10 to 18 mph range. It's the perfect recovery-ride bike, when I want to avoid exceeding my VO2 max. It's not a group ride bike, and I didn't want or expect this from the Vado SL. It complements the road bikes I own, but would never replace them.

fooferdoggie 

I have hit 350 watts going up 20% grades on my bosch powered bikes but usually its around 200 to 250

Leisesturm

I did actually see the post on BF where the writer said "I never actually use the assist". More often they insist they never use more than Level 1 assist, why do they think anyone cares? Then there are the ones who "aren't ready for e-assist yet" or "e-assist is not their cup of tea". Why are they posting in the 'Electric Bike' sub-forum? The ones that really trip my trigger are the ones who invent all kinds of parameters that e-bikes should have so that they don't have any more capability than 'normal' bikes. They are a day late and a dollar short. The Class designations covering e-bike legal parameters are now public and final. Future changes are unlikely anytime soon. Between all the virtue signaling and control issues and paranoia, I'm about ready to find a new hobby. Except cycling is not a hobby for me. I already left one forum because they moved Cycling from 'Sports and Recreation to 'Hobbies and Interests'. An e-bike is not a gadget. It is and can be serious transportation. A Yuba Mundo or Surly Big Dummy that is being used by a 90lb. mom to take twin 9 year olds to school better have more than 500W available and since the U.S. allows 750W I don't know why anyone here needs to second guess that.

Stop h8ing on what you can't control. I already told you I have a 25mph sprint unassisted. Plenty of people do and before e-bikes were so plentiful, no one really gave a darn when they saw a bike sprinting through a stale green light (as long as the light was green) more power to him/her. Now it's all people can do not to chase the miscreant down and impound their bike. Good thing, because it probably wasn't electric! Most e-bikes are ridden by people who have very little desire to go much faster than around 15mph. What they can do with their e-bikes that they couldn't do before is get to the top of Powell Butte. I get it. E-bikes aren't going away because the hard core pedal bike faithful on BF don't like them. Clearly people have been waiting a long time for them and they mostly don't read BF. They are just living their lives. If someone wants to buy a Class 2 (throttle!!!) e-bike and not pedal at all at launches ... isn't that their business? DRIVERS don't provide any mechanical assistance to the forward progress of the vehicle. Just because bikes have been mostly un-powered for 150 years why must that always remain the case? Ask yourself that question.

rossiny

I think e-bike is great for older ,,, and we all will get there or not.
The only gripe I might have is on a bike trail ,, your eventually gonna have a young kid driving like a maniac . I saw it already , he was on the path , then cut across a field , almost hit a low branch close to his head, and went to close to a park bench where people were standing !!??. The way he rode to me seemed more like a dirt motorcycle, not a bicycle .. So I think that they need to decide if an electric bike is a MOTOR- CYCLE .? As we all know now electric motors are powerful(Tesla) and you can ride a heavier bike and go faster than a "non-electric- motorless- bike".

Clyde1820

Almost doesn't look electric, that one. Makers are getting better with the "lines." Enjoy.

Myself, I prefer traditional but, with older injuries and age, will likely consider an e-Bike at some point. Getting up the grades would be much easier.