E-bikes

Finally upgraded from the old Avanti Gazelle crossbike dating from the 1990's - funnily enough I find it harder going up hills these days so decided to try out an electric assist bike while I can still stay upright on two wheels.

Spoke too soon here as the front tyre managed to slip off the tarmac edge into soft grass toppling said smart arse off the bike - the bike survived well, my knee will probably improve after a year or two!

The Gazelle was a pretty good bike for doing roads with a bit of gravel/trail and country style terrain thrown in so I was really looking for an electric model that was pretty similar and about the same weight (c. 14/15kg without extras).

Attention: the dirty little secret of the electric bike market is weight - initially when talking to shops about electric bikes the consensus seemed to be that electric bikes are heavy and to get lightness you need to spend heavily. Trying to ascertain weights of bikes from the dealers can be a bit difficult as some manufacturers just don't state the figures. Most folk would say it doesn't matter if the bike is electric but I like a lighter bike for non-riding scenarios like going up steps, over fallen trees, you know what I mean ...

Note: have just been to Germany for some walking and spent time on an ICE train in the bike carriage - the bikes get hung up vertically on hooks and there were more than a few struggles with the heavy electric bikes (around 25/26kg when accessorized).
Well that certainly kicked off the due diligence with a cloud of despair however after much research I managed to nail a bike.

TL;DR - I got a Boardman HYB 8.9E Microshift Hybrid bike

Basically the options for electric bikes are -

• Mid mounted motor (Bosch/Yamaha/etc) heavier bikes, more power, better range
• Mid mounted light motor (Fazua/TQ/etc) lighter bikes, sufficient power, less range
• Hub mounted motor (Mahle/etc) lighter bikes, sufficient power, less range, maybe less powerful than mid mounted motors in some scenarios
• Ancilliary motor on ordinary bike (Swytch/Skarper/Lightest/Bafeng/etc) mid or hub mounted and may be throttle assisted - possibly a good DIY option for a well loved bike

There are plenty of options for purpose built ebikes that will weigh in at around 22kg or so but if you want to get down to around the 14 - 17 range then the market tightens. Carbon fibre bikes will bring the weight down but the price goes up and it is difficult to find the heavier reliable motors (Bosch/etc) in the lighter range. Since I am still reasonably OK with cycling on a normal bike I decided that the lighter motor options would do me since it is only the hills where I want much help and I was looking for a mid mounted motor so anything Fazua/TQ seemed to fit the bill

In the end I plumped for the Boardman as it ticked most of the boxes and was dramatically cheaper than some of the other candidates I was looking at. Admittedly if money grew on trees then I would have liked to go for a Simplon SilkCarbon TQ but along with cost (c. £5000 - £6000) availability in the UK was an issue. The Boardman came in at c. £2000 with a weight of 15kg or so which is pretty competitive.


I have shown a summary of the bike as currently shipped with a few snaps showing details.

Boardman HYB 8.9E Microshift Hybrid bike Large 54

Boardman parts appear to be made in Taiwan along with the MicroShift components. The Fazua stuff appears to still be made in Germany. The tyres are from a German company that manufactures in Indonesia.

So all in all a good British bike!

Tyres: 700C x 35C (700C equiv. to 28"/29") F 28H R 32H

      Note: number is the puncture protection rating of tyre type, 7 being the highest.

      Orig - Schwalbe Citizen K-Guard (3)

   Variants -
      Schwalbe Land Cruiser K-Guard (3) (old bike)

      Schwalbe Marathon Mondial Performance/Wired with Race-Guard (4)

      Schwalbe Marathon Mondial Evolution/Folding with DD/V-Guard (6) 570g

      Schwalbe Marathon 365 Performance (5 & 6)


Handlebar: Boardman Flat 580mm

Seatpost:

      Orig: Boardman Alloy 27.2 (set to 8.5)

Bottom Bracket:

      Fazua Evation with Ride 50 Street drive/battery pack.
      Bottom Bracket cover included

Battery/Motor:

      Fazua Ride 50 Street v2.12

      Remote BX


Weight: 15.7kg (with SKS mudguards fitted)

Added -

      Mudguards - SKS Blumels (700c x 45) 28"

      Suspension seat post - Aaron 27.2 Alloy 350mm Spring

      Tyres - Schwalbe Marathon Mondial Performance (4) 37-622 [28 x 1.40 - 700 x 35C] 4.0 - 6.0 bar, 55 - 85 psi

      Light - CatEye battery LED lights (F & R) used from old bike

      Rear Rack - Bor Yueh alloy rack (c. 560g) used from old bike

      Drink holder - used from old bike

      Pump - used from old bike

      Panniers - Rixen Kaul used from old bike

      End Bars - Brand-X bars ( I like to have an alternative hand position on longer rides)



      USB cable for Fazua ToolKit use - Cable Matters USB-C to Mini-B 2.0 cable (1m)





:: Comments ::

Looking through the forums it looked like there were a few problems with the Fazua drive system along with issues between Halfords (the current owner of the Boardman brand) and Fazua likely with Brexit nonsense adding to a lack of streamlined sales and marketing processes.
The current build being shipped looks OK to me and I would like to think that most of the issues have been sorted which if they have means the bike is very good value for money.
The drive pack supplied was the latest Ride 50 Street version with latest v2.12 software.

eg:

The Drivepack is the latest Ride 50 Street with improved locking latch.
The remote is the latest Remote BX.
The battery/system can be started from the remote without unlocking the battery.
The underside of the Bottom Bracket is fully covered.
Fazua have two apps available on IOS/Android.
Fazua provide a Toolkit desktop app that can be connected via USB to the Drivesystem - it works!

I noticed that the Shimano Deore componentry has been replaced by MicroShift so whether this is a good thing or not I don't know - we'll see I guess!


How does it ride?

Remember when you were a wee kid on a bike and struggling a bit then a big hand came down from above to provide a nudge in the back to help you along - pretty much that, you still need to pedal and do some work but you can feel the assistance is there

Maybe feels a bit harsher than my old bike with it's Chrome Molybdenum frame but unpowered on the flat seems just as agile as the old Avanti. I tend to use the sparks on hilly bits of course but also on busy roads around traffic where tiredness is not a good factor. Don't miss the old 21 gear setup as I find now that moving between two maybe three gears and using the three drive modes as an electric transmission seems to work just fine.


:: Quirks ::

The Avanti bike had Shimano gears and a visual indicator of which gear was in use but the MicroShift doesn't have any indicator at all.

Remote BX - the centre button is not so much a touch sensitive button as a clicky type which seems to need a very positive press to work (I was unable to switch on the battery until I realized this).

Touch sensitive buttons can be a bit hit and miss at times (usually on hills where the power is needed NOW!). I tend to switch it to white leds (not powered) when on the flat and just wonder whether it goes into a sleep state if left too long as intermittently the green leds will not engage with a bit of fussing about.

Fazua apps setup are a bit confusing. There appears to be 2 apps (Fazua App and Fazua Rider App) - both being official. I had to set up an account with the Fazua App and then connect to the bike which wouldn't connect.
As it transpires the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) interface on the bike needs to be at v2.4 and this can only be done using the Fazua Rider App apparently.

The Rider app connects to the bike OK (the range of connection appears quite short, c. 2 metres at best) and has a software/firmware upgrade option. It wasn't clear how to update the BLE firmware which is distinct from the drive system software (it just said the drive system was 2.12) so I went down the track of unpairing the bike from the Rider App and deleting the Bluetooth connection in the iPhone.
The next step was to try the Fazua App again and indeed it connected OK so it looks like only one of the two apps can be paired at a time. The Fazua App showed the BLE as already updated.

The Fazua App gives a basic rundown of the System Information -

Firmware:
      Remote:   2.1
      Motor System:   2.12
      Bluetooth:   2.4

Motor Systems:
      Temperature:   5°C
      Distance Travelled:   68.20km

Battery:
      Charge Cycles:   1
      Maximum Capacity:   100%



:: The Question ::

Does it do what it is meant to?

Well so far yes - I decided to try the hill road over the Carrick Hills behind Ayr and surprisingly got to the crest without having to stop which I haven't been able to do on the old bike for years.
The road portion (not going to the summit) of this hill is c. 200m over 2km (7.3% average gradient) so not too bad.
I notice that when the lactic acid is starting to bite the legs the assistance allows me to keep going whereas without it the legs just give up (like a pub team, Man Utd or similar).

In short it is a hard bike to beat for the price.

:: UPDATE ::

Updated the bike with the latest Fazua firmware bundle (029) with the Toolkit v 2.21 and appears to work quite well - the BX remote seems to respond to the touch a bit better and it seems that when the assistance kicks in it uses the maximum power for the required level rather than depending on how fast the pedalling is occuring. Seemingly they have unified the firmware across all the RIDE 50 drivepacks so should get rid of any anomalies between Evation and Street/Trail versions. My original firmware was set for Evation (2.12) rather than Street (2.21) even though the drivepack was clearly a RIDE 50 Street. The new version is 2.50 RIDE 50 Street.