I made a new discovery the other day. Up until then I had been removing the battery and taking it inside for charging, but while cleaning the bike, I found a rubber plug which was covering a charging port at the bottom of the battery. Even though I'd read the manual and thought I'd been over the bike with a fine-tooth comb, I'd somehow missed this. It's nice to be able to charge the bike in the workshop, without removing the battery. |
One of the best things about this bike, and something that keeps making me stop and shake my head, is how it redefines your concept of cycling. For example, the other day I was taking a leisurely ride down the bike/walking path next to our local creek, which ends up at a huge reserve called Ruffey Lake Park. Ruffey Lake Park is extremely hilly, and has a winding path through it, with a lake, trees of all types, foot-bridges and wide open grassy areas. Previously, I'd probably never have even considered cycling through this park at all, simply due to the hills, but on this day, I made my way painlessly up the steep path at a fast clip, aided by the Bosch mid-drive motor, with its barely audible whine drowned out by the sounds of the wind in the trees and the bird cries. All of a sudden, it occurred to me that I didn't have to stick to the path at all. Now, as a cyclist, you would probably never think of cutting across a steep hill, covered in quite thick grass and probably a few potholes, when there's a perfectly serviceable paved path to ride on - right? But with the help of the motor, the big 29" wheels and the suspension, that terrain is reduced to a perfectly manageable stretch of soft, green, riding space. You need nothing more than a moderate amount of effort and some deft gear shifting to navigate it. Suddenly, your options have increased from one, to unlimited. If you want to get from A to B, and there's a shorter or more interesting path than the paved path, you can now take it with impunity. That dirt track that branches off up through the trees and disappears into the bush? Follow it and find out where it takes you. That steep descent (that you'll have to ride back up) down into the unknown? Go take a look, secure in the knowledge that no matter how difficult the return journey is, your ebike will turn it into a fun and rewarding experience while you stay put in the saddle. It's like having your big brother running beside you, always ready to grab the seat and give you push to help you out of a difficult situation. Don't worry about having to clip yourself in and out of the pedals, no need to wear special cycling shoes or even use toe-clips. Just slip on your favourite pair of runners and off you go. If I could get hold of a more powerful motor, with no speed restrictions, better battery life, full suspension frame and all terrain tyres - the world would be my oyster! And this is only a bike - imagine in the future what could be achieved with other types of power augmented equipment. A suit like Iron Man? Being able to climb trees like an Orang Utan? 10 metre jumps? The mind boggles. Bring on the future. I've been looking at the 'Range' screen on the Intuvia unit and trying to figure out how it does its estimates of your projected range. The Range screen shows you how far you could expect to get until your battery runs out. I gather it calculates this based on your riding style over the last 'x' hours or kilometres. So if for example, you've just rolled down a 2km hill, then the range increases for whatever assistance level you have selected - based on the presumption that this will be the typical amount of assistance that the motor will have to supply. If you then turn off the path and go bush for a while, you'll see the range drop dramatically as the bike now assumes that you'll be needing this level of assistance from now on. I've found that in practice, you as the rider generally know what sort of assistance you'll need for whatever the remainder of your trip, so you can actually get a better idea of the projected range by looking at the number of bars of battery remaining. So if you've already travelled 30km, have 5 bars of battery remaining, and the Range is saying 25km, then you know this is probably way less than what you'll actually get. I'd imagine that even after another 20km, the Range would say 25km. Mind you, I haven't ever run the battery below 3 bars. I can easily commute over some extremely hilly terrain, heavy winds, using the highest level of assistance (Turbo), covering 22km each way, and still have 3 bars remaining on the battery at the end of the day. So I'd expect that on paved roads you should get over 60km, even on Turbo. To put that in perspective, I weigh about 80kg fully loaded (with backpack), and I also run road tyres - not the standard knobbies. Maybe a proper range test is in order. It's taken me while to figure out some of the idiosyncrasies of the Ruga/Intuvia system, but one that needed a bit of investigation was the 'Walk Assist' function. The Walk Assist function is accessed via a barely noticeable button on the front of the control unit. It is designed to allow the motor to push the bike along while you walk beside it, up stairs for example. The first time I tried it was up the 70 or so stairs in Kew from the bike path up to the boulevard. There are special gutters at the side of the stairs to hold the wheels of your bike so you can walk it beside you as you climb the stairs. With a racing bike, you'd normally just hoist the bike onto your shoulder and walk up the stairs, but the Ruga, at 22kg is way too heavy for that. Even pushing it up the steep slope is difficult, hence the need for the Walk Assist function. Now I'm still a bit confused by this feature. It appears to walk the bike faster the higher gear you're in, so the idea is to get the perfect gear for your walking speed. I noticed that if you change gears while walking, the power drops out for a few seconds, which is really annoying because you don't get any assistance until it comes back on. The power also seems to drop out when the front wheel is going onto the ramp. Once both wheels are on the ramp everything works fine. I think the motor struggles to produce much torque though. It does work, but not to the level I'd expect. The other thing is that the pedals turn while walk-assist is on, which, given that the bike is sitting in a gutter and probably leaning slightly towards you as you climb the stairs, causes the pedals to hit the concrete as they go around. This is pretty annoying, but on a bike with this type of drive - probably unavoidable. The crank has to turn in order for the power to be delivered. As mentioned, the assistance feels gutless. You'd hope that Bosch could rectify this with a software upgrade at some point. As we just entered daylight saving time here in Melbourne, I was interested to find out how to change the time on my Intuvia display unit.
After a bit of serious Googling, I came up with holding down the 'Reset' and 'Info' buttons on the Intuvia at the same time. This brings you into a new set of options which include setting the time and setting the wheel circumference. The values are adjusted by pressing either the Power button or the Lights button (bottom left or right for plus or minus). I couldn't figure out how to save the settings other than turning off the unit via the button on the battery - which seems to save the settings. Ever get sick and tired of that relentless wind noise that howls past your eardrums, drowning out the sounds of the bush, not to mention approaching cars or any other relevant noises. It really used to annoy me riding down the 1.5km hill outside our house, because I can't hear what's coming up behind me or anything other than a loud 'shsshshshshshshshhhhhssccchchchchchch'. I did a bit of research on the web and found a couple of products (none of which I could find here in my local Melbourne bike shops), one of which is called 'Cat Ears'. Anyway, as the principal seemed quite straightforward, I decided to try making my own. A quick hunt around the workshop and I unearthed a length of hollow polyurethane pipe, which I'd bought from Clark Rubber in Nunawading. I wasn't sure it would work, but the results are astounding. The only downside is that they look a bit daggy....
Riding along the Koonung Creek bike path the other day when I heard a loud squawking and got hit in the head by a diving bird.
Normally if you get swooped, it's by Magpies, and they fly just over your head with a loud click of the beak. Well this thing wasn't a magpie, although it was just as big, and it actually hit me - despite the fact that my helmet was bedecked with 10cm long zip ties sticking up everywhere. The stupid bloody thing then sat in a tree above me, threatening me with loud squawks every time I moved. I had to make a very swift getaway, waving my arms violently above my head while trying to negotiate the trees and obstacles on the path. I'll be glad when this mating/breeding season is over. |
AuthorI live in Melbourne's hilly Eastern suburbs, and without this bike I'd be absolutely deterred from riding anywhere. Now I use it all the time, for errands and to ride to work - 22km away in South Yarra Archives
February 2016
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