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.
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.