First ride review: 19 miles, 2800 vertical, 1 hour 45 minutes. (strava screwed up but I know the loop stats)
Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread and put together ideas and went first and contributed knowledge. You all are amazing! I hope this review helps someone else down the line. I would not hesitate to order one of these bikes again.
Oh my word I love this bike. Its playful and fun and planted when it needs to be and easy to throw around. The light weight is so much nicer coming off the E10. The frame geo works great and feels very planted going up and very much like a Rocketship going down. I have some fine tuning on the suspension to do but overall, I am so pleased with the way everything rides. I had 1 pedal strike. Thats awesome. I was worried the 175s or whatever they are would strike a lot, but they didnt. Thats a huge bonus. I have to say the stock headset is garbage. It kept pinching the dropper wire. Need to replace that ASAP.
Motor: This motor is a whiny SOB. Its loud. I mean its really loud. Noticeably louder than the m600 with silent gear. I hope it breaks in or something, I could hear it over my music and people definitely heard me coming up the trail. I did not have any issues with a clunk on the downhills like the ep8. Everything was nice and quiet and tight downhill and that was a pleasant surprise. This motor wants a high cadence and doesnt seem to have much grunt to it in lower assist levels. Im running a 34T chainring to help spin. I initially was going to go with 36T like i have on my m600 but I am glad i went with 34. We need some better tunes, I think i need to figure out how to upgrade to v3 (I have a besst tool, but not a pro account to do the upgrade) and connect the mobile app and adjust some settings. It needs better tunes for sure. The full pedal before motor engages is less than desirable. I think 160 crank arms and app tuning will help out tremendously with this motor. It does come on smooth and natural feeling so big props on that to bafang. Nothing i can do about the noise, but wanted to log my complaints as well as compliments.
Power: Level 1 (eco) is worthless. seriously I could not tell any difference between pedaling the bike off or on Eco. My other analog bikes (ibis ripley and ripmo) I can put down 200-250 average watts on my rides, i consider myself a strong endurance rider. This bike in eco or off felt like a little heavier ripmo (a good thing IMO), but eco seemed to do nothing. It needs some tuning.
Level 2(Trail). I spent 90% of my ride here. It seemed to be more than enough for what I am looking for out of this bike. Just enough to keep me cruising on the longer, steeper uphills. According to the display this was chipping in around 100w? Bike seemed to be very efficient for me in this mode. It really likes a fast cadence on the pedals which was great to help me sustain the higher heartrate.
Level 3(Sport). I did two small punchy climbs in this mode and it seemed to be just a hair faster and more powerful than Trail. Id like to try my next ride in this level and see how it feels.
Level 4(Sport +) I did not use this level at all.
Level 5(Boost) I used this on one big steep climb as a measuring stick. I would compare it to level 3/5 on a ludicrous v2 m600. I didnt quite make the climb and I can usually blast up it on the m600 ludi in level 4/5. On a good note, it never wanted to wheelie over or loop out like the e10 does. It had traction the whole way, just not enough grunt. I think i needed higher cadence here. It will be under a foot of snow tomorrow so wont get a shot at it again until next year. Overall I am pretty pleased with the power from boost.
I should have RTFM because I could not figure out how to engage walk mode and I needed it to push the bike up the rest of the big hill i tried climbing. I ended up hike a biking it, which wasn't that bad.
Battery Performance: I finished the loop with 80% battery left. For reference the e10/m600 I usually finish a bit quicker but with only 60-65% battery left. I am stoked on the possibilities with this CEF50 for range and vertical. I know it wont power over things as easily as the m600 but its still got plenty of juice for almost everything I need it to have.
Overall this bike is an incredible value and I am so happy about it. I will take some side by side photos next to my Large E10 and my XL Ibis Ripley to compare sizes. Supposedly I have an XL frame but it doesn't seem like its actually an XL. I am guessing its actually a large frame. I do have a medium complete build coming supposedly (rest assured its going to get upgraded components rather quickly)
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. It would be nice to hear it on video. Both POV and 3rd person standing trailside as it passes (simulating a hiker) if possible.
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