The SL bike is dead. Long live the SL bike!

[Plummet]

The mondraker crafty 2025+ can run a 800, 600, and 400wh (with adapters). Hot swappable.
49.5 pounds with a 600wh, ohlins 38, and ohlins coil shock.
Having rode both, the crafty gets the nod for handling and suspension performance over the crestline, even though it has less travel. Crestline is more aesthetically pleasing though, I think. Both great bikes.
It's weird that specialized is making their trail e-bike heavier and heavier, and abandoning the kenevo sl concept.

Isnt a crafty a 150/160mm bike? So you can't really fairly compare it to a 180/180 bike for suspension performance. They are both two different fish. If you are a 150/160 guy trail riding then of course you will enjoy the 150/160 bike better.

But the swappable multiple battery size options is freaken awesome.

 

[Doomanic]

@Hob Nob what bike have you got with a 580 battery?

 

[ntm95]

Isnt a crafty a 150/160mm bike? So you can't really fairly compare it to a 180/180 bike for suspension performance. They are both two different fish. If you are a 150/160 guy trail riding then of course you will enjoy the 150/160 bike better.

But the swappable multiple battery size options is freaken awesome.

Yup, 170/150 in xr trim.
Absolutely comparable, surprisingly. One of those bikes that just rides bigger than the travel numbers would suggest, and that 150mm of travel is superior in nature to most, if not all, 170-180mm bikes that I've ridden.
Mondraker made a mistake in shortening the rear end on their larger travel bikes, or I'd certainly be all over one.
One can't get too wrapped up in the travel numbers, the quality of the kinematics matter more. I've cased the hell out of everything BC has to offer, short of crabapple hits, on a 160mm rear end dreadnought and I'm still the same height.

 

[nickf]

I was real close on getting one of the slash + bikes. But if i did that i would have given away the full power sessions with my mates on full power bikes and those are some of the best sessions.

Riding with full fat mates is an undeniable argument against choosing a mid power SL. Unless you convince your mates to go SL too!

I'll spec the battery to suit the ride. There's no way i want to lump an extra 2kg and of an 800wh battery when most of my sessions would only use 50% battery.....

Agree. Modular batteries is surely the future?

The Fuel+ LX comes with a coil shock and 170 fork at a tad over 20kg and you can swap out the 580Wh battery for a 360Wh to lose some weight if you want. Just saying

 

[Fangs2k]

Any system should ideally be balanced, and it’s a fair point comparing similar bikes ref weight or power etc.

My SL is a 150/150 (170 with my upgraded forks though) bike, which is fine as most of my other bikes are the similar/same, so the comparison is legitimate. Different builds though, for slightly different terrain/usage.

But, running a 100Nm/800-1000w e-bike with a 400Wh battery feels like running a Porsche GT3 RS with a 20L fuel tank, it’ll be fun, but for a limited time. Same with a 100L fuel tank in a VW Polo, you’ll have good range but be lugging unnecessary weight about a lot of the time.

Pairing a 320Wh battery with a 35/50Nm motor or a 400Wh with a 60Nm seems to be more sensible.

As ever though, depends what you want an e-bike for, do you ride it mostly ‘online’ or do you have a specific need or use case in mind?

Again, different folks will have different needs and wants, what works for you won’t necessarily work for others. Which is obviously fine and as it should be.

 

[Plummet]

Yup, 170/150 in xr trim.
Absolutely comparable, surprisingly. One of those bikes that just rides bigger than the travel numbers would suggest, and that 150mm of travel is superior in nature to most, if not all, 170-180mm bikes that I've ridden.
Mondraker made a mistake in shortening the rear end on their larger travel bikes, or I'd certainly be all over one.
One can't get too wrapped up in the travel numbers, the quality of the kinematics matter more. I've cased the hell out of everything BC has to offer, short of crabapple hits, on a 160mm rear end dreadnought and I'm still the same height.

Well I guess we will beg to differ that a 150 and a 180mm frame is comparable or not. I will agree that a 150mm bike can do most of what a 180mm bike can do particularly when piloted by a good rider. I also agree that there are good and bad suspension designs. The crestline is most certainly a good design not a bad design. My call is that you are a guy that prefers the more connected feel of the shorted travel frame. So its not that the suspension is superior. Its that it suits your style better.

I have a mate like that. loves his 150/170 bike and tells me i have too much travel. He then proceeds to rip it up on the blues and blacks and i struggle to keep up. But then we get to the real chunky stuff and He's still hauling, But now he's holding me up, now i'm in my wheelhouse, now i'll pull a gap on him, yes he's still riding the same terrain, but not as fast. Then we get to the really big features and he's like "nah, too risky" and i carry on riding. He swears that his 150/170 bike is the way and the light, and for him he is correct. For me not so much. I ride that same 150/170 bike that my mate loves and its fun for most of the standard riding we do, then i send it through some real chuck and think "what hell is this lack of suspension?" and i dont enjoy riding that section slower or by passing a feature or a line that i know i can make on my 180/180 bike.

Each to their own. Its great that you have a bike that you loving ripping on and so do I.....

 

[Plummet]

Riding with full fat mates is an undeniable argument against choosing a mid power SL. Unless you convince your mates to go SL too!

Agree. Modular batteries is surely the future?

The Fuel+ LX comes with a coil shock and 170 fork at a tad over 20kg and you can swap out the 580Wh battery for a 360Wh to lose some weight if you want. Just saying

There's no convincing my mates to go sl. And why should they? at anytime they simply can turn the full power down and get sl power.

One of the great fun things we do in full power mode is tackle the barely ridable hike a bike technical climbs/decents. On the full power bike you can get 95% of the climb. going sl would only clear 60/70% of the climb. Yeag, nah! I'm sticking to full power and when i want the sl experience i'll slap my 400wh in and turn the bike down to 70nm an get a sweet 3 hour run time.

 

[Plummet]

Any system should ideally be balanced, and it’s a fair point comparing similar bikes ref weight or power etc.

My SL is a 150/150 (170 with my upgraded forks though) bike, which is fine as most of my other bikes are the similar/same, so the comparison is legitimate. Different builds though, for slightly different terrain/usage.

But, running a 100Nm/800-1000w e-bike with a 400Wh battery feels like running a Porsche GT3 RS with a 20L fuel tank, it’ll be fun, but for a limited time. Same with a 100L fuel tank in a VW Polo, you’ll have good range but be lugging unnecessary weight about a lot of the time.

Pairing a 320Wh battery with a 35/50Nm motor or a 400Wh with a 60Nm seems to be more sensible.

As ever though, depends what you want an e-bike for, do you ride it mostly ‘online’ or do you have a specific need or use case in mind?

Again, different folks will have different needs and wants, what works for you won’t necessarily work for others. Which is obviously fine and as it should be.

My counter argument is why run a bigger battery if you don't have to? every 200wh of battery increase leads to 1kg extra weight. I see no point running a 800wh battery and an extra 2kg if i'm going for an 1.5 hour blast or a 3 hour mid power session.

The big advantage of the lighter battery, which is the reason most mid power guys go with mid power bikes, is a far more enjoyable weight and balance of the bike. The bike rides more naturally and feels more like an mtb than a E bike. Bikes with big 800wh batteries affect the weight and balance of a bike and they feel less playful to ride.

I have the biggest grins when im riding with my 400wh battery in. Its just more playful and poppy and manualable.

In your analogy above. Why not run the porche with the correct amount of fuel for the session? Why run extra fuel that you dont need? alternatively plan for a fuel up (battery swap) mid ride. Then you can keep the weight down and enjoy the ride more.

 

[Hob Nob]

@Hob Nob what bike have you got with a 580 battery?

Currently a Yeti MTe & a Druid CorE loaner (still have my Norco Sight LT)

 

[Dax]

I wouldn’t take any of them with less than an 800 battery because they become pointless to me with limited range.

Where do you ride that you need an 800?

 

[Plummet]

Currently a Yeti MTe & a Druid CorE loaner (still have my Norco Sight LT)

That Yeti MTE would be an awesome trail bike. But its not a fair comparison in weight to a 180mm bruiser. That's two completely different categories of bike.

The real life comparison would be amflow V mte. In that instance its 1.5kg difference. Mainly the battery weight.

In that instance i'd take the amflow. The reality is that there is 1 to 1.5kg difference from sl/mid power to full power when we compare apples with apples. The weight difference is primarily battery size and weight with a few maybe 0.5kg in motor eight difference.

 

[Fangs2k]

My counter argument is why run a bigger battery if you don't have to? every 200wh of battery increase leads to 1kg extra weight. I see no point running a 800wh battery and an extra 2kg if i'm going for an 1.5 hour blast or a 3 hour mid power session.

Yep, and to be clear I’m not arguing, if you only need a smaller battery in a full power bike then great, that will work for you.

In your analogy above. Why not run the porche with the correct amount of fuel for the session? Why run extra fuel that you dont need? alternatively plan for a fuel up (battery swap) mid ride. Then you can keep the weight down and enjoy the ride more.

That’s where my analogy breaks down, I agree that’s the way to go, but you can choose to only fuel the GT3 for the laps, but a 50% charged 800Wh battery weighs the same as a 100% charged one.

If the bikes battery can be easily swapped out, then great, but if not then compromises and choices need to be made.

That brings me right bak to my original comment, there is no perfect bike for everybody, just the right one for ‘you’.

 

[Emailsucks98]

Battery weight is pretty consistent across brands- 200-223wh/KG. Bosch, Avinox, TQ all in that range.

Lets say you go from a 580wh to 800wh, your adding 1kg directly behind the headtube. That's going to be especially noticeable on steep descents, when it's right above that front brake with the fork compressed.

Also worth considering how much f'ing around is requires to change batteries, because not many MFGs have well executed designs here.

So I don't subscribe to the "just turn the power down on a 800wh bike". Unless you run XC tires and brakes, it's going to be heavier, in a bad way for descending, and that may be a fair trade if it does other things better (aka personal preference)

And comparing suspension- there's so much variability across brands/designs. High pivot vs horst link is arguably a much bigger difference than +/-10mm travel.

 

[ntm95]

Well I guess we will beg to differ that a 150 and a 180mm frame is comparable or not. I will agree that a 150mm bike can do most of what a 180mm bike can do particularly when piloted by a good rider. I also agree that there are good and bad suspension designs. The crestline is most certainly a good design not a bad design. My call is that you are a guy that prefers the more connected feel of the shorted travel frame. So its not that the suspension is superior. Its that it suits your style better.

I have a mate like that. loves his 150/170 bike and tells me i have too much travel. He then proceeds to rip it up on the blues and blacks and i struggle to keep up. But then we get to the real chunky stuff and He's still hauling, But now he's holding me up, now i'm in my wheelhouse, now i'll pull a gap on him, yes he's still riding the same terrain, but not as fast. Then we get to the really big features and he's like "nah, too risky" and i carry on riding. He swears that his 150/170 bike is the way and the light, and for him he is correct. For me not so much. I ride that same 150/170 bike that my mate loves and its fun for most of the standard riding we do, then i send it through some real chuck and think "what hell is this lack of suspension?" and i dont enjoy riding that section slower or by passing a feature or a line that i know i can make on my 180/180 bike.

Each to their own. Its great that you have a bike that you loving ripping on and so do I.....

Don't get me wrong, all things being equal, more travel is always welcome. I do notice a 20-30mm difference in fork travel much sooner than rear travel.
I find that 180mm rear end bikes and (good) 150/160mm rear end bikes tend to tap out at about the same point, given theyre both running 170-180mm forks. Double black tech trails or otherwise.
If I'm straight plowing, the supreme v5 is the go to for more speed.
Which does beg the question, why are there no e-downhill bikes ?
We have a lot of self shuttle riding where that would certainly be the ideal.
Rob's recent build of the nicolai s18 has me frothing a little bit. It comes close with the dual crown, I'd love to slap it around for a day or two. Not much information out there regarding riding impressions.

 

[Plummet]

Yep, and to be clear I’m not arguing, if you only need a smaller battery in a full power bike then great, that will work for you.



That’s where my analogy breaks down, I agree that’s the way to go, but you can choose to only fuel the GT3 for the laps, but a 50% charged 800Wh battery weighs the same as a 100% charged one.

If the bikes battery can be easily swapped out, then great, but if not then compromises and choices need to be made.

That brings me right bak to my original comment, there is no perfect bike for everybody, just the right one for ‘you’.

Yeah there is always a compromise.

My set up cost dentist amounts of money. Plus the biggest battery i have is 600wh. So thats inconvenient when i'm in a group with 750/800wh bikes doing a full battery burn. Either i tap out sooner or they stop riding before their batteries are flat or we loop back to the car for me to swap batteries. All of those are inconvenient.

 

[Fangs2k]

Yeah there is always a compromise.

My set up cost dentist amounts of money. Plus the biggest battery i have is 600wh. So thats inconvenient when i'm in a group with 750/800wh bikes doing a full battery burn. Either i tap out sooner or they stop riding before their batteries are flat or we loop back to the car for me to swap batteries. All of those are inconvenient.

I ride alone 75% of the time so burn/ride times are on me.

Sounds like your buddies are like mine though and at least appreciate they’re on a group ride and it’s all about the shared experience.

One of the reasons I gave up road riding was the ‘if you drop back don’t expect us to wait’ mentality, never quite got that! Maybe they were a particularly stuck up club though!

 

[Hob Nob]

That Yeti MTE would be an awesome trail bike. But its not a fair comparison in weight to a 180mm bruiser. That's two completely different categories of bike.

The real life comparison would be amflow V mte. In that instance its 1.5kg difference. Mainly the battery weight.

In that instance i'd take the amflow. The reality is that there is 1 to 1.5kg difference from sl/mid power to full power when we compare apples with apples. The weight difference is primarily battery size and weight with a few maybe 0.5kg in motor eight difference.

Yep, although I would put the Yeti at the enduro end of the ‘trail’ space - in fact I would go as far to say on 90% of trails I ride along the Welsh valleys, it’s faster than the bigger bikes I’ve ridden.

The longer travel bikes I’ve ridden do only come into their own on the really steep & rough stuff.

Which is why (for me) weight is only part of the equation. If I took my sight for example, which is running in new Norco Range spec (170mm fork / 165mm rear travel) at ~22kg, I could put a 400w battery in it, run lighter tyres & I might get it down to nearly 20kg - the only trails it’s subjectively ‘better’ on are the same ones as before. On the more mellow stuff, it’s still a massive travel bike, with associated geometry & feel & all I’ve done is compromised it in terms of range.

I have ridden the Amflow a few times & my opinion hasn’t changed, with it being an average bike with a good powertrain. Let’s be real, if it came out with a Bosch motor it wouldn’t have sold a fraction of the volume it has - the motor is its differentiator.

For those that asked on battery use, on the big bike, I usually come home with less than 20%, as I’m just smashing climbs & descents in turbo, which equates to 25-35km in distance & 14-1600m of elevation. On the Yeti, similar elevation, similar battery use - I’m time crunched in life at the moment, so maximise the opportunity I have.

 

[Plummet]

Don't get me wrong, all things being equal, more travel is always welcome. I do notice a 20-30mm difference in fork travel much sooner than rear travel.
I find that 180mm rear end bikes and (good) 150/160mm rear end bikes tend to tap out at about the same point, given theyre both running 170-180mm forks. Double black tech trails or otherwise.
If I'm straight plowing, the supreme v5 is the go to for more speed.
Which does beg the question, why are there no e-downhill bikes ?
We have a lot of self shuttle riding where that would certainly be the ideal.
Rob's recent build of the nicolai s18 has me frothing a little bit. It comes close with the dual crown, I'd love to slap it around for a day or two. Not much information out there regarding riding impressions.

You are probably right re the similar tap out point. But the 150 bike you will riding closer to the limit with more risk of crashing than the 180mm bike at the top end. Also what terrain do you ride and enjoy the most? For me its the 180mm best suited stuff. I want to be charging in that terrain. So thus the 180mm bike. I will take a bit more softness on the easy trails to be getting gains on the double blacks. But i totally get why someone would run a 150/170 bike which would be better suited to the majority of riding they do and then withstand the heavier stuff when they hit into it.

I've though long and a why not more dh E's. I've come to the conclusion that the market is just to small for dudes that want to go full dh mode living in a location without a lift served bike park. Of course if you have a lift served bike park and a dh rig you will take that over E dh any day of the week.

Plus the full fat DH E is heavy and has limitations above motor cut out. I had a 190/190 Voima before the crestline and it was pretty damn close to a dh rig in chunk absorbing. But the greatest suck of that bike was when you hit motor cut out, it was a slow heavy Pig that was terrible to pedal and pop. Features on DH tracks that required more speed than motor cut (pretty much every feature is above motor cut on a dh track) plus pedal and popping to clear were sometimes not possible on the Voima because of the weight and the pedal suck. The greatest irony of that bike is that it was dh capable in suspension but not ultimate speed above motor cut. I just couldn't hit all lines on all tracks that I could riding my dh bike.

The other side to why not more dh e's is 200mm of travel is just too much for the standard bike park trails that isnt full on dh track. In general terms on E you end up riding everything. So there is a limit of where more suspension is worse. For you its 150/170. For me its 180/180. That's why i'm 180/180 and not 180/200. 200 is just too much for the standard stuff.

 

[ntm95]

You are probably right re the similar tap out point. But the 150 bike you will riding closer to the limit with more risk of crashing than the 180mm bike at the top end. Also what terrain do you ride and enjoy the most? For me its the 180mm best suited stuff. I want to be charging in that terrain. So thus the 180mm bike. I will take a bit more softness on the easy trails to be getting gains on the double blacks. But i totally get why someone would run a 150/170 bike which would be better suited to the majority of riding they do and then withstand the heavier stuff when they hit into it.

I've though long and a why not more dh E's. I've come to the conclusion that the market is just to small for dudes that want to go full dh mode living in a location without a lift served bike park. Of course if you have a lift served bike park and a dh rig you will take that over E dh any day of the week.

Plus the full fat DH E is heavy and has limitations above motor cut out. I had a 190/190 Voima before the crestline and it was pretty damn close to a dh rig in chunk absorbing. But the greatest suck of that bike was when you hit motor cut out, it was a slow heavy Pig that was terrible to pedal and pop. Features on DH tracks that required more speed than motor cut (pretty much every feature is above motor cut on a dh track) plus pedal and popping to clear were sometimes not possible on the Voima because of the weight and the pedal suck. The greatest irony of that bike is that it was dh capable in suspension but not ultimate speed above motor cut. I just couldn't hit all lines on all tracks that I could riding my dh bike.

The other side to why not more dh e's is 200mm of travel is just too much for the standard bike park trails that isnt full on dh track. In general terms on E you end up riding everything. So there is a limit of where more suspension is worse. For you its 150/170. For me its 180/180. That's why i'm 180/180 and not 180/200. 200 is just too much for the standard stuff.

I'd not take the voima as a representative of what's possible with a longer travel e-bike.
It has the worst possible geometry. I feel a little ill just looking at it's geo chart, hah !

The type of riding we commonly do doesn't really require much pedalling past cutoff, there's generally enough vertical that you're rarely adding cranks, even when charging hard. Just working the trail is usually enough.
Riding agro level is usually high, like Ricky Bobby, I just want to go fast.

Spend a lot of time around these areas:

Sweet one at sunpeaks is one of my all time favourite trails.

 

[Emailsucks98]

I've come to the conclusion that the market is just to small for dudes that want to go full dh mode living in a location without a lift served bike park. Of course if you have a lift served bike park and a dh rig you will take that over E dh any day of the week.

I had mostly written off lift-assisted riding years ago for various reasons (eBikes being one of them).

Anyways, I really enjoyed the Slash+ last year at Whistler, Sun Peaks and Revelstoke. Rode most all those trails @ntm95 just posted!

With the 360wh battery it was a great weight for park riding, and the high pivot was perfection. Yet also a great bike for valley trails etc outside the park. I tried the bike without the battery, but preferred the 360- just nice to have it for pedaling to/from, getting from creekside back to whistler, out-of-bounds trails etc.

Granted a pretty unique use scenario. I was surprised to see quite a few of these at Whistler. Still not a full DH bike but a lot more versatile.

 

[ntm95]

I had mostly written off lift-assisted riding years ago for various reasons (eBikes being one of them).

Anyways, I really enjoyed the Slash+ last year at Whistler, Sun Peaks and Revelstoke. Rode most all those trails @ntm95 just posted!

With the 360wh battery it was a great weight for park riding, and the high pivot was perfection. Yet also a great bike for valley trails etc outside the park. I tried the bike without the battery, but preferred the 360- just nice to have it for pedaling to/from, getting from creekside back to whistler, out-of-bounds trails etc.

Granted a pretty unique use scenario. I was surprised to see quite a few of these at Whistler. Still not a full DH bike but a lot more versatile.

I was surprised to see the trend of about 25% of bikes at the lift served parks being e-bikes last year. At weekend only shuttle parks like valemount, the e-bike is the business for riding all week with no crowd.
Much to my dismay, I saw no downside with a decent e-bike, from a performance standpoint.

 

[Plummet]

I'd not take the voima as a representative of what's possible with a longer travel e-bike.
It has the worst possible geometry. I feel a little ill just looking at it's geo chart, hah !

The type of riding we commonly do doesn't really require much pedalling past cutoff, there's generally enough vertical that you're rarely adding cranks, even when charging hard. Just working the trail is usually enough.
Riding agro level is usually high, like Ricky Bobby, I just want to go fast.

Spend a lot of time around these areas:

Sweet one at sunpeaks is one of my all time favourite trails.

Epic trails.

Voima wasnt bad from a geo perspective when riding it, apart from the high bb. I mulleted it which put the bb into a normal range of dh bikes. Mulleting it also slackened it into dh bike range which was also good for high speed dh. The stupid steep seat angle worked well from a dh perspective. The seat wasnt in the way of the 190mm of travel.

What sucked was the weight and lack of pedalability and popability above motor cut. If you had trails with enough natural gravity to get so speed for big features then there was nothing wrong with how the voima rode on fast dh tracks.

Get in to tight single track and standard bike park stuff and it was too much bike, and unweildy lumbering beast. It was real hard to keep up with my mates on their trek rails on the Voima.

So,,, when i speced out the crestline, i pulled back the front travel to make the more normal trail friendly than the Voima. pulling down the battery options helped again with playfulness.

Also after riding a 150/170 bike with 800wh battery I felt my lighter 180/180 bike to be as much fun on the smaller stuff and more fun on the bigger stuff. So there is certainly a playoff with ultimate weight and bike playfulness. Heavy short travel bikes are worse than lighter long travel bikes.

 

[Suns_PSD]

I had watched a couple of reviews of bikes with the HP60/ 580wh battery and one take away is that people really can't kill the battery as it's so efficienct, and obviously doesn't assist a ton. Most builds are in the 46# range.

I really think this would be a VERY solid powertrain in the vein of the Maxon if HP could provide a significant power increase on the same hardware without an increase in noise. 550 watts/ 70ish tq would make this an outstanding package for a lot of users. That is something I'd be really interested in personally.

 

[Noclutch]

I had watched a couple of reviews of bikes with the HP60/ 580wh battery and one take away is that people really can't kill the battery as it's so efficienct, and obviously doesn't assist a ton. Most builds are in the 46# range.

I really think this would be a VERY solid powertrain in the vein of the Maxon if HP could provide a significant power increase on the same hardware without an increase in noise. 550 watts/ 70ish tq would make this an outstanding package for a lot of users. That is something I'd be really interested in personally.

Ah, that slippery slope of power! And weight...
I totally agree, and am guilty of my mindset slipping into the "light heavyweight" line of thinking.
Hence my latest lust- the Vala. Middle weight, middle battery, big motor.

 

[Suns_PSD]

Ah, that slippery slope of power! And weight...
I totally agree, and am guilty of my mindset slipping into the "light heavyweight" line of thinking.
Hence my latest lust- the Vala. Middle weight, middle battery, big motor.

I will say that in my terrain and in my TX heat, and I have strong legs and can pedal a normal bike damn well, my Fazua 350w/ 60 NM spends 100% of it's time in the highest mode, and is often lacking for my needs. It really doesn't climb much better than my trail bike as the Fazua bike has heavier slower tires and weighs more as well.
I don't want to run my next motor 'all out all of the time' and I want to be able to spend most of my time in some sort of trail mode so that I have more left over for when I'm wrecked, it's 105' F/ 85% humidity, I had leg day just a day earlier, I travel to real mountains, etc.

 

[2WHLFUN]

I started with an alloy emtb with Shimano EP8 and 625wh battery. With tough wheels and tires it was about 56lbs, I like to find side hits and hop instead of slowing down. I was developing tennis elbow from trying to yank the thing into the air. Found a left over Santa Cruz Heckler MX that was 49lbs but with a 504wh battery. Could only use boost on shorter rides but I like to put in effort up hill. Just found a deal on a Revel Rerun. Bosch SX w/400wh battery & 45.6lbs with pedals and gravity casing tires. I really like how the power ramps up as you pedal harder and the bike is 170mm front 165 rear. Will probably get a range extender to go on longer high alpine rides.

 

[Plummet]

I will say that in my terrain and in my TX heat, and I have strong legs and can pedal a normal bike damn well, my Fazua 350w/ 60 NM spends 100% of it's time in the highest mode, and is often lacking for my needs. It really doesn't climb much better than my trail bike as the Fazua bike has heavier slower tires and weighs more as well.
I don't want to run my next motor 'all out all of the time' and I want to be able to spend most of my time in some sort of trail mode so that I have more left over for when I'm wrecked, it's 105' F/ 85% humidity, I had leg day just a day earlier, I travel to real mountains, etc.

I'll be honest. At the 60nm setting I prefer to ride my mtb. 60nm is faster than meat power, but not by much. I'd rather have the playfulness of the mtb than dribble along on a heavier bike only slightly faster.

 

[Tilt]

Personally i think sl's are becoming redundant with these lighter weight full power coming out.
If dji did a small battery that would pretty my kill the low power market.

The great thing about a lighter full power with a small battery is you can go ride it with minimal power input like and sl, get a decent run time but then you can power up for a few seconds to clear a technical section and power back down. I can get 3 hours out of my 400wh if I milk it. The bike is playful and fun and hard charging on the downs.

Or I can go full brain melt for an hour and anything in between.
Basically the light full power can do everything the sl does and then more.

The sl is limited to only pissant power output which limits where it can ride before tapping out.

One of the truly fun things to to do on an e-bike is to tackle the barely ridable sometimes not ridable steep tech. SL's cant get close to clearing what a full power can. They miss out on that entire experience.

Mon amflow fait 19,4kg avec 800wh .je pense avec la batterie de 600wh et 900gr de moins il sera dans la catégorie sl

 

[Emailsucks98]

I'll be honest. At the 60nm setting I prefer to ride my mtb. 60nm is faster than meat power, but not by much. I'd rather have the playfulness of the mtb than dribble along on a heavier bike only slightly faster.

Valid, but faster is only one metric. For best descending, or max vert/range, SL's with big batteries have some advantages.
And I can see where the PB reviewers (amongst others) mostly prefer meatbikes, because they already do 10k' vert days on enduro meatbikes- mostly beyond the range of ebikes.

There's just no way around it, it's down to personal preference, and horses for courses.

Also, supposedly the combined rider/motor wattage output from even the weakest eBike motors is on par with pro cyclists, for sustained wattage output. Getting used to more power/torque/weight is for sure a separate topic.

 

[Hob Nob]

I'll be honest. At the 60nm setting I prefer to ride my mtb. 60nm is faster than meat power, but not by much. I'd rather have the playfulness of the mtb than dribble along on a heavier bike only slightly faster.

It feels like I’m being antagonistic & just arguing against your points, which is not my intention but…

60nm & 350w in the TQ, if you’re consistently putting out that on a naturally aspirated bike, plus the human bit on top, you should probably be racing WCXC

I ride mine with a very fit friend (5.3w/kg) compared to my (last time testing 3.75, which in cycling fitness terms is still pretty decent) & I will absolutely slaughter him in trail, let alone boost.

Out of interest, I’ve done a comparable ride between the TQ & Gen5 Bosch, in similar conditions & im within 2kph. (21 vs 23) Granted I’m working harder on the TQ, but it is still massively faster than doing the same loop just under pedal power. For reference, it’s 30km & 1100m of vert.