Bosch Gen 5 efficiency?

[Mikerb]

Rode last week with a bunch of Amflow guys(I’m on a gen5 Crestline). One of them is about my size 100kg-ish and not as fit as I am. He smoked me on all climbs and barely broke a sweat, where I was dying to keep up and working my butt off. At the end I had 21% battery while he still had 36%.
Looks to me like the Avinox is making more power more efficiently than Bosch is…

also maybe why he is 100kg and not as fit as you!!

 

[tacoma22]

Just to add to this.

Rode a Santa Cruz Vala (bosch gen 5, 600wh) 26 miles and 4311ft climbed in about 85% tour and 10% emtb and 5% in eco. Ended with 32% battery but I only weigh about 160lbs. Seems like an efficient motor. I was impressed with the bike vs the gen 3 levo I had. Motor cutt off feeling feels really good on the bosch. All stock settings.

I think I can make do with the 600wh and a range extender for an even bigger day.

 

[Plummet]

This is about the max i can get out of my gen 5 bosch 600wh, 78kg, 180,180mm mullet cresty running 2.4 Max terra DD dhr rear and max grip 2.5 exo+ assgay front.

That's primarily running tour+ at 70nm on the climbs with a smattering of 85nm emtb, 60nm eco and 100nm emtb+

It seems i can get around 3.75 hours of run time riding up in the hill in lower modes. You trade elevation for distance and vise versa.

And if i go for a full pace brain melter uphill in 85nm emtb and 100nm emtb+ mode then i can get about 2 hours run time and around 1000mtr vert,

I also have a 400wh battery. So here are a couple dual battery of 1000wh sessions.

And here's a couple of 400wh sessions. Those would be running a combo fo emtb and tour+

 

[sualfred]

Some other stats for you:
40 years old, 90kg naked + gear and water ~94kg, Cube AMS 177 Hybrid Pro 600wh ~23kg , Argotal Enduro SS/Krypto R DH S

I mainly use Eco limited to 300w/40nm and support -1 and Tour+ 400w/60nm and support -1. On hard climbs EMTB with default settings for a short time frame. I never use EMTB+ or Turbo and when I do: just to piss my wife off

I often have climbs with 20% gradient but mostly in the 5-15% range. Mixed conditions. Some of them techy with a lot of roots and stones, others just gravel. A ride usually has around 35km and 1100m.

Two of my last stats with around ~10-15° on a trail/light enduro tour:
37,62km - 1281m - ~190w own power - 25% battery left
39,44km - 1065m - ~190w own power - 37% battery left

Depending on the day, temp, my own condition, my mood, the climbs and type of track I would get around 1600m up to 1700m and somewhere between 50-60km. But I guess in the end I would end up somewhere at 1500m because my personal body battery is dying too. I'm not the fittest person and my pulse is always too high.

in 95% of all cases the 600wh are more than enough for me, but I'm still thinking to get a Powermore 250 for longer rides.

Edit:
Distance and altitude were recorded on my Garmin 1040. The Flow app often shows 200m less. At least in my area with a lot of small and step climbs one after another.
This is because the Garmin utilizes a dedicated barometric sensor to capture minor elevation changes, whereas the Bosch Flow app relies on smartphone and less detailed map data with more aggressive filtering. This difference in hardware and smoothing algorithms causes Bosch to omit small climbs, resulting in a lower cumulative total than the Garmin.

 

[Bobcat]

It was around 10C with the Vala. I rode the Rail on that same circuit a week ago and can't honestly recall the temperature then, but it couldn't have been more than 14C at best. Could a 4-5C difference in ambient temperature make that much impact? I really feel the cold intensely, and never go out if it's less than 6 or 7C outside, so I have not noticed any temperature effects on my battery when riding the Rail.

FYI the Vala was wearing the magic Mary radials which I had set at 18 PSI, compared to an Assegai/DHR2 combo on my Rail which I run at 16 PSI front, 18 rear. Yes, pretty low I know, but comparable pressures for the radials.

I wouldn't normally have commented on the difference in battery usage except it was so dramatic in this case.

That’s the issue, I’ve found my MM radials kill my battery compared to the continentals on it before. However, you should run radials around 3 or 4 psi more than a regular tyre anyway, which helps.

 

[BeatM.]

My buddy and I go out with the bikes in the screenshot and sometimes bring along friends. The only bike on Gen 5 is the Cube 177 the extra bit of Battery has not helped to increase the range compared to the others on Gen4. We easy make a 40-50 km spin on any of the bikes with speeds averaging around 16-18Km/h . Normally come home with almost identical battery % remaining.

The gen 5 extra bit of power does help on the more technical stuff but I believe that's where it just sucks out more battery.

The pink bike with 625 battery is hard tail and smooth 29s front and back, hence it rolls efficiently but also slips away easily

 

[Purple parznip]

I've a question for any Bosch gen 5 owners about their experience of its efficiency and battery consumption.

I just test rode a Santa Cruz Vala for the day with the Bosch gen 5 motor and 600Wh battery. I rode a collection of steep natural rocky trails and did a 30km and +700m circuit at which point I had to call it a day because the battery was showing only 1 red bar on the controller display (12% remaining on the app). I had fully charged it before setting out, but the display fairly quickly dropped to 4 bars + 1 white bar (i,e 90%) so I presume it was only around 95% charged at the start. That would mean I used 80% of the 600Wh capacity, which seemed a lot to me.

I compared my ride stats from a previous ride of more or less the same circuit on my 2022 Trek Rail. This has the pre-smart system gen 4 motor and a 625Wh battery. Although the off-road circuit was more or less the same, on this occasion I had ridden to and from the start point by road which added another 15km to the total, and my battery usage was also more or less 80%. So that means 45km on the Rail compared to 30km on the Vala for more or less the same battery consumption.

I can imagine some inaccuracy in my estimation of the Rail's consumption, especially since the original Purion display only shows battery state in 20% increments, and it may have been colder by a few degrees C on the the day I rode the Vala which could affect battery usage. (Also my Rail has 25Wh more than the Vala.) Nevertheless, even taking these factors into account it does seem to me as if the range was considerably poorer with the gen 5 Vala then my old gen 4 Rail.

Am I mistaken? What do other gen 5 owners say? Thanks.

It doesnt bode well when santa cruz only put in a 600 battery,it has put a lot of potential buyers off,including me,i need a 750 or higher as i do long rides,600 is pretty prehistoric

 

[Paulquattro]

It doesnt bode well when santa cruz only put in a 600 battery,it has put a lot of potential buyers off,including me,i need a 750 or higher as i do long rides,600 is pretty prehistoric

Horses for courses thou,
i like a 600wh battery i dont want or need to lug around any more normally ,
it sees me regularly 1300m of ascent with 27miles of riding at bike park wales with a bit left in the battery
im no light weight either , i like the fact i dont have a heavy battery and for some unknown reason if i was to do a bigger ride i can always get an extender which i havent needed yet
Thats all done in tour mode

 

[ebsocalmtb]

I do 6-7k days on my bullit with range extender all the time using trail and some emtb. I think the 600wh choice was right for me and lets me do 3,500-4k rides on full boost with the internal, 5k full boost with the internal+re, and 6-7k if I am smart about mode usage. I can see the desire for a 750w internal... but that would make this a 51-52ish lb bike, which is a bit of a different animal then a 47-48lb bike.

 

[Suns_PSD]

There are exceptions of course related to terrain, fitness level, rider weight, length of ride, etc. but everybody thinks that they need 800wh+ but often in the real world people find otherwise.

You'll notice that I lot of the serious riders that push hard, choose the 600wh batteries when they have the choice.