Thought I’d chime in. I’ve had an orbea rise for 4 months now. I would say I’m in strong cardio shape. People are as fit as me uphill, and people are faster, but I’m always pretty surprised and impressed by it. My wife is a strong rider and a very fit lady, but the ebike almost quantifies our differences in output. She has the same bike and I typically ride about 2 out of 10 power levels higher than her to go the same speed, and get about 20% more range than she would.
Just getting back from a trip, my battery completely died doing 28 miles and 5800 vert in power 2/10 mode 80% of the time 4/10 mode 20% of the time. My wife got 4500 vert in 4/10 mode and 6/10 mode.
Did a 3800 18 mile ride today in power mode 4/10 and just ended up in the red on the battery.
My wife did the same ride in power 6/10 and her battery was basically dead.
I basically set up my power profile based on the ride I’m doing and where I think I can ride and have ample battery to get it done.
For me that’s 6000 in 2/10, 5000 in 4/10, 4000 in 6/10 and 3000 in 8/10. This is rough estimate, I think 7/10 is actually the highest turbo mode I’ve set with full 60nm output.
And my wife would be about 20% less than that. The takeaway is that for rides that are long enough that battery is a concern, the power mode you ride in 80% of the time makes a big difference, and the amount of power you’re adding makes a huge difference. I ride my ebike like my regular bike, and I put a similar amount of power as if I was on my regular bike.
I redline way less because of the motor and the fact that the average climbing trail isn’t steep enough to make me redline with a motor, but today my wife said her heart rate was at 160 as we were cranking uphill.
If you want to be as fit as possible, ride a regular bike for a day on a challenging climb to get that power strength and that redline heart rate and then ride the ebike to get the endurance because today after riding 6000 vert yesterday, and that was cranking in a boring power level 2/10, my legs felt great, which was awesome on a biking road trip.
I still want a 160/150 version of this bike, though! Or just a touch slacker with similar travel! I notice the trail geo vs enduro geo of my regular 160/145 bike, but still hit plenty of jumps and the thing still rips. Small complaints, but on certain trails, I’m happier to have my regular enduro bike!
I digress a little, but just wanted to put some numbers out there as I figure it out and get it dialed in for my personal rides and rides with wife. Can’t find a range extender, that will just be pretty fun.