Well I did the conversion last week and so far I'm very pleased.
Fitted a SRAM NX 12 speed, 11 - 50 cassette, 12 speed XT rear mech, shifter and chain.
I wanted lower gearing as I normally ride with a group mostly on analogue bikes who are all younger than me and the problem I had was keeping a high enough cadence when on long gnarly climbs. I run in ECO mode set at 10% assistance and now can stay in that and stay with my pals rather than upping the power and buggering off without them then waiting at the top - seemed unfair. My cadence and effort is similar to the fittest of my pals (he's 40 I'm 69) so we can have a bit of competition and I don't feel I'm cheating, just compensating for my seniority. Battery usage seems to be less with the lower gear and higher cadence - yesterday did 25 kilometres with over 700 metres of climbing all at 10% assistance, average speed of 13.2 kph and used 32% of battery. Looks like 70 k range with 2000 metres climbing is feasible with this set up with my standard 500Whr battery.
I may change to an XT cassette, just to keep everything Shimano if I can find a suitable spline freehub body for the Formula hub. This could be the one if anyone can confirm please;
Time will tell on the subject of drive train wear but I'm not expecting anything horrendous as I only weigh 60kg and as I said run low power assistance and I'm meticulous with drive train maintenance. We'll see.
It's worth noting that 2021 Turbo Levos have gone 12 speed with similar gearing.
Hope anyone else who may be considering a similar conversion finds this useful.
Fitted a SRAM NX 12 speed, 11 - 50 cassette, 12 speed XT rear mech, shifter and chain.
I wanted lower gearing as I normally ride with a group mostly on analogue bikes who are all younger than me and the problem I had was keeping a high enough cadence when on long gnarly climbs. I run in ECO mode set at 10% assistance and now can stay in that and stay with my pals rather than upping the power and buggering off without them then waiting at the top - seemed unfair. My cadence and effort is similar to the fittest of my pals (he's 40 I'm 69) so we can have a bit of competition and I don't feel I'm cheating, just compensating for my seniority. Battery usage seems to be less with the lower gear and higher cadence - yesterday did 25 kilometres with over 700 metres of climbing all at 10% assistance, average speed of 13.2 kph and used 32% of battery. Looks like 70 k range with 2000 metres climbing is feasible with this set up with my standard 500Whr battery.
I may change to an XT cassette, just to keep everything Shimano if I can find a suitable spline freehub body for the Formula hub. This could be the one if anyone can confirm please;
Time will tell on the subject of drive train wear but I'm not expecting anything horrendous as I only weigh 60kg and as I said run low power assistance and I'm meticulous with drive train maintenance. We'll see.
It's worth noting that 2021 Turbo Levos have gone 12 speed with similar gearing.
Hope anyone else who may be considering a similar conversion finds this useful.
