How hard do you have to pedal with a torque sensor mid drive

I have an medical issue with my legs and as a result i cant pedal as hard as i used to
I'm riding a 1000watt hub motor and a 750 watt bafang mid drive but Im looking to upgade
a lot of the systems Im looking at are torque sensing so my question is are the torque levels adjustable? can i get 100 percent out of these units if i cant stomp on the pedals. Im living in South Australia where the e bike laws are c@#p so i have to be pretending to pedal most of the time to get past the fun police

Doable but you would find yourself in the turbo or equivalent range mostly. The thing is with torque sensing is that it works on the principle of the harder you push the more power it delivers whereas cadence sensing just needs the magnets to go round and round.

Personally I would stick with the hub drive and cadence sensing. There are different levels of power and quality of manufacturing with them as well. Grin (ebikes.ca) has all the info you would need.

what i would do is just use a cadence sensing setup to control the power; i do this on the sb cruiser with the cycle analyst v3 itnerpreting the throttle and pas for the generic controllers,

there are controllers that do this natively too, such as some of the kt kunteng kun teng using the opensource firmware in the thread(s) by casainho / stancecoke /etc.

however....if you have trouble starting from a stop, you might need a 'startup button" that provides sufficient power to get you moving and then you release it and pedal to control the motor power after that.


the problem with all the torque sensing stuff i know of, including the kt w/osf, and the ca, (except for bionx, but they're out of business) is taht the torque sensor is ignored until the pedals have reached a certain rpm minimum (50 in the case of the ca), so you'd also need that startup button there, too.

my knees and other joints don't handle that well, so i just use the throttle to give me a burst of power until the trike starts moving and then i can pedal normally and control everything that way just fine.

but a button would do the same thing once i figured out how much throttle that button would need to provide.


so...if you have to use a workaround anyway, the cadence stuff is cheaper to do, with less to go wrong.

My (750W) TSDZ2 has 4 torque levels, from minimal to “turbo” ..wheelie level, all of which seem to work from dead stop. The top 2 settings take most of the work out of pedaling ..AND compared to other Ebike systems i have used, minimise the power consumption.
It also came with a thumb throttle which can be used at any time if you just want to quit pedaling completely or start on a steep hill without struggling.
Sure, i know that technically its not a legal assist, but the motor has “250W” factory label , and due to the complexity of the variable power delivery, it would take a really determined expert to proove it.
Ride sensibly and fly under the radar for a hassle free life.!

And IANAL but, if your medical issue is documented, I bet the law in practice would land on the side of assisting the less-abled with mobility.

Not that you want to have to fund the precedent-setting test case

but carry evidence paperwork and I think it's a rare cop would press the issue, so long as you were complying with the law's spirit and behaving well.

I agree.. Document your medical issue, and run a throttle. Drag that cop into court, with the TV reporter there, if they try to screw you. Find a lawyer that will pro bono a case screwing the handicapped.

You can have a PAS, plus throttle system that is not torque sensing. I never heard of a law saying torque sensing is mandatory. Just PAS. So what if the throttle is illegal. Just clown pedal a bit when you see cops. If you ride legal, cops should ignore you.. So just stop at the stops, ride the correct side of the road, and all that, at moderate speeds.