Balmorhea said:
Why do you go so fast? Do the local authorities make you register your bike?
There is no way to legally register my bike but local authorities always turn a blind eye. I am always pedaling and it does not register in their mind that i'm doing anything other than riding a bike. I also design my ebikes to not stick out. No duct tape, little to no exposed wiring, controller tucked in a bag or otherwise hidden, etc.
My speeds have to do with the poor design of the streets where i live. I am a commuter and we have bicycle lanes that randomly appear and disappear. Or people park in them. Or people put trash cans in them. Sidewalks appear and disappear also.
In addition to this, we have basically nobody commuting by bicycle in this area. Drivers are not used to looking out for bicycles. If you follow legal bike speeds and legal riding rules, you will be constantly weaving in and out of the car lane and will put yourself in extreme danger. I know this because i've had stints of riding a non powered bike out here and each ~5 mile ride had multiple times where nobody was paying attention and i could have been killed if i wasn't looking. Everyone i've spoken to, including people at bicycle shops, tell me that the idea of commuting by bike here is insane. :lol: I suppose i agree.
My solution is to have a bicycle that is capable of occasionally maintaining the top speed of surface streets, and that's 45mph. Meaning that when the bike lane is about to disappear, i've already flipped a speed switch and decided i'm a motorcycle until i have a bike lane again. And apart from the occasional scream to "get off the road", cars treat me as a motorcycle when i'm traveling at the speeds they're going.
Then i get back in the bike lane when it's safe and putz along at 20-30mph.
The surface always needs adequate inspection, and I always want the ability to exercise whatever options I have before the moment is lost.
Does this mean you ride a bicycle without suspension and constantly scan the road for imperfections? cuz that's one thing i hate about suspensionless bikes the most. A low level anxiety intrudes into the ride at all times. Much better to have a couple inches of nicely damped ( air, oil ) travel, and not have any cares at all about the road, other than mondo potholes.
No tire can replace what a nicely damped shock can do. On a fat bike, you deflate your tires and incur a huge friction penalty, which gives you at most, 1-2 inches of undamped "suspension".
A slightly deflated fat tire will give you as good of suspension as the $10 spring on this really crappy folding bike.
Which is fine if your road surfaces are consistently nice and smooth and that's all you really need, but..
Look at the MTB spring they put on this Cannondale Easy Rider. It's 3 times as long and has a damper. You can basically forget about experiencing a bump in the rear of the bike, which is great because something like 90% of your weight is resting there.
No tire can do this.
Balmorhea said:
However, it's a surprisingly cheap hub to run. Sprockets are expensive (for sprockets), but they last a long time. And they're reversible. Fluids are infrequent to replace, and maintenance is not labor-intensive. Compared to new-hotness 1x11 and 1x12 cassettes and chains, it's very economical overall.
The problem with a very high power mid drive is not just the sprockets going out, but pretty much everything that transmits power. There isn't a single aspect of a bike drivetrain that can handle, say, 4000w. You'll destroy internal geared hub internals, derailleurs, chains, sprockets, even your right chainstay.
The problem with a very high power DD hub is..... it's heavy :lol: