Well, i've ridden the kona and all i can say is i'm sooooo dissapointed.
But only thats there's not enough time in the day!!!!!!!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
i loved it.that's an understatement.
where to start?
well first of all a massive, massive thank you to everyone that contributed to my bike in the last two years, it works this well because of all of you guys and all the tips i have had here from practically eveyone on this forum.
i wont embarass them but certain individuals here only need to ring me now if i can help them with anything!!
ok im getting teary
bike built,sat afternoon, 69v on the db. not fully charged but good enough
took the bike up my road and first thing to notice is the puma is slightly more noisy than my bmc, not really much in it but definately a little more noisy and a different sound, slightly higher pitch maybe, any way i gassed her up a bit up the hill and second thing to notice was it's definately got more punch!!
the bmc used to have not much of a throttle response to half way then it would go whereas now i blip the throttle and it lunges forward, took some getting used to (as did having a thumb throttle as mine failed) but i find the delivery from the A123's to the puma is far better applied across the range of the throttle than before.
being as i wasn't fully charged i thought i would hop straight on the trails and have a quick blast off road as that's what if for and whoooa this is a very different beast from the last ride, the 24's are totally awesome, i felt sure footed as a mountain goat and leaned the bike over with gay abandon, super nice.
flicking the bike from side to side is now much easier, having halfed pack weight the bike is at least 15lb lighter and it shows, especially with handling. The 20's with the two heavy lipo's used to give out on the front end in a moderate turn and i'd either put a foot down and save or go down, on the new wheels/tyres/pack i never even got to close to making the bike uncomfortable, quite amazing difference.
oh yes and the power, torquier
its difficult to gauge how much better it is as i ride differently now than i did last year. I use the pedals all the time.but the bike is quick uphill, very quick, at one point late in the ride i was in 2nd and pedaling reasonably uphill at around 16mph, i gave it full throttle and combined with 42/15 gear the front rose half a foot and then fell again, well you couldn't wipe the smile off my face after that.
i love this bike, the gears are working beautifully and im never off the pedals!!! even though i know the puma will pull me up any hill unassisted that i ride there's a big difference between having the motor pull me up a hill at say 12mph and then having the ability to pedal and hitting 20mph on the same hill with the front end popping up
unreal!!!
the gears work flawlessy, im so pleased i cant tell you, i have atop assist of 23mph ish and it's just right.
when im riding my speed only tops 25mph when im on the bridelways riding from one trail to the next but apart from that it's more normal to top out at 25 or below on the trails so now i have first, second, third its a dream.Up the gears, burst of power,brake, down the gears - i've was never this involved with single speed!!!
it's frocking great, oh and acceleration? well using the pedals and just shifting up from a sitting position leaves the what was behind far far behind :lol: , nice and smooth too.
i used 4ah and travelled 8.6 miles - thats about what i expected, i think db showed 34wh/mile ??? not sure if thats right.
top speed? mmmmm well only 23mph?
max amps 30?
hold on these readings didn't seem right to me, i thought it was much quicker top end and i must have pulled more than 30a on this pack wtf???
then it dawned on me, doh!!!
because i didn't know which was max and which was min on the adjustable current pot i had set it to halfway for the first ride!!!
also i didn't change the db to reflect the wheel size lol what an asswipe!!
oh and i had started at 69v rather than 74v fresh off charge.
anyway none of that mattered at all, i'd been running with a 30a limit and i had loved the torque - theres still 20 more to play with? damn.
as im runing less voltage now i would guess my top speed will be 30mph but i'll do a fresh charge top end test on full amps at the weekend
i'll post more data up once i get a clean run but as you can probably tell im absolutely stoked with the way the bike performed, i would say that i have achieved my goal now and anything beyond this is just icing on the cake.
Am i happy????? well look at that stupid grin?????????
cheers all,
D
lol, its taken me 2 years to get this one done :lol: 
