"Hm, i don't get it, but maybe i missunderstood something. If i pedal and my pedal will hit an oncoming root, i have to stop pedaling (or back pedal a bit). If i brake or not doesn't matter, that pedal will hit the root if i don't stop pedaling. Braking would just change my speed but the pedal rotation is still exactly the same. I don't have a clue how you move your pedals to a position you want while keeping (forward?) pressure on them, while braking, but not back-pedaling/ratcheting and all this on a steep technical uphill climb?"
Crank timing is about reading the trail in front of you and anticipating where your cranks will need to be in order to not strike whatever rock. root or rabbit that your mind says uh oh about. This as I mentioned is not exclusive to eMTB's and if you have ridden much dino MTB just think about what you do to avoid them using your conventional crank size. Back pedaling is out for this method as I mentioned because it will just shut down the PAS.
Best I can tell you is next time you ride your bike play around with the concept a bit as it can be felt even in a parking lot. Get going and apply the slightest pressure to the brake lever while slowing down your pedal stroke enough while still applying forward pressure to position them for a ghost obstacle, which shouldn't take a full revolution of the cranks. Release the brake and continue pedaling without pause. It is the slight resistance against the brake that keeps the pedal pressure constant enough to keep the PAS activated and although you might slow down a little the instant engagement gets you back up to speed quickly. For trial purposes it might help to actually over accentuate this and grab more brake while keeping pedaling against the resistance it provides.
If you have brake cutouts btw this won't work but not many bikes have them these days as torque assist systems are refined enough these days over the old cadence sensing ones that would stay activated for a bit after you stopped pedaling that they are not necessary.
Hi Mabman,
Completely understand where you are coming from regarding reading the trail and anticipating where your cranks will need to be. This is a skill that takes time and experience to learn which I have done over the number of years that I have been riding. Also what you say about applying the brakes for Trials type riding is spot on.
The key thing to remember is we are all different, our riding styles are different, our riding skills are different, the bikes we ride are different, even the Levo's we ride are set up and configured differently, the terrain we ride is different and the terrain we 'choose' to ride on and the 'speed' we ride on that terrain is different.
I moved to shorter cranks on my full suspension ebike almost immediately after I purchased it as I found I was riding a lot of completely different terrain that I was just not used to at a 'speed' I was not used to. This resulted in many pedal strikes on the 170mm cranks that were fitted standard on the bike. Trail reading and anticipating where your cranks would need to be became very challenging as the newly found steep uphill terrain that you could now climb on the ebike at speed required you to continually pedal in order to actually get up the climb. Changing to shorter cranks for 'my' style of riding removed most of the pedal strikes in this situation. In really rough terrain I still get the very odd strike but it is almost a non event now.
I still use the methods you describe above where I can which is quite often. However, I believe I have the best of both worlds now where I can work my way though a steep uphill section or root/rock garden without pedal strikes using your method or when I feel like it, SMASH THROUGH IT and pedal non stop at high speed through the same steep uphill section or root/rock garden with my Levo that has 180mm of front travel, 165mm coil rear travel and 137mm cranks.