Sweet spot on assistance levels

[george]

First of all! I can't stop riding my Kenevo comp just love it. I think cycling as different flavors, and my favorite one is going downhill on single tracks (roots, mud, steps), but to get down you have to go up. So specialized just solve it with the Kenevo.

My profile:
87KG (192lbs) 40 years old. I live in South America so there's is a lot of mountains.

My test terrain is a 60km (37mi) and 1000m (3500ft) climb

Day 1
30/100 ECO 50/100 TRAIL 100/100 TURBO
This is my first ebike, so for testing purposes I only use the turbo mode (feels wonderful) however I just did a half of my ryde and ended with no battery at all and noticed that is not that bad to pedal this bike (on flat terrain) and my battery just last 40% of my ride to come back with a death battery back home (still not bad, but I was expecting more from my shinny new ebike)

Should I get one of those extra power batteries? (not cheap and hard to find), then I see other posts about how to carry extra battery? Really?

Day 2
30/90 ECO 50/90 TRAIL 100/90 TURBO
I did a mix of trail and turbo and ended with death battery at 70% of my ryde.

So when you pedal in off mode and use ECO (at 30%) it feels really helpful,. so since I use only two assistance mode settings most of the time Trail and turbo) I did a little experiment for day 3...

Day 3
10/70 ECO 50/70 TRAIL 100/70 TURBO
Doing this I pedal on flat and downhill at ECO MODE
Uphill at TRAIL MODE
And big uphill steps (at TURBO MODE), the result !was a wonderful MTB ENDURO DAY where I just finished 100% of my test ride with 40% battery, and 1000% FUN! (I'm still smiling). The only problem is to find some free time to get on my bike today.

With all this I just learn to no overcomplicate things (to get new battery, carry extra battery, hacking, etc) and enjoy your ride. Ebikes are not motorcycles and we have to do workout too and is just to find the right spot. (Of course there some other conditions, terrain, length, high, etc, group ride, etc) and at least for me 99% of my rides are single day rides of couple hours and for that just the stock battery is enough!

What are your expierence?

 

[Leethal1]

Still experimenting but i like:

25/25 Eco
35/70 Trail
100/100 Turbo

 

[george]

Still experimenting but i like:

25/25 Eco
35/70 Trail
100/100 Turbo

Nice! Will try!

 

[davarello]

Eco 20-35
Trail 40-60
Turbo 60-100

 

[Shaun]

Eco 20
Trail 40
Turbo 70

 

[Dfriz]

25/50/100

 

[Drburns]

Eco: 15-30
Trail: 40-70
Turbo: 100-100

 

[Andy A]

Hi there I am new here and am considering a Levo but can someone explain what all this means please

 

[thetbg]

10/30/100

 

[Neilvx]

turbo 100% everywhere

 

[davarello]

Hi there I am new here and am considering a Levo but can someone explain what all this means please

With the Levo you can customise each assist level with both a starting value and peak power limit to give the motor a range to work within. Some people just want fixed levels so they will set numbers that match (25/25, 50/50,100/100) and other leave it almost fully open with all modes topped out at 100 - this means even in ECO mode the motor will run to full bore if required. The risk with that approach is that you could be going thruogh a lot more power than expected, so I run Eco at 20-35 for flats/road riding, Trail at 40-60 for most off road riding and Turbo at 60-100 for steep/rocky climbs or simply blasting rolliing singletrack! hope this makes sense.

 

[Andy A]

With the Levo you can customise each assist level with both a starting value and peak power limit to give the motor a range to work within. Some people just want fixed levels so they will set numbers that match (25/25, 50/50,100/100) and other leave it almost fully open with all modes topped out at 100 - this means even in ECO mode the motor will run to full bore if required. The risk with that approach is that you could be going thruogh a lot more power than expected, so I run Eco at 20-35 for flats/road riding, Trail at 40-60 for most off road riding and Turbo at 60-100 for steep/rocky climbs or simply blasting rolliing singletrack! hope this makes sense.

Thanks for the reply that does make sense ? I think I would just leave it as standard

 

[Neilvx]

I have eco set to 25/100 trail 50/100 and turbo 100/100.

even though they are all set to 100 there is a massive difference. I really don't get it ??

 

[DrKrown]

I have eco set to 25/100 trail 50/100 and turbo 100/100.

even though they are all set to 100 there is a massive difference. I really don't get it ??

The first number is related to the assistance level, that increases the power delivered by the rider by a factor of 3.2x at 100%

So, if you deliver 100 watts with your legs, at 100% assistance the motor will deliver 320 additional watts, 420 watts in total.
if you deliver 100 watts with your legs, at 50% assistance the motor will deliver 160 additional watts, 260 watts in total.

And so on.

The second number is related to the maximum power that the motor can deliver.
At 100% PP, the motor could deliver (just for a short time) 700 watts of maximum power.
If you limit this peak by 50%, the motor will deliver 350 watts of maximum power.

Just another example to clarify:
If you deliver with your legs 200 watts at 100% assistance, the motor will deliver 640 watts. This happens if you don’t limit the peak power, leaving it at 100%.
If you limit the peak power by 50%, you are asking the motor to deliver no more than 350 watts.
In this case, in the example above, if you deliver 200w with you legs, you will get only 350 watts from the motor.

This means that, with low assistance levels, the Peak Power setting has no influence on the motor behaviour unless you are delivering very high levels of power with your legs.

Hope that the attached excel file could be more clear than my words:

EDIT: better excel file


Download and play with the excel file: you can change the Peak Power setting to your desired level, and see the changes in the table below.

 

[Andy A]

Hi Dr thanks for this I understand now I didn't realise that this could be done, my wife has a Haibike which she loves but she can't adjust the settings like that, she is really interested in a bigger battery that her Bosch 500wh and the Levo with the 700wh battery I reckon would be perfect for her.

The only thing putting her off is her Haibike has 4 settings which are eco tour sport and turbo and she spends most of her ride in tour but for tough off road climds she uses sport and turbo but because the Levo only has 3 settings it is putting her off as she thinks that the trail setting on the Levo will be more powerful than her tour setting and she would then worry about battery usage but with this system she could alter it couldn't she, but I know she likes the 4 settings also she is wondering what the Flyon will be like with the 630wh battery will that new motor suck all the power away as she really wants longer range now

 

[DrKrown]

Hi Dr thanks for this I understand now I didn't realise that this could be done, my wife has a Haibike which she loves but she can't adjust the settings like that, she is really interested in a bigger battery that her Bosch 500wh and the Levo with the 700wh battery I reckon would be perfect for her.

The only thing putting her off is her Haibike has 4 settings which are eco tour sport and turbo and she spends most of her ride in tour but for tough off road climds she uses sport and turbo but because the Levo only has 3 settings it is putting her off as she thinks that the trail setting on the Levo will be more powerful than her tour setting and she would then worry about battery usage but with this system she could alter it couldn't she, but I know she likes the 4 settings also she is wondering what the Flyon will be like with the 630wh battery will that new motor suck all the power away as she really wants longer range now

In my opinion, the completely customizable setup of the Levo motor leaves nothing to be desired.
As long as your age and your fitness level change year by year, the settings that are good for you today, could not be good tomorrow.

 

[george]

turbo 100% everywhere

I always will love TURBO MODE

 

[GuyBerry]

Am I the only one with eco 15-100 setting? We live in an old dune area, short quite steep climbs and a lot of reacceleration out of tight turns. My own peak output is about 800W, and I want the motor to assist wathever power I put on the pedals, and no topping off.

 

[DrKrown]

Am I the only one with eco 15-100 setting? We live in an old dune area, short quite steep climbs and a lot of reacceleration out of tight turns. My own peak output is about 800W, and I want the motor to assist wathever power I put on the pedals, and no topping off.

My eco setting is 10/100, mainly used for rides with “analog” friends.
Trail setting is 20/100 and turbo 40/100

 

[george]

My eco setting is 10/100, mainly used for rides with “analog” friends.
Trail setting is 20/100 and turbo 40/100

Interesting, very low assistance, I will try similar settings on my next ride.

How far are you able to get? And how is the terrain profile (flat, uphill)?

Thanks for sharing

 

[DrKrown]

Interesting, very low assistance, I will try similar settings on my next ride.

How far are you able to get? And how is the terrain profile (flat, uphill)?

Thanks for sharing

I live in northern Italy, in a land with very steep climbs, mainly through forests. Really hard to ride.
Eco 10/100 is the setting that I use for my rides with friends with analog bikes, as long as we want to stay together and maintain the same pace.
In my opinion, assistance at 10% just compensate the 10 kg heavier bike, and put you in the same effort condition as your analog friends.
When riding with other ebikes or just alone, 20% assistance is the sweet spot for me as I’m in good shape and I like to push on the pedals.
Turbo 40% is only for the steepest climbs.

So you may ask... why an ebike?
Because I like to be able to choose, not every day I want to sustain big efforts, and sometime I just want to ride despite I’m tired.
I’m almost 47 after all...

 

[DrKrown]

How far are you able to get?

I just looked into my last ride.
I rode 63 km, 1100 mt ascent, 4,5 hours using 60% of my 500w battery juice.
All ride at eco 10%

 

[george]

I live in northern Italy, in a land with very steep climbs, mainly through forests. Really hard to ride.
Eco 10/100 is the setting that I use for my rides with friends with analog bikes, as long as we want to stay together and maintain the same pace.
In my opinion, assistance at 10% just compensate the 10 kg heavier bike, and put you in the same effort condition as your analog friends.
When riding with other ebikes or just alone, 20% assistance is the sweet spot for me as I’m in good shape and I like to push on the pedals.
Turbo 40% is only for the steepest climbs.

So you may ask... why an ebike?
Because I like to be able to choose, not every day I want to sustain big efforts, and sometime I just want to ride despite I’m tired.
I’m almost 47 after all...

Greetings to Italy and you are right! is great to be able to choose to ride with a group of acoustic bikes, some times just want to work on my downhill technical skills so I can go up couple times on the same day , some times just uphill workout (less assistance)! and just because of that I can't stop riding my bike!

 

[george]

I just looked into my last ride.
I rode 63 km, 1100 mt ascent, 4,5 hours using 60% of my 500w battery juice.
All ride at eco 10%

Impressive numbers!
Since for me 10 ECO still feels like I'm pedaling with the brakes on, I can't hold ECO for a long time on uphill.
I'm using 2.8 inches at 40PSI (Or for sure I need to continue pedaling to get in a better shape)

 

[hbakken]

Is it the "support" or "peak power" that is the main battery drain?
So far, I've use the same value for both, currently running 30/30, 60/60 and turbo at 90/90

not very impressed by the battery capacity in winter conditions.

 

[Leethal1]

I think it is the peak number...

The stock settings are
35/35
35/100
100/100

and trail mode 35/100 drains a lot more rapidly for me than ECO.. I have turned it down to 30/70 and gotten a lot more battery life.

 

[george]

Is it the "support" or "peak power" that is the main battery drain?
So far, I've use the same value for both, currently running 30/30, 60/60 and turbo at 90/90

not very impressed by the battery capacity in winter conditions.

There is some thermal protection too, and of course a lot of factors (cadence, terrain, stops, tire pressure)

Keep us updated if you see some differences

 

[brizi2003]

First of all! I can't stop riding my Kenevo comp just love it. I think cycling as different flavors, and my favorite one is going downhill on single tracks (roots, mud, steps), but to get down you have to go up. So specialized just solve it with the Kenevo.

My profile:
87KG (192lbs) 40 years old. I live in South America so there's is a lot of mountains.

My test terrain is a 60km (37mi) and 1000m (3500ft) climb

Day 1
30/100 ECO 50/100 TRAIL 100/100 TURBO
This is my first ebike, so for testing purposes I only use the turbo mode (feels wonderful) however I just did a half of my ryde and ended with no battery at all and noticed that is not that bad to pedal this bike (on flat terrain) and my battery just last 40% of my ride to come back with a death battery back home (still not bad, but I was expecting more from my shinny new ebike)

Should I get one of those extra power batteries? (not cheap and hard to find), then I see other posts about how to carry extra battery? Really?

Day 2
30/90 ECO 50/90 TRAIL 100/90 TURBO
I did a mix of trail and turbo and ended with death battery at 70% of my ryde.

So when you pedal in off mode and use ECO (at 30%) it feels really helpful,. so since I use only two assistance mode settings most of the time Trail and turbo) I did a little experiment for day 3...

Day 3
10/70 ECO 50/70 TRAIL 100/70 TURBO
Doing this I pedal on flat and downhill at ECO MODE
Uphill at TRAIL MODE
And big uphill steps (at TURBO MODE), the result !was a wonderful MTB ENDURO DAY where I just finished 100% of my test ride with 40% battery, and 1000% FUN! (I'm still smiling). The only problem is to find some free time to get on my bike today.

With all this I just learn to no overcomplicate things (to get new battery, carry extra battery, hacking, etc) and enjoy your ride. Ebikes are not motorcycles and we have to do workout too and is just to find the right spot. (Of course there some other conditions, terrain, length, high, etc, group ride, etc) and at least for me 99% of my rides are single day rides of couple hours and for that just the stock battery is enough!

What are your expierence?

Hey George that's really interesting what you've discovered. And using a 'test' route is a good idea. I too have a Kenevo Comp and I'm enjoying mine too for all the same reasons you said! The furthest I've managed so far was 38.2miles, with 3167ft climbing and my battery ran flat about 1 mile from home, but unfortunately I can't remember what settings I was using, but remember mainly using ECO mode (not that enjoyable!). Today I was running 15/30, 20/100, 100/100 - flat/down in ECO, medium climbs in TRAIL and steep climbs in TURBO and I did 21.8 miles, 2350ft climbing, Avg Speed 9.2mi/h and used 341Wh (about 75% on the 460Wh battery capacity). Using 15 & 20 for ECO & TRAIL means the jump between the modes is not so large then the jump to TURBO is massive! I never considered using a lower setting for motor power than assistance level as you did on Day 3 - but perhaps that's the key to preserving battery. I think I will try something closer to your settings but I will need to keep TURBO at 100/100 since my son also has an eBike and we go for shorter but more fun rides TURBO up, TRAIL everything else!. I've tried the automatic distance/time function but haven't found it that good - so I think manual tuning specific to the type of ride your going to do is the way to go. Happy riding/tuning! Brian

 

[brizi2003]

The first number is related to the assistance level, that increases the power delivered by the rider by a factor of 3.2x at 100%

So, if you deliver 100 watts with your legs, at 100% assistance the motor will deliver 320 additional watts, 420 watts in total.
if you deliver 100 watts with your legs, at 50% assistance the motor will deliver 160 additional watts, 260 watts in total.

And so on.

The second number is related to the maximum power that the motor can deliver.
At 100% PP, the motor could deliver (just for a short time) 700 watts of maximum power.
If you limit this peak by 50%, the motor will deliver 350 watts of maximum power.

Just another example to clarify:
If you deliver with your legs 200 watts at 100% assistance, the motor will deliver 640 watts. This happens if you don’t limit the peak power, leaving it at 100%.
If you limit the peak power by 50%, you are asking the motor to deliver no more than 350 watts.
In this case, in the example above, if you deliver 200w with you legs, you will get only 350 watts from the motor.

This means that, with low assistance levels, the Peak Power setting has no influence on the motor behaviour unless you are delivering very high levels of power with your legs.

Hope that the attached excel file could be more clear than my words:

EDIT: better excel file


Download and play with the excel file: you can change the Peak Power setting to your desired level, and see the changes in the table below.

Where did you find the values you used i.e. 3.2 & 700W peak power for motor?

 

[brizi2003]

I think part of this depends on how fast you want to go. e.g. when climbing it's possible to go faster in a higher gear than you would on a normal bike. By selecting a lower gear and going slower, but still with decent cadence, the motor will have a much easier time thus conserving battery life. But I suppose this means it will take longer to complete the same distance so it comes down to how much less watts are needed compared with how many more hours the distance will take. (Since number of Watt-Hours used determines the battery life duration). I guess you could ride the same route/distance in a low gear and see how much battery is used then ride the same route again in a higher gear and compare the result. This is definitely how my legs/lungs work but I'm not sure if the same applies to electric motors!