Which Bike To Buy? A buyers guide to the latest EMTB's

[R120]

Quite an informative article on MBR:

https://www.mbr.co.uk/buyers_guide/electric-mountain-bikes-348254

 

[Tim29]

I don’t miss the levo,kenevo, jam2 or bulls.
This bike has proven to angle better and faster then them all.
Better price to
Fantic Integra 180 with 630wh battery

 

[Al Boneta]

I don’t miss the levo,kenevo, jam2 or bulls.
This bike has proven to angle better and faster then them all.
Better price to

View attachment 5764

 

[Tim29]

View attachment 5765

I would say that’s partially my personal preference , but when i have done the same climb on all of them more then 10 times each bike and the Fantic has the KOM, specially on warm days. That’s little more then my opinion. Today Thomas and i switched bikes multiple times and every time after 10 min in high power mode the Fantic had noticibly more climbing power and would steadily pull away from the kenevo.
For the first 200ft of elevation they are dead heat, but the aluminum frame heat sink in Fantic reduces motor temp and it doesn’t throttle back nearly as much or as fast as the kenevo.
Also the 29er front has a slight speed advantage as well on rolling downhill.
Then the last 1.7 miles of the ride i had my hand pushing Thomas as he was out of battery.
So there a little bit of fact there as well.
Don’t forget the kenevo is on 27.5 x 2.8.
Fantic is 29x 2.6 and 27.5x 2.6.
32 internal front and 38 rear rim widths.

 

[Doomanic]

@Tim29 can you check/do know if the Fantic has BlueTooth?

 

[Tim29]

@Tim29 can you check/do know if the Fantic has BlueTooth?

2018 does not, the 2019 i hear is going to. I don’t know what you need blue tooth for. The stock display has, peak speed, ave speed, distance, trip distance, human power input in watts, 3 power levels, battery range remaining in miles.

 

[Al Boneta]

I would say that’s partially my personal preference , but when i have done the same climb on all of them more then 10 times each bike and the Fantic has the KOM, specially on warm days. That’s little more then my opinion. Today Thomas and i switched bikes multiple times and every time after 10 min in high power mode the Fantic had noticibly more climbing power and would steadily pull away from the kenevo.
For the first 200ft of elevation they are dead heat, but the aluminum frame heat sink in Fantic reduces motor temp and it doesn’t throttle back nearly as much or as fast as the kenevo.
Also the 29er front has a slight speed advantage as well on rolling downhill.
Then the last 1.7 miles of the ride i had my hand pushing Thomas as he was out of battery.
So there a little bit of fact there as well.
Don’t forget the kenevo is on 27.5 x 2.8.
Fantic is 29x 2.6 and 27.5x 2.6.
32 internal front and 38 rear rim widths.

That hasn’t been my experience with the Integra. I first saw an Integra at Mammoth, but the guy riding it was a heavier set guy and the only time he was ahead of me was when he would get on the lift first. I demoed one from the local dealer and it wasn’t head and shoulders above my Kenevo. I didn’t have any longer run time and the power seemed the same on all of the climbs. The only thing I liked better was the rear shock. I could and have put a 29x2.6 on the front of a Kenevo, but I think it looks pretty lame even with the better trail feel I got from it. I just replaced the 2.8s with 2.6s and I really like how the bike feels now.
It’s all personal preference and opinion, the first time I rode a pivot shuttle I thought I was faster, but my Strava Time said I was faster on the Bulls I had at the time.

 

[R120]

Sometimes the best bike is the one that feels fastest, not the actual fastest

 

[Tim29]

That hasn’t been my experience with the Integra. I first saw an Integra at Mammoth, but the guy riding it was a heavier set guy and the only time he was ahead of me was when he would get on the lift first. I demoed one from the local dealer and it wasn’t head and shoulders above my Kenevo. I didn’t have any longer run time and the power seemed the same on all of the climbs. The only thing I liked better was the rear shock. I could and have put a 29x2.6 on the front of a Kenevo, but I think it looks pretty lame even with the better trail feel I got from it. I just replaced the 2.8s with 2.6s and I really like how the bike feels now.
It’s all personal preference and opinion, the first time I rode a pivot shuttle I thought I was faster, but my Strava Time said I was faster on the Bulls I had at the time.

What dealer did you demo one through? What tires did it have on it ?

 

[Tim29]

For me

Sometimes the best bike is the one that feels fastest, not the actual fastest [/QUOTE
For me Best bike is the funnest bike to ride everywhere

 

[R120]

Yeah i have to say i am enjoying my hardtail EMTB more than my FS at the moment mainly because it is so much more lively and you can really fling it about.

 

[Tim29]

Al

That hasn’t been my experience with the Integra. I first saw an Integra at Mammoth, but the guy riding it was a heavier set guy and the only time he was ahead of me was when he would get on the lift first. I demoed one from the local dealer and it wasn’t head and shoulders above my Kenevo. I didn’t have any longer run time and the power seemed the same on all of the climbs. The only thing I liked better was the rear shock. I could and have put a 29x2.6 on the front of a Kenevo, but I think it looks pretty lame even with the better trail feel I got from it. I just replaced the 2.8s with 2.6s and I really like how the bike feels now.
It’s all personal preference and opinion, the first time I rode a pivot shuttle I thought I was faster, but my Strava Time said I was faster on the Bulls I had at the time.

Al, what’s your strava name?

 

[Tim29]

The leader is on a 1500w hub drive.
That’s mammoth

 

[Doomanic]

I don’t know what you need blue tooth for.

In the hope that someone develops an app like BLevo for it.

 

[Tim29]

Al, these are both from mammoth and i can’t see how a 55yr old 196lbs Guy is the strongest climber in mammoth

 

[Tim29]

O

In the hope that someone develops an app like BLevo for it.

oh there an app available you just have to connect to it. There was a guy at interbike who was showcasing it. I didn’t pay attention as i find all the stock settings good, eco goes 60+ miles with 5,000+ ft elevation and high power 22 miles with 4500ft
And the display shows me most what i want to know.
I live by the human power input screen, i find it keeps me from blowing out.

 

[Kiwi in Wales]

Al, these are both from mammoth and i can’t see how a 55yr old 196lbs Guy is the strongest climber in mammoth View attachment 5823

You have advertised it now so don’t be surprised if you are dethroned in the next few weeks by the KOM hunter hordes

 

[Tim29]

I can afford

You have advertised it now so don’t be surprised if you are dethroned in the next few weeks by the KOM hunter hordes ?

that won’t hurt my feelings. Give me a reason to go back try harder. These are all kenevo rich environments and if the kenevo could climb better then Integra i shouldn’t be getting KOM on every single climb that’s over 8 min long. I have had 7 knee surgery’s in my life there no way I’m a top level climber physically
I did this day with , 2 kenevo, focus jam2, enduro 9, pivot shuttle.

 

[R120]

If people where sensible put a 2.6 tyre on the Kenevo to sharpen it up, then you might get some challengers!

 

[Tim29]

What makes the Fantic our climb it is the battery and frame design.
The fact that the bottom side of the downtube is alum and motor heat sink connected to it allows it to disapate 40% more heat then the levo/ kenevo design, and 20% more then the bulls. So the motor doesn’t throttle back due to thermo protection.
If you notice every KOM is over 8 min of climbing, that one where i have 6 in a row was a 6 mile climb and those where consecutive on a hot day.
On a hot day it’s like the kenevo is in eco and Fantic in turbo after 1,000 ft of climbing or 1 mile of 4% or more grade.
What i have noticed Online no one does any climb comparisons for more then a couple hundred yard sprint. That’s not a true comparison unless you only climb short distance on every ride. But for me every ride local has over 2,000ft of climbing. This heat problem i just noticed in warm summer days as my local ride is 16 miles and the only way out is a 1.8 mile 11% grade 863ft elevation and after running in high power the whole ride the levo/ Kenevo get hot and are over a min slower on the climb out. And the levo has 2.5 tires

 

[Kiwi in Wales]

I can afford
that won’t hurt my feelings. Give me a reason to go back try harder. These are all kenevo rich environments and if the kenevo could climb better then Integra i shouldn’t be getting KOM on every single climb that’s over 8 min long. I have had 7 knee surgery’s in my life there no way I’m a top level climber physically
I did this day with , 2 kenevo, focus jam2, enduro 9, pivot shuttle.
View attachment 5827

Regarding the above KOMs, you are first place out of how many Tim? 10, 100, 1000?

Also, I am not trying to deflate you on your KOMs but you do realise that Strava times are very inaccurate and can only be used really as a rough guide.

The reason I say this is on every ride I do I use a Garmin and also my Android phone to capture my rides and the time captures of the Strava segment results are always very different to the point of some of the shorter segments can be 1 to 20 seconds different and the longer segments can be 20 to 60 seconds different. On a ‘good’ day I have smashed some of my old existing KOMs by 20 to 60 seconds which I know is impossible. 5 to 10 maybe, but not by 60 seconds.

I currently have a KOM where I was riding down a fireroad and there is a parallel red run which varies between 5 metres (16 feet) to 30 metres (98 feet) away from the the fireroad and ends at least 100 feet away in a completely different direction. On that same fireroad I also hold the KOM for the blue run on the opposite side which is even further away.

Don’t get me wrong, KOMs are a great motivator and I will happily take them but are they accurate? I don’t think so ?

 

[Kiwi in Wales]

What makes the Fantic our climb it is the battery and frame design.
The fact that the bottom side of the downtube is alum and motor heat sink connected to it allows it to disapate 40% more heat then the levo/ kenevo design, and 20% more then the bulls. So the motor doesn’t throttle back due to thermo protection.
If you notice every KOM is over 8 min of climbing, that one where i have 6 in a row was a 6 mile climb and those where consecutive on a hot day.
On a hot day it’s like the kenevo is in eco and Fantic in turbo after 1,000 ft of climbing or 1 mile of 4% or more grade.
What i have noticed Online no one does any climb comparisons for more then a couple hundred yard sprint. That’s not a true comparison unless you only climb short distance on every ride. But for me every ride local has over 2,000ft of climbing. This heat problem i just noticed in warm summer days as my local ride is 16 miles and the only way out is a 1.8 mile 11% grade 863ft elevation and after running in high power the whole ride the levo/ Kenevo get hot and are over a min slower on the climb out. And the levo has 2.5 tires

You make a very good point regarding the heat build up on the motors whilst climbing.

In summer I have seen the temperature on my motor get to nearly 50 degrees on a long fast climb. (This is the great thing about Blevo it displays this and also Battery temp as well while you are riding). Unfortunately I didn’t notice if this was affecting my power output at the time and was also on a solo ride so could not compare if I was being left behind by another ebike model.

On a recent trip to bike park Wales (last week) I followed a 2018 Trek Powerfly FS up the ‘DH Push up’ route. This was a fast hard climb and although at the start he got a jump on me and put about 30 meters between us as I was not ready for a race..... I caught up to him about 3/4 of the way up and stayed right behind him until the end. This was a sub 5 minute climb. Looking at the motor temp on the way up it never went over 41 degrees so maybe the temp needs to be higher to affect the power output? I actually got the KOM too but you already know how I feel about Strava KOMS

So maybe it is something to test in the future but that won’t be easy at the moment as we are rolling into autumn and even in summer we don’t get the temperatures anywhere near what you get over where you are. Maybe I need to do a very long climb with a mixture of ebike models and makes at some stage soon?

 

[EbikeTom]

Thanks Rob great information. One for the tall guys, can you give me your opinion on who makes the largest full suspension ebike on the market?
Would it be the XL Kenevo? Anyone else doing an XXL?
Thanks Ben

Canyon Spectra On xl is 485 reach, that’s a BIG bike! It’s longer than any of the Spec models.

 

[Brainless]

Anyone using the syncdrive pro motor ?, love the look of this machine but ive not tried the Yamaha motor , read all reviews and seems to get some credit with giant tweaking about with it.

 

[leverleg]

View attachment 6073
Anyone using the syncdrive pro motor ?, love the look of this machine but ive not tried the Yamaha motor , read all reviews and seems to get some credit with giant tweaking about with it.

nice bike. reminds me of an irn bru.

 

[Tim29]

I

You make a very good point regarding the heat build up on the motors whilst climbing.

In summer I have seen the temperature on my motor get to nearly 50 degrees on a long fast climb. (This is the great thing about Blevo ? it displays this and also Battery temp as well while you are riding). Unfortunately I didn’t notice if this was affecting my power output at the time and was also on a solo ride so could not compare if I was being left behind by another ebike model.

On a recent trip to bike park Wales (last week) I followed a 2018 Trek Powerfly FS up the ‘DH Push up’ route. This was a fast hard climb and although at the start he got a jump on me and put about 30 meters between us as I was not ready for a race..... I caught up to him about 3/4 of the way up and stayed right behind him until the end. This was a sub 5 minute climb. Looking at the motor temp on the way up it never went over 41 degrees so maybe the temp needs to be higher to affect the power output? I actually got the KOM too but you already know how I feel about Strava KOMS ?

So maybe it is something to test in the future but that won’t be easy at the moment as we are rolling into autumn and even in summer we don’t get the temperatures anywhere near what you get over where you are. Maybe I need to do a very long climb with a mixture of ebike models and makes at some stage soon?

i know what you mean about the difference on Strava, i have has some blitz runs and thought oh that had to top my best and find it a full 30 plus spec off.
I also use my lezyne and iPhone on same run to see the comparisons and there always a few seconds different. But what i notice more then the time is the difference in elevation climbed. The lezyne is about a 1,00” ft different on a 7500ft day.
Now that we have gone into winter and the temps are 8-15c the kenevo is right there every climb. So there is deg a ambient temp that the problems starts but i don’t know where it is.
I know at 35-42c it fades and at 22c and below it doesn’t