It appears i own an Ebike !!!!

[weeksy]

Lol it was in my house last night and was just put back in there today after we got back from racing at FoD

[weeksy]

IMG_20231206_094352 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Out this morning getting some testing/practice in, both on me and trying out goggles. Got a race this weekend (on the Trek) and it needs Full Face, i'm not a massive fan of full-faces in terms of riding, but needs must. I didn't have long and it's crazy muddy so thought i'd just throw a few laps on the Orbea.
I've adjusted the brakes so they're now a lot softer at the lever, which has helped a lot on the front as it wasn't very responsive when i was riding on Sat. But a lot happier now with it.

I'm hoping to get out on the Trek on Thurs-Sat, but the weather isn't looking ideal at the moment for riding.

[weeksy]

IMG_20231215_121116 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr


Today out on the Rise. For a lunchtime spin.

I'm still not convince by people who say "you get just as much of a work out on an Ebike" but in winter they open up more trails that are mostly horrible to ride in the conditions as well as giving you a fun blast but back home before you've got too cold.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

I don't think you get anywhere near the workout on an ebike, I can accelerate up hills on my ebike, on my normal bike I decelerate on hills.

[Numnut]

...in winter they open up more trails that are mostly horrible to ride in the conditions...

I've been looking at ebikes today for precisely this reason. When the fields are awful I tend to ride the hybrid bike to work. It's a lovely thing to ride, but the lanes I ride on are narrow and it doesn't take me long to get fed up with cars/vans pushing by where there's no room...my thinking is that an ebike would get me across the majority of the slop, even when it's proper nasty meaning I don't need to use the road at all.

The Rise is a very nice looking thing though.

[weeksy]

Yeah I honestly really like how it rides. I would like to remove the chip on it to re restrict it, but in about a 10 mile ride today I used 1 bar out of 5.

It's got a few quirks on it.

The rear wheel axle comes out of the drive side to remove.

The main one is a slightly quirky linkage system though which needs this tool



It's a preload tool for the main rocker link. Weird.

The rest seems fairly normal, although the lower pivot is a 4mm bolt, then a 6mm, then an 8mm all on same side in same bit lol.

I'm taking it to FoD tomorrow, I've been having a few knee issues this week after hill after hill for DH race last weekend. Without the ebike, I'd arguably have taken weekend off.

[Taff]

I don't think you get anywhere near the workout on an ebike, I can accelerate up hills on my ebike, on my normal bike I decelerate on hills.

As always, there's a massive 'it depends' clause when you're talking about how much of a workout you get......and what do you call a good workout? is it working at 90-95% of max for an hour or 75-80% for 3 hours?

A massive factor is how big are the hills that you ride and how much assistance do you use? some parts of the country just don't have the hills to make an ebike worthwhile, yesterday, the first 3.6 miles of my ride had just under 600ft of climbing. I was on my old manual bike and had to walk the steepest, muddiest path because I just couldn't get the traction, on my ebike, I would have shoved it into turbo and powered up it until the bike went sideways

[weeksy]

Yeah I honestly really like how it rides. I would like to remove the chip on it to re restrict it, but in about a 10 mile ride today I used 1 bar out of 5.

It's got a few quirks on it.

The rear wheel axle comes out of the drive side to remove.

The main one is a slightly quirky linkage system though which needs this tool



It's a preload tool for the main rocker link. Weird.

The rest seems fairly normal, although the lower pivot is a 4mm bolt, then a 6mm, then an 8mm all on same side in same bit lol.

I'm taking it to FoD tomorrow, I've been having a few knee issues this week after hill after hill for DH race last weekend. Without the ebike, I'd arguably have taken weekend off.

Reason I needed this is to sort a creak, which I thought I'd got resolved yesterday, but it lasted half the ride today and creaked again. Grrr.
Bike though was great fun again, little bit wetter than last time, but all good still, handles lovely, climbs great. Nice.
Needs some TLC tracing creak though as well as a dodgy valve core in back tyre meaning I can't set pressure easily.

[weeksy]

The Orbea continues to be complicated.

Looked in the box of stuff from @Couchy and funnily the tool was in the box. So used that to enable me to preload the arms after cleaning up the bearings and putting extra grease in.

The one I wanted to do as well though was the bottom pivot. However you cannot get it out as the chainring is in the way.
Took off the chainguide, took off the crank arm, but then you find a retaining spacer thing which uses a pattern I don't own.

https://www.tweekscycles.com/park-tool- ... lsrc=aw.ds

So need to get one of these now to enable me to get chainring off.

[mboy]

The Orbea continues to be complicated.

So need to get one of these now to enable me to get chainring off.

It's an eBike... eBikes are complicated by their very nature! Most people tend to accept the extra maintenance for the given benefits...

Also, when you come to take the chainring lockring off, don't forget that it's actually a left hand thread...

As ebikes go, the Rise is refreshingly simple I'd argue, owing to the nature of its lighter weight setup... I've just put a Cascade link on mine which does away with the need for the preload cap thingy when fitting the rocker arm links amongst other things...

[weeksy]

The Orbea continues to be complicated.

So need to get one of these now to enable me to get chainring off.

It's an eBike... eBikes are complicated by their very nature! Most people tend to accept the extra maintenance for the given benefits...

Also, when you come to take the chainring lockring off, don't forget that it's actually a left hand thread...

As ebikes go, the Rise is refreshingly simple I'd argue, owing to the nature of its lighter weight setup... I've just put a Cascade link on mine which does away with the need for the preload cap thingy when fitting the rocker arm links amongst other things...

1. Yeah kinda, but i think Eebers are far more likely to 'give it to a man' instead in truth rather than maintaining themselves. But then again, i often find peoples maintain is very different to my version of maintain
2. Yup, was aware of left handed thread
3. I did see some stuff about the Cascade link for it but not looked into it at all.

[weeksy]

What I've learned is that the ebike can simply mean you get out when you may not on a MTB. Today's conditions I'd have bailed after a mile as I'd have never been able to pedal, it was ridiculous.
Even the ebike struggled more than once meaning a walking section or 3. Couldn't get traction at all.
IMG_20231231_110618 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

IMG_20231231_120058 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

However, if you've ever ridden with me you'll know that I sweat a lot! Like tonnes.

Today though, not so much. I'm sure you can ride an ebike and not lean on the power, but why would you, I don't know. I find myself more in a Z2 than anything, and it's a low Z2 at that.
But slipping, sliding about today was nothing but fun fun fun. Trying not to crash and hanging on is just great.

I guess to answer my own question, it can be giving up/in, but it depends a lot on what 'it' is. You're deffo not giving up on riding bikes, having fun, hitting trails. But you could be giving up on a certain level of riding fitness

As for the SL, which is what my Rise is, @Couchy used the app and whacked up the performance, it's still only 60nm, but it flies along on boost.
@crust on the Rail9 uses almost exactly the same amount of battery as I do. I never feel I need 'more'

[Couchy]

Please show me it clean again

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

That's not dirty, that's just a little muddy.
If I go out to the West of Ipswich the soil is full of clay, if it's wet you'll be carrying the bike because the wheels won't turn.

[crust]

That's not dirty, that's just a little muddy.
If I go out to the West of Ipswich the soil is full of clay, if it's wet you'll be carrying the bike because the wheels won't turn.

That was after we'd done a "drier" section, there were deep puddles, sections of flooded road which washed some of the gloop off.

Trust me, there were stickier sections, a hill where we both pushed the bikes up because there was no traction and the wheels wouldn't turn due to build up, a section where horses had turned the path into a thick undulating porridge.

We're lucky in that there's a real mixture of surfaces around Weeksy's village, we went from chalk to grass to leaf mould to deep mud.

[weeksy]

Out with @crust today, stunningly sunny day, bit chilly to start but not terrible, trails running lovely.

Greggs for sausage rolls and hot chocolate

IMG_20240114_121448 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

IMG_20240114_132206 by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

[weeksy]

Had the Speedbox removed today, i could've done myself but i didn't have the right tool for the Chainring which is really specific.

So the bike is now back to a standard Ebike level of cut-off on the power.

It does also mean if i want to race an Enduro this year i can now do so.. i wouldn't want to be caught 'cheating' even if i was 2nd last.

[Mr Moofo]

^

[weeksy]

Did a ride today, half road, half trails.

On trails you don't even notice the limit, it's not that easy at the moment to be hitting 16+ mph on these as they're nadgery and tight, the bits you go over 16, well it's more momentum than needing power. So no issue at all really.

On the road you're right on the 16 limit all the time, but it's a road so who cares.

All in all, I'd rather have the warranty than the power

[weeksy]

So the Eeb hasn’t had much riding done in truth, partly as i’ve been at BPW, Dyfi but also some man-flu. The boy did an afternoon on it at the local, getting 3X his usual number of runs in before it went dark. Some of the things he can hit… Jeezy.

It’s not been without a few minor quirks though. The rear hub is garbage, Orbea built these in Covid times and there were not many hubs apparently so they fitted the cheapest crappest rear hub possible. It’s currently waiting for a warranty from Orbea so i picked up a Hope Pro5 from my LBS (Rotec Cycles) and that’s now in there.

While in there we also noticed the rockers arm ‘play’ that seems to plague the 3 piece linkage on the Rise. So that’s also in for discussion with Orbea on warranty, but i took it all apart and put together in the right sequence and it’s currently solid, so not the end of the world at the moment.

I’m taking to FoD for the day tomorrow while the boy is on uplift and race practice, so it’ll get walloped around the Red then over to Dowies and a few runs on Rubber Duck hopefully. Then it’ll get brought out again on Sunday as it’s the pit-bike for carrying all his kit/warmers etc to the top while he waits for race runs. He likes to race in just his jersey so he gets the van up and i carry at the kit up and down.