So I just bought a emtb that came with a 12 speed cassette. It looks trick, but after riding a super gnarly trail the lowest cog I used was 4th. It was slower than walking speed and I struggled keeping the front wheel on the ground while climbing, I have no idea what the 3 lower cogs would ever be used for. Conversely, I only get up to ~9th and that's going as fast as I want to go through the trees, and it's topping out the assist. Why did they put a 12 speed on this bike, is that normal for e-bikes to have this many cogs? For most trails I'd probably only use 2-3 cogs, it seems like a 6 speed would be sufficient for most riders. The bikes would be lighter and have more ground clearance, the last 3 are huge! Anyone else wonder why they do this?
Also this isn't a new thought, my old 26er had a 2 cog chainring, the smaller of which has noticably more wear because I never shifted into the larger one.
Sounds like you need to ride somewhere steeper.
Or enter le Tour.
Oh and I think they put 12 speed cassettes on e-bikes because that’s what they put on their pedal bikes…
and what do you mean by ground clearance?
if I get six gears I’m definitely keeping those low ones.
Chain, cassette, and rear derailer ground clearance would be better with smaller cogs. The stuff I was climbing was plenty steep with roots and lots of rock ledges. I was having issues with the front wheel coming off the ground, plus if I was climbing any slower it'd be faster to walk up.
Maybe try a bigger chainring? Or try lowering your seat and shifting your weight forward a bit to keep that front wheel on the ground (+ try a little bit of back brake to modulate the torque).
My full-power eeb came with a 10-51T cassette and a 34T chainring, and I frequently find myself on the granny gear climbing steep tech. Sure, the front wants to come up occasionally but a touch of back brake and careful weight balance does the trick.
12 speeds seem excessive on most bikes,and are certainly excessive on e-bikes.
I run 11 speed on everything.
May be excessive for you but most of the trails I ride on my ebb are old moto trails that we rebuilt and they're steep af up and down, I spend quite a bit of time in 11/12 with a 34 chainring.
To Timo, one of the cool things about ebikes is lowering your seat and still having pedal power, it allows you to climb steep, techy trails easier.
Run a road cassette
there used to be a 8s sram group especially for ebikes, customer didn’t like it. they want moar speeds
moar = better
My ebike came with 11 speed 11-42, which is all the range I need, but I'm always double shifting up and down, and the 11T wears out first. I would like 8 speed 11-42 with replaceable 11T, and a nice strong 8 speed chain and rear mech.
Isn't this what Zee and Saint should be, with a short cage mech and 11-25 cassette for Race, and a mid cage and 11-42 cassette for Park/Ebike?
i wouldnt mind having fewer gears with the same spread, like 8 speed 10-51. make it burlier and longer lasting, same with chain and chainring.
I have 11s 10-42, pretty much never use the 10, rarely use the 11 and 42, but I ride with high assist. I can understand people trying to use less assist needing 10 or 11 gears.
The issue with the SRAM 8speed stuff was they made no convincing argument: it wasn't much cheaper or lighter, I guess they said it was more durable?
The trail you rode might have some short, steep sections, but it looks like nothing sustained. I could see not needing many gears as you could just power through those sections. If it bugs you too much maybe look at a 7-speed SRAM DH setup?
box 9-speed 11-50t - https://boxcomponents.com/collections/prime-9-filter/products/box-two-p… (warning, their website is full of prompts and pings and notifications and not that fun to navigate)
IMPORTANT NOTES
Includes Shift Housing Kit
Compatible with most 10,11, & 12-speed wide / narrow chain rings. Prime 9 chain must be used.
Not Intended for E-Bike Use
https://www.bikeparts.co.uk/collections/9-speed/products/shimano-cues-c…
https://www.bikeparts.co.uk/collections/9-speed/products/shimano-cues-r…
https://www.bikeparts.co.uk/collections/9-speed/products/shimano-cn-e60…
https://www.bikeparts.co.uk/products/shimano-cues-sl-u4000-cues-shift-l…
Any experience of this stuff? £130 for the whole lot.
sorry, wrong range - here's their ebike 9-speed
https://boxcomponents.com/collections/ebike
ah, thank you for including some elevation numbers for your ride. For quick trials-style bripbraaap up shelves or steps, for sure it's sometimes preferable to stand and deliver in a higher gear...power up root section or whatever. Just like a pedal bike. I find myself in the dinner plate 1x gears on super steep fire road climbs out here, especially when it's hour four on the bike...just like on a pedal bike.
apologies for the snark, it wasn't necessary or helpful. I think we're truly on different MTB wavelengths, you should bring those low gears out west and check it out. I use my eeb to climb long--and often horribly steep--logging roads to the trails I like the most. And then I really coast down, trying to lay off the brakes. Eeb is the perfect setup for this. My favorite spot is overall pretty steep overall, looking to be 10x the elevation per unit trail compared to what you posted. Granny gears and motors make it all happen!
sort of off-topic and not trying to derail, but to the OP, rad to see some wichita MTB love. i lived there for a few months back in the late 90s. the river trails were a hoot, like a slalom track and i ventured out to clinton once. not much traffic there. i had face-fulls of spider webs and came home covered in ticks LOL. good times.
9 speed 10-50 or similar is too wide - the spacing between jumps is noticeable even on emtb and not fun. been there done that - even with less wide chinese cassettes it's just too much of a jump to comfortably change gears.
Get a road cassette and short cage derailleur. Where I live, I need all the range of a modern 12 speed, on an ebike! 12 miles gets you 4800’ of ascent here…
good luck with your puzzling!
I got to ride Clinton Lake in Kansas on a cross country road trip and had a blast. Cool trails out there, and they really are well built and fun to ride. Got the incredible Arthur Bryant's BBQ in Kansas City for dinner on our way east out of town. It was a good day.
Another thing to consider is that these product managers have to spec a bike that works for all markets, North America, Europe, etc. So even though they might believe an 11-42 is plenty, there is no point in risking not getting a sale for some customers who only consider buying a bike with a wide range cassette.
From a personal experience, yes 50/52 seems like a waste on an e-bike. But if you're doing a really long day and ECO is your primary riding mode, the bailout gears make a big difference, especially when you're cooked. Areas like Downieville really stand out where having the gear range is necessary.
Given the amount of ebikes that came through the workshop with untouched large rear sprockets and worn out lower ones, I'm with the op.
I use my 51T all the time, even in Trail mode there are hills around here that warrant it. When in Eco I'm constantly in it lol.
sounds to me someone needs to ride in real mountains for once, not some hilly terrain…
Went on a ride a couple days ago where i was very glad to have the 52t, very glad to have the 10t, and very glad to have a lot of options in between. Wouldn't swap the wide range 12 speed for anything else personally. That was on a full power ebike on a technical backcountry ride.
The argument that wide range cassettes are pointless because you can go from impossibly slow crawling to way too fast to be useful is really stupid. On my ride I was climbing technical sections at 5km/h and I was spinning out at about 55km/h on a smooth descent. That's a 1100% range in speed and my cassette only has 520% range. Didn't have near enough range to keep my cadence where I'd like it to be.
If OP is only using gears between 4th and 9th then that's 32t to 16t on an eagle cassette. So 200% range. With a consistent cadence, OP is doing all of his riding between what, 10 and 20 km/h? 12 and 24? So no steep climbs, no technical climbs, no straightaways, no riding to and from the trail...
I went to 1x11 from 1x12.
Gear range is no issue. I did it for a couple of causes, one being weight savings, wich was stupid in hindsight.
I see a benefit in less wear and probably smoother shifting the smaller the cog-teeth-gaps are. I also use steel cassettes and chain rings for that reason.
As an ebiker I also see no need for 12 speed huge cassettes, nor changing to any cassettes designed for conventional bikes.
The bike ive just ordered is coming with sram gx 12 speed. Its going to be removed & sold.
Shimano linkglide is where its at. The m5130 10 speed deore series is really cheap, med cage derailleur with a 11/43 linkglide cassette. It will also operate above shimano's max with a 11/48 linkglide cassette.
Just to throw it out there because I run into it on dirt bike forums as well, yes I live in Kansas where the hills aren't huge, but I drag my family around in my RV and have ridden from Vancouver to West Virginia in the last 4 years. New Mexico, Colorado, and Arkansas are regular stomping grounds of mine, so I know what big climbs are. This spring I'll be hitting the trails in the Ozark and Ouachita mountains, then Moab in June. We'll see how often I use the big three cogs.
I smell a cog-off!!!
timo’s climbing challenge tour, Spring 2024.
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