What's the best lightweight e-bike motor? Bosch SX vs TQ HPR50 vs Fazua Ride 60 vs Specialized SL
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 มี.ค. 2024
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We've seen a slew of new mid-power/lightweight e-bikes hit the market recently, making it arguably the hottest segment in mountain biking.
But with several motors out there, all offering different advantages and disadvantages, how do you choose the best option for your local trails and riding style?
Do you crave the smallest, lightest package that's invisible to other riders? The most power to keep up with mates on full-power e-bikes? Or the biggest range to let you get as many laps in as possible?
To answer these questions and more, we assembled four of the latest lightweight models, fitted with the four benchmark mid-power motors: the TQ HPR50; the Bosch Performance SX; the Fazua Ride 60; and the Specialized SL 1.2.
With four test riders, all around the same weight, and Maxxis Max Terra control tyres set to exactly the same pressures, we set about three different challenges - a drag race, a hillclimb, and a range test to see how many metres of climbing we could achieve.
We used the maximum power mode on each motor for the duration of the test, and we excluded range extenders.
For the range test we concentrated on elevation rather than distance, as lots of flat terrain will reduce drain on the battery and can produce unrealistic expectations. As mountain bikers generally ride for the descents, we wanted to know how much descending we could get out of a full battery.
The four bikes on test are:
Mondraker Neat RR (TQ)
Specialized Turbo Kenevo SL 2 Expert (Specialized)
Haibike Lyke CF 11 (Fazua)
Whyte E-Lyte 150 Works (Bosch SX)
The specs of the motors are:
TQ HPR 50
Weight 1.85kg
Power 300w
Torque 50Nm
Battery 360wh plus 160wh range extender (520wh)
Fazua Ride 60
Weight: 1.96kg
Power 450w
Torque 60nm
Battery 430wh but no range extender
Specialized 1.2 motor
Weight 1.95kg
Peak power 320w
Peak torque 50Nm
Battery 320Wh plus 160wh range extender (480wh)
Bosch Performance SX
Weight 2kg
Power 600w
Torque 55nm
Battery 400wh plus 250wh range extender (650wh)
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Good comparison filmed at my local riding spot. Today did discover the new lines you carved in there
I don’t ride motorbikes but I like TQ because of how hidden it is and makes it look like a regular bike.
TQ because its light and its the quitest and it does not even give away that you ride an ebike.
Thanks for the comparison, we need more reviews on ebikes for sure. I'd love for future comparisons to be more scientific or apples-to-apples - I think that having different riders on different bikes really increases the impact of factors external to the motor. At the very least it could be same rider riding same trails with (close to) identical rider power via powermeter. But every content is helpful, thanks!!
Thanks! Yes agreed on making a more objective comparison. We did this last year with the Fazua, TQ, old Specialized motor, and Bafang from the Forestal. Same rider, same tyres, same route, different days. The Fazua also came top for range with a similar result.
Loving this eMTB content. Please review a 2024 Santa Cruz Bullit!
Hi, I chose Specialized Turbo Creo 2, Thanks for video
Great video 👍 Its interesting to see how these compare. It does feel like a lot of motors are moving towards the middle ground of around 60nm. Don't think that there is really any right or wrong approach to emtbs though... just different styles, weights and powers of bikes for different tasks. Its great we have so many options now.
My next bike will be an ebike with Fazua motor. If Orbea makes a bike with Fazua, it would be a no-brainer.
Glad that I've got a Riese and Muller with Fazua 60. Always run it on the lowest power setting though 🙂
Could be interesting to ee de Shimano and Giant motor too vs Fazua and Boch in that challenge
I'm impressed with the video. I'm able to get about 1300 m in cold weather in eco (that is upped). It's easy to customise the power to increase range.
Interesting how much of a difference the wattage makes on the hill climb. It's not the torque - those numbers are quite similar - but the torque at high cadence. Guess it allowed the rider to easily carry momentum over slick leaves. Well done test!
Really enjoyed the video thanks for the hard work producing these videos, would really like know which off these motors is easiest to peddle past the cut off speed and with the motor turned off , I'm hoping to get the kenevo sl2 currently on the orbea rise but peddling past the cut of speed on the flat is hard work wondering if any of the SL motors are any better than the ep8
Hmm, I can’t give you a precise answer, but anecdotally my opinion would be the Fazua. Something we’d like to dig into in the future though.
Thanks,look forward to seeing a future video on the subject
Meanwhile the differences in pedalling resistance have become very small. In other words, it's insignificant.
The BEST one is the one that doesn't break down and, has decent warranty support.
Specialized warranty is unreal. I've heard bad things about the Fazua controllers breaking all the time
A great comparison video that was bound to happen sooner or later!! Can you comment on which drive system has the most & least drag over the assistance threshold and how does the amount of drag compare with the full powered systems?
Thanks! It's really hard to accurately quantify the resistance without getting the motors into a lab (we've tried with power meters and smart trainers and it's not very repeatable), but from riding them we'd say that the Fazua and Specialized are the most efficient, with the TQ and Bosch being the least. One aspect that skews any appraisal of the Bosch, is that the Whyte has very short cranks fitted.
Using some maths and the the relationships between power, torque and cadence its fairly easy to calculate what cadence you need to ride at to get max motor power. For exanple you need to pedal at 104 rpm to get 600 from the Bosch (near enough impossible for any length of time), at a normal 80-85 cadence you are only getting 460-480 watts, so the headline numbers often mean very little. That motor is really a 450 watts 55NM unit based on real world usage. The TQ will give you all 300 watts at below 80 cadence, and the Fazua will give you all 450wats at just below 80. The Bosch 600 number is a marketing gimmick, unless you can pedal at 100+ rpm, and then expect a flat battery pretty quickly !
Yes you’re absolutely right. Over 100rpm is not really sustainable on the Bosch. But as you point out, it’s still putting out more than most lightweight motors at a ‘normal’ cadence. Best package here is probably the Fazua, but in our experience it hasn’t been the most reliable system.
I'm kind of missing some information about how the different motors feel in terms of engaging, how smooth do they deliver power?
Edit: how much noise do they make (Bosch used to be loud).
This exactly.
Fair point. We didn’t talk about noise. The TQ is the quietest. The Bosch is the noisiest, and the Fazua and Spesh are in the middle. All depends on cadence and torque though, so you’d have to measure the noise at several different speeds/cadence/gradient and from different angles, to get a true picture. Also it varies from bike to bike, according to frame material, construction, motor cover etc.
Fun video to watch, but will never be accurate. You would need 4 robots putting out exactly the same pedal power that weigh exactly the same ect ect... Never the less fun to watch 🍻
It's fairly accurate considering they might have been on the beers the night before?
Forgot to complements drone footage of London's
(Squamish)😉👌👌👍
Best review I’ve seen on mid power bikes. Bosh. The power delivery suits my style of riding. Happy Trails
Cool video! I would prefer 85 hm at 19 kg bike with easily removable battery) rotwild re 375
Nice comparison, great content! 👍
I think all the motors are pretty much in a similar enough league as each other. It’s a difficult test to define them as the bike design itself will make a difference. Like suspension and geometry for climbing, battery size for range and what I think makes the most difference, ride weight, fitness and skill.
One thing I’d like to add to the equation is serviceability and reliability. Reliability is difficult to quantify until the bikes have a lot of km on them but you could look at serviceability, with what the warranties cover and for how long, are there spare parts available for the motors from the factory or from places like the eBike Motor Repair place?
Absolutely. And as we always say, a good e-bike is so much more than just a good motor.
@@MBRmagazine good review though! I have a first Gen Levo SL and it’s got 8,500km on it now and it’s still a blast to ride. It’s a great option to my short travel Stumpjumper. If you are already an experienced MTB rider and like to pedal, the lightweight MTBs are the way to go.
We have a lot of love for that bike here! I had one that I got down to under 16kg and did a 70km ride with 1,800m climbing with just the internal battery. And Muldoon still raves about the suspension on the gen 1 SL. 👍
I would love to see a study on how switching to an ebike affects fitness. I'm tempted to get one, but I also like being in good shape.
I wondered the same but getting a mid-powered ebike 6 months ago hasn't affected my fitness - I just get more riding in and I can push it as hard as I like.
Ive had a Trek Fuel exe since August 2023 and it hasn't effected my fitness, I still have my Cotic HT which i take out with some of my analogue bike mates and i have no problems keeping up, part of that is that im biking more now with my lightweight e-bike and regularly do quick power hours after work where in the past I wouldn’t have bothered, they are so much fun and due to the lightweight it doesn’t feel much different from my old Full suss bike, P.S you wont regret it.
No change. I have the Trek Fuel EXe, and I still put in the same amount of effort as my Ibis Ripmo. TQ motor still requires a good amount of rider input
I have a levo sl v1 which is way less on power.
For me it's spot on except for the whine of the motor but I just can't see reason enough to spend another 4-5k just to update the bike.
Gonna go for a full fat then got the best of both World's & maybe swap out the Levi in 5 years when the bikes are completely different again !
Nice one dudes. I am an EP8 full power kind of guy. What motor would you say is the most reliable and what do you guys think of the EP8?
Reliability is a really difficult one for us to answer as we don’t have a big enough sample to draw from. In some ways it’s better just to go for the motor with the best warranty back up. EP8 is maybe not the most powerful on paper, but it has other advantages such as being small and slim with narrow q-factor and a really good crank interface. 👍
@@MBRmagazine Thanks guys🙏
I would not choose a Shimano motor for reliability. Not because they are unreliable, but because Shimano refuses to supply repair shops with parts. If you want to keep your bike for years, the motor will need to be overhauled or repaired. Brose and Bosch have replacement parts readily available. Shimano wants you to buy a brand new motor from them.
Curious which motor is able to be serviced, or are they all service center warranty items?
None are user serviceable. We’re not sure whether independent service centres are set up to fix them either. It’s definitely something that needs more attention from brands. 👍
@@MBRmagazine The Bosch has repair parts readily available to independent shops.
Yeah not bad considering the Fazua proablay wasnt in its boost setting for 12secs - around 450watts, otherwise its 350watts. Still though the bosch is a killer unit.
Why not the Levo SL instead as it matches the other bikes more on geo and travel...?
We went for the Kenevo SL as it’s a 29er rather than a mullet 👍
Full fat even thou most rides I don't use turbo. Its down to the miles you get. The only draw back from full power is lifting it over gates.
Shouldn’t a test like this be way more accurate if it was done over 4 days and one rider. Everyday another motor and the same fresh rider. Ideally in the same weather conditions.
Yeah in an ideal world that would have been preferable, but the realities of changing winter weather and the limited availability of the bikes made that option impossible.
@@MBRmagazine a yes, understandable. It's not just you guys that do these tests this way, all these channels do this. I must say that this is more fun to watch and gives some insight. But a solid comparison, no.
We have done a range test with the TQ, Fazua, old Specialized 1.1 and the Bagang in the Forestal. This was conducted with the same rider, on the same route, same tyres/pressures etc, on different days exactly as you describe. It was for the magazine and the website but I can link to an article with the results. 👍
www.mbr.co.uk/buyers_guide/best-lightweight-electric-mountain-bike-431808 It’s towards the bottom of this article.
Home playground, just changing my kenevo v1 500 to fazua
( bike in shop already) great to see 1200 on
elevation , riding mostly with normal bikes crew , they are hitting there 1200 /1400 elevation , so that’s great test for me 👌👍👍
Why no Shimano motor? Orbea Rise?
We couldn’t get an Orbea Rise for the day we had scheduled for the video unfortunately.
450watt*(60s/min)*(1rev/(2*pi rad)/(60nm) = 71.6rpm
The fazua becomes power limited in boost setting at 71.6rpm
The Bosch is at 104rpm, but it makes more torque than the other motors 78.13rpm
If you are above 78.13rpm the Bosch will always make more torque than the other motors including the fazua in boost
That makes sense. The problem is keeping a cadence of nearly 80rpm on a steep and/or technical climb.
would be cool to have a final result in a table not just talking about
Lads, fan of the channel here but this seemed a bit pointless to me. Surely the drag race and hill climb are massively skewed by rider weight and skill?! Same with the elevation and overall range test actually…
If you have four different riders all putting different power into their pedal strokes you are not measuring just the battery’s power, you have to use some sort of power meter and put in the same effort numbers? Likewise with the hill climb, I bet a different rider would have got different results on a couple of those runs.
I get that time/weather is a factor in these videos but personally I’d rather see all of you try all of the bikes and just give your “ride feel” thoughts because the science just wasn’t scienceing in this format 😂
Fair comment, but we thought it offered some insights within the constraints we had. We did a proper range test last year with the Fazua/TQ/Spesh/Bafang with same rider on different days (same tyres/pressures etc) and the Fazua came out top in that too.
@@MBRmagazine It did… “pointless” was probably a bit harsh 😅 I still enjoyed watching it and got something from it.
In fairness the Fazua does seem to be pretty much the standard in terms of SL bikes a cross most tests. The near silence and ‘natural’ ride feel are making me lean towards the TQ in the Neat when I take the plunge (as well as the stunning good looks and flexibility) despite the lower power and range.
Pivot shuttle with Fazua ride-60... small is 38 lbs.
All these tests would mean nothing if Bosch provides the best service or you could get their motor serviced out of warranty at most ebike mechanics, while other 3 limit your options to certain regions or very long waiting times. I have Fazua 50 and while the system has worked, I've been unhappy with their customer service.
💯 servicing and warranty is a huge part of the decision making process.
I'm looking forward to the next generation Fazia motor. Hopefully Porsche can do something cool and sort out that shit ring controller
Colours are massively washed out. They yellow of the haibike is bright, it looks dull in the video.
Not a very accurate test but I guess it's all for the views?
You like dudes, totes ma goats brah
Alan i assume is too old to compete in this type of test....
Bosch or Fazua with a 650wh battery would be great
With a swappable 400 or 650wh so you can choose depending on the ride. Or have both and swap at the car between loops.
Just take a second battery with you.
Guys: Newton Meter not Newtons Meter…
What a garbage comparison. Just for the sake of creating clickbait content...
I Dunno. That sprint test was interesting. I was expecting the TQ to be much further behind an SX bike.
How about reliability? The most reliable is the winner.
All the other qualities don’t matter…
Very good point. Also how good is the warranty support? But neither of these are aspects we can test in any meaningful way.
This test is so flawed, it’s really sickening!
I'm interested in how you'd do it to make it more relevant....
Nope. It’s perfect. Fazua is the best overall and everyone knows it. That’s why more bikes are coming with Fazua
Sickening? Really?
That Kenevo SL is a serious bike and needs a serious powertrain. This blue trail weak setup ain't it, Specialized!
I'm 235 pounds, I love specialized, but I think I would go with fazua on transition relay pnw xo1 carbon and have extra battery and range extender if they ever come out with one.
Guys it's 2024 and you really need to add timestamps to your videos.
👍
Not really a good motor comparison. Different bikes, different riders, different battery capacity. The range is mostly about the battery, not the motor.
You’re right about the comparison: we did what we could in the time we had with the bikes. But the battery is integral to the system, so not sure what your point is there.
Haibike is the worst company in the planet. Parts and customer service is nonexistent.