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Asus Bike Booster

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Re: Asus Bike Booster

#221

Post by Toutouxc »

analog31 wrote: post #87
low_tech_punk wrote: post #83

It is decoupled from drivetrain. So, without torque sensor, how does it know when the rider wants to speed up vs. slow down?

It says it has a wireless cadence sensor. With that said, torque sensors were an improvement over cadence sensors. To elaborate a bit, friends of mine have had bikes with both cadence and torque sensors. And I've tried their bikes out. Agreeing with one friend, the bike with the cadence sensor seems to decide how fast it wants to go. The bike with the torque sensor behaves a lot more like what you're used to from rid…

> the bike with the cadence sensor seems to decide how fast it wants to go

Well yes, because there’s no other input. It’s an on/off switch, the bike just knows that you’re pedaling. Usually there are multiple power levels you can switch between with a button, and those decide roughly how much of a push you get from the motor, but the power curves are all “hardcoded”. It doesn’t feel great for active riding, but it’s adequate for commuter bikes. Torque sensors are actually kind of expensive on their own.

Re: Asus Bike Booster

#222

Post by veunes »

bri3d wrote: post #12

Friction drive e-bike conversions were popular years ago. They generally: * Wear tires surprisingly quickly * Absolutely suck in any form of weather or terrain condition (dirt, rain, etc.) * Have ~20% less efficiency than any other drive form. But, they are easy, and they do work.

Wet-weather performance in particular seems like the thing I'd want to see independently tested

Re: Asus Bike Booster

#223

Post by veunes »

fwipsy wrote: post #132
molsongolden wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This bike booster will probably come in at less than half the cost but the Bimotal kit is another option that doesn't have the tire wear issue, offers better performance, and the form factor is much nicer. https://bimotal.com/products/elevate

Wow, $2k? You could get a decent ebike for that money. And the installation doesn't look any easier than a hub motor... Only seems worth it if you already have an extremely nice bike. I think of friction drives as being aimed at budget-conscious commuters, not serious mountain bikers.

$2k makes sense only if the bike underneath it is valuable enough that you specifically want to keep riding that bike

Re: Asus Bike Booster

#224

Post by Toutouxc »

mswphd wrote: post #114
ctidd wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an inherently inefficient design, where that inefficiency means increased 1) battery use and 2) tire wear. From a cyclist’s perspective, this is fundamentally a stopgap product for “curious” customers dipping their toes into e-bikes. I don’t say that necessarily to criticize it. There’s a place for a product that someone can put on any old bike and see if they want to buy a more expensive long-term solution.…

it's also likely mildly more dangerous than a standard ebike, as ebikes typically overprovision their brakes. A customer putting this on a standard bike (especially a disc brake bike) might have less stopping power than they want on an ebike.

Why “especially a disc brake bike”? They’re the most reliable and resilient system so far, especially compared to rim brakes (V-brakes or cantilevers).

Re: Asus Bike Booster

#225

Post by reorder9695 »

BloondAndDoom wrote: post #214
bri3d wrote: post #12

Friction drive e-bike conversions were popular years ago. They generally: * Wear tires surprisingly quickly * Absolutely suck in any form of weather or terrain condition (dirt, rain, etc.) * Have ~20% less efficiency than any other drive form. But, they are easy, and they do work.

Do they work with mountain bikes? As stupid as this sounds I like mountain biking but I don’t have stamina to climb up hills and then keep doing for a long time. I have an electric bike but designed for road

I'd be quite worried about breaking it in the not unlikely event of a crash, additionally it looks like it could quite significantly limit how low you could put your seat down on a mountain bike, so that would get in the way. Even if you got your seat down, it would add a significant amount of height above the tyre so you mighn't be able to move your arse far enough back to shift your weight property. It's also adding nearly 4kg weight relatively high up which probably isn't the end of the world but would be better if it wasn't so high up.

It says on the website it will fit hardtails but not full sus, and that it isn't recommended on knobby tyres due to performance which isn't ideal either.

I could be wrong on all of this but those are just the concerns coming to mind as another mountain biker.

Re: Asus Bike Booster

#226

Post by veunes »

selfhoster1312 wrote: post #179

A smartphone app to change motor speed, really? Not even talking about your motor getting hacked (with the S in IOT standing for security and all), getting out a fragile device that captures all your attention while biking is really dangerous for you and the device. So they say there's a button on the thing itself which is not so much more practical. If they insist on wireless controls, the cost of a waterproof batte…

The strange part is that they already have wireless communication in the system, so adding a simple handlebar remote doesn't seem like a huge engineering leap

Re: Asus Bike Booster

#227

Post by veunes »

mvdwoord wrote: post #187

It seems to me this is a product for almost no one. Inefficient delivery of power, bulky, "smart" detection in stead of reliable operation and most importantly, the only target market I could imagine cannot use it. Not sure about other places and climates, but over here, most bicycles have fenders. Bicycles without fenders are typically used for specific recreational activities and those sure as heck do not want this…

I can see one audience: someone with a bike they already like who only occasionally needs assistance and wants the whole thing removable

Re: Asus Bike Booster

#228

Post by Toutouxc »

prmoustache wrote: post #147
mswphd wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's also likely mildly more dangerous than a standard ebike, as ebikes typically overprovision their brakes. A customer putting this on a standard bike (especially a disc brake bike) might have less stopping power than they want on an ebike.

The requirement for better brakes is more a myth. Yes an e-bike is heavier but the rider + bike pair is not significantly heavier so e-bikes don't really need better brakes as most of them aren't going significantly faster than regular "muscular bikes", especially the legal ones that have an assistance speed limit. Rider weight makes a much bigger difference yet bike brands don't insist on speccing more powerful brak…

As an experienced mountain biker I’d love if the downvoters could engage with the comment. I agree with it. A proper legal e-bike, especially when clamped to 25 km/h or a similar limit, doesn’t really need that much stopping power than a comparable regular bike. Maybe the sum of all the factors (often less experienced riders, slightly more speed in some situations, slightly higher weight) warrants going to a bigger rotor diameter or a different brake pads compound, which is how it’s usually done. But it’s still nothing compared to speccing cargo bike brakes or tandem brakes, there you really have to account for the weight and go all the way to like 200mm rotors and four-pot calipers.

Re: Asus Bike Booster

#229

Post by dorte »

veunes wrote: post #220

I kind of like this. Not because it's necessarily the best way to electrify a bike, but because it's removable enough that your bike can still just be... a bike

It looks like you have to remove your rear fender thought. I would rather just use the rye bread engine a little more, than not being able to bike on wet roads (or being sprayed with mud).

Re: Asus Bike Booster

#230

Post by wazoox »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #32

Ouch, love to see a great product like this. However, hate to see that bike theft wasn’t discussed at all. “Easy installation” with two screws seems like a benefit to customers except when they come back to their parked bike only to find their expensive mod also had a hidden feature: “easy uninstallation”.

You don't even need to unscrew the motor : simply pull one-handed the seat release lever, and leave with both the seat and the motor attached.
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