Not only is this the best video I've seeing explaining the topic...its the only one and I don't feel any need to watch another one. I'll be watching videos on which mid drive bike I should get.

Ok maybe it’s a good video. But this are professionally manufactured e-bikes, and not DIY kits. Where does this compare to a DIY kit. It didn’t explain any of that.

@@Seaby41 bafang is what you need to research

@@geegee8625 hmm. You may just be right... Thanks

@@Seaby41 if you read the reviews from buyers on amazon its very very positive, Ive had mine for 13 months and its pure magic and so much cheaper then buying a ready made E bike and so much better

perfect

this is hot trash

Also wrong. Can't compare electric motors with internal combustion motors as the torque is different and 'rev' range different. And it's a bike anyway. Who needs to go at 80kmh on a bike? Hardly unbiased.

Is it tho? He was on pedal assist 5 the whole time

@@davidclarke7367 you obviously missed the point by over thinking the loose analogy.

Which dual suspension hub driven bike would you recommend for snow & steep hills ? :)

Thanks for the extra info buddy 👍 Alsi i would say tha mid drive is best for the steeper hills. Mid drive wears out chains and the whole drive train quicker.

You just confused me. i thought for hunting, going through muddy trails with some big inclines, with a lot of gear and the possibility of hauling out a deer carcass, the extra torque and and gear control of a mid would be better. Am I wrong?

@@ajillian1 A mid would have the power , if on a fat tire, yes. The mid drive on standard tires would just burn out or wheelie. Some mid drives have limited gears also, not to mention the derailleur getting sticks in it... I am also able to control the torque on my hub drive, and I have 7 manual gears with 5 motor speeds. So it crawls up atv trails and rocks no problem , just slowly. it depends on the motor - mine has 10-20-30-50--90% power to pedal ratio, or can just twist throttle and use 100% If I had the $ I would by a higher end mid drive though- Higher top speed , torque and the new belt driven ones are excellent.

@@TruthHrtz413 thx for replying, so it sounds like for hunting you’d recommend hub drive. Speed is no concern , just want torque for some inclines and some messy mud and loose dirt and snow while hauling some weight.

Would have been a more realistic comparison of the bikes' capabilities if the riders had been closer in approach and technique.

Hub drives just aren’t as efficient as a mid drive. Plus maintenance is worse on a hub drive, and most hub drives are not sealed.

​@@xmateinchub drives are as basic as they come. They're just an electric motor with spokes on it. And they're allways sealed. Not sure where you got that from? Mid drive wears your cassette, chain and derailleur out too quickly. Plus if your chain snaps, you can still ride with a hub drive.

​@@xmateincalso, hub are more efficient, especially direct drive ones. You lose efficiency through your drive line on a mid drive.

@@Billy-burner they’re not sealed. No bafang motor is sealed. I’ve seen plenty of them rust out. Mid drives can’t take advantage of your gears, so of course they’re not as efficient.

A hub drive can simulate riding on flat ground or down hill. In those conditions one gear for the human is more than enough. I think ideally we would mechanically decouple the human from the drive wheel. The human should just pedal a generator and choose a load they prefer.

One more nuance here. Mid drive bikes can be either cadence sensing or torque sensing. Since torque sensing is more responsive to the pressure you put on the crank, it doesn't generally need a shift sensor to cut the power during shifting. You just ease up on the pedaling while shifting just like you would on a regular bike.

@@chuckcarlson7940 Hub drives can have any sensor that a mid-drive can have. All the options are possible for both. The only difference is whether you want the motor always pedaling through the chain or not.

I was thinking that myself. If you're pedaling on either system, you would need to change speeds about the same on either to match the cadence to the ground speed.

@@chuckcarlson7940 Excellent point.

@@derekthompson2279 I understand your opinion. I too feel the same as you. I want the torque but my wife is not used to constant shifting as I am. The hub drive was right for her but not for me.

@phillip wareham mid drives are easy to break

@phillip wareham "some people" can be a fluke. Bike shops love mid drives because they're easy to damage if you're not extra careful, so they bring more repairs to them.

@phillip wareham Why did they pay £3500 for a Yamaha haibike?

I am at 1500 miles on my hub motor with no problem.Mid drives eat chains is why I did not get one because if you have any failure with a mid drive you are forced to walk it.With a hub drive you can at least get home if the chain breaks.I also put a front hub--so i have 2 motors and can climb a hill at 25 MPH simply using the front 1000 watt hub motor.Bike shifters are not nearly as strong as a motorcycles.I ride on trails deep into the woods and do not want a hike if a part fails and flat tires and chains breaking are 2 of the main ones--also just had my first flat and I simply turned the back hub motor off and was able to get home with the front and i did not have to walk--used fix a flat and it has been weeks and no issues.These motors make what a pro athlete can generate and it is very hard on the chain.

My Focus RS would destroy that type R in a race.

1000 watt hub motor can’t out climb or out perform a bosch CX motor with half that output. You have to throw so many watts at a hub drive to get it to climb better then a bosch motor.

​@@bubbajones7486 So what?

Glad to help!

I had a rear derailleur blow up 15 miles from home. My front hub motor and 20Ah/48v battery carried my fat ass all the way home, no peddling required.

I'm pretty sure that at some point in Kanuckistan that e-bikes either had to be, or some just were pedal assist. There was no throttle. The motor just provided a boost but once pedalling stopped the motor coasted.

@@kurtklingbeil6900 I'm pretty sure they have to have pedal assist (otherwise they must count as electric scooters), but they can also have a throttle. I don't know if a throttle was ever illegal.

a mid-drive is actually more bicycle than a rear-hub

Please explain why you have to change the frame shape and how if you want a mid drive. I have a mid drive and never did that.

Couldn’t agree more ;)

Oh cause it can drive up hill if it has enough power :D , but all things equal having gears always would be way more efficient. If you had mid drive you would fly that hill even faster. Plus I imagine how hot that hub was inside after climbing that hill. But I am not saying that hub can not be fun to ride :D

@@myentertainment55 I don't like the appearance of middrive and my bottom bracket is nice. My bike doesn't lack performance. The efficiency of the motor is really good in that it meets demands well and operates more simple. If I had a touring bike I'd use hub motor because it is more durable and demands less on my chain. I can haul a trailer of groceries and my son up very steep alleyways fine. It uses much more power than a middrive. But if I go slow and help that isnt much the case and in other situations the efficiency is the same pretty much.

@@myentertainment55 Gears are always lossy. Gears are not 100% efficient. Solar race cars don't use gears because they would loose too much energy.

@@chrisprice5895 Also a hub drive is much cheaper than a mid drive, so you can just buy a bigger battery for the same price.

@@difflocktwo That is the big difference for me, my rear hub seems to work just fine, maxes out at just under 33 MPH. It seems very well made and it only cost me $2k. Most of the mid drive bikes were considerably more expensive.

good idea!

I have 600+ miles on my mid-drive. Never snapped a chain. I just got a new chain and cassette. The bafang motors are quite robust. The mid-drive you need to make sure you're in the right gear.

Glad to help ;)

@@Biktrix Now if you could just lend me about three thousand dollars plus tax, that would be great!🤣🤣 Seriously though, nice to see a Canadian ebike company. I always try and support my fellow Canadian businesses.

for a city setting it is fine to use a hub. for emtb ofroad use mid drive all the way.

I agree. I really would like a Stromer with the gear less rear hub. That thing will last a very long time.

Bring gears and power setting under software control i have a mid-drive (bosch cx based) bicycle and have no shifted in 6000km. This way the system can also keep everything in the correct powerrange and that helps not breaking things. Its still true there are more parts that can break but you get a much nicer ride in return.

I do some light to moderate single-tracking and lots of fairly steep forest road riding on my eventon aventure. It's not quite as good as a mid drive but it's only a third the price. It is still really fun.

on the mid drive motor, are you able to use throttle only and not peddle when the bike is at cruising speed or do the peddles keep going?

@@jdub1139no, you don’t need to keep pedaling. You can coast with a mid-drive with or without power…

All reviews I've seen say mid-drives are superior to hub drives.

@@10tenman10 I am a mid drive fan but its only superior at same power or even at slightly lower power. but price wise hub is likely to out perform.

Put slime in the tubes and you rarely need to patch a puncture let alone changing the wheel.

Why not patch a flat instead of changing it? With ebikes you can use motorcycle tires and rims, way fewer flats.

Armour Dilloz in your tire will fix flats! Mid drive is more maintenance and you're screwed if the chain breaks! There are rear hub drives with plenty of power and torque! Mine has a 2500 watt peak and 90nm torgue plus a 40 amp controller!

no problem climbing hills on hub motors over 1500w ,changing flat takes about 5 min ,no problem there either,on the other hand mid drive have a high pitch noise wich i can't stand , my 6000w hub motor is as quiet as a grave even on steep hills ....

They are easy to fix if you can find the leak. I have only had to take one wheel off.

@@wezlydog as long as the authorities let you ride a 2500w ebike on the streets, then I guess it's ok. Yes, the threat of a broken chain is always a concern, but I do carry a spare.

Awesome production. The drone footage while mapping your root was outstanding. Great work. Well done.

I like this Engwe EP-2 concept. It is almost perfect commuter in my opinion. - compact - e-powered (effortless) - fat tire (all-road+comfort) - foldable (wide transport modes range) - front suspension (comfort) - rack (can bear approx. 50L of stuff in the bags) - mudguards, kickstand, light. One thing that stops me from getting one is that its price is twice my current used touring with a 400w 14ah rear motor hub kit on it.

Solar race cars which need the highest efficiency use direct drive hub motors.

Here's a Deep Dive into Ebike Motor and System Efficiency: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mt56mMKY3s22d4k.html

He also failed to mention how much spoke tension the hub drive motor causes.

@@brandonjeffery8023 you are funny but there are people who ride with a spare chain because of that issue

@@ColinPopoviciu ?

@@brandonjeffery8023 with the mid drive motor you are very likely to break the chain if you don't know how and when to shift. Look it up

@@ColinPopoviciu Oh, that's what you mean. I think the increased spoke tension is a bigger maintenance problem though. It's very rare to actually break a chain and if you do they are easy to replace and they are only like 20$.

Those motor watt numbers mean nothing. You should dyno your bike to see what the power is. You can take any motor and tune it to have constant 750 W on the dyno. 750 W at 40 rpm is almost 200 Nm.

Ok but what's better in that situation

Very well put thank you for the info

Actually it's mid drive which has advantage for efficiency: Drive train with multiple gears allows running motor at around optimal RPM. While hub drive has to do huge RPM variation from stand still to max assist speed, because of that direct fixed connection to wheel.

Well he's selling both types of bicycle styles. You're welcome to buy the rear hub motor.

Great info all

Well said thanks for the info.

Guess that would depend on a lot of factors, like the gear your bike is in, the PAS level and of course your leg strength. I can pedal my hub drive ebike up huge hills in PAS 1 and 1st gear, the motor hardly helps. By the same account you could have bad knees and PAS 5 it'll burn a lot more power. It all depends on how you use it.

My hub drive velo wave peaks at 34 mph I don't need a mid drive untill I can afford 80 mph

We have no reason to be biased because we sell mid drives and hub drives. The point we really wanted to drive home was that mid drives are awesome only if you use gears properly. Otherwise, a hub drive is just fine.

@@Biktrix I'm not going to write a long reply because history has taught me they get deleted but every retail organisation has bias in my opinion it is the very nature of business. I watched a video yesterday where a 15 year old hub motor had new bearings after 10s of thousands of miles and was pretty much good to go. Yes one of the electrical components needed replacing but it turned out it only needed one leg soldered in fact. Here is the video; kzfaq.info/get/bejne/b5iRdMmKvajLkps.html The idea that a mid-drive motor could somehow achieve that level of reliability is pretty much an engineering impossibility. Mid-drive motors typically have many nylon cogs and even belts that take the small motor up to high levels of torque plus you have all the power of the rider going through the same bearings within the mid-drive unit. They are good units for retailer revenue but not so good for consumers who want a long term reliable ebike with low maintenance and low expense. The vast majority of ebikes in the world are hub motor based probably something like 95% or more, yes I realise that is mainly due to pricing in most markets. Here in the UK the average price of a bike sold including ebikes is about £380 and in some markets its much lower like Italy. I can't find any similar data in the US across all retail channels by googling but I didn't spend much time searching. I just think its important people have a fair perspective. Mid-drive might be the performance option but like most performance options it comes with high pricing and poor reliability. Many people have used direct drive hub motor ebikes with almost no costs at all for 10s of thousands of miles and geared hub motors operate for many thousands of miles without issues and then might need just a replacement of the planetary gears and you might as well replace the bearings at the same time. The clutch mechanism in geared hub motors can be completely freewheeling without drag unlike mid-drive and direct drive hub motors. All motor types have positives and negatives and have applications where they are ideal compared to the other solutions.

@@bonzobanana1 over our last 7+ years in business and over 15,000 bikes later, we have seen both. We’ve seen premature failures on hub and mid drives. We’ve also seen flawless hub and mid-drives with 10s or thousands of miles. Like we said before, both motors can be good or bad for you, depending on your use case.

@@Biktrix I've seen mid-drive service engineers explain that mid-drives will always be far less reliable based on how they function. Despite being the premium end and a niche part of the market we have seen huge issues with many mid-drive failures including Specialized extending the warranty from 2 to 4 years because of horrendous failure rate with Brose motors. A direct drive hub motor has no moving parts except the bearings on the axle, nothing to wear out, no nylon cogs, no belts etc. Incredibly simple design. The hub itself is literally a brushless motor.

@@bonzobanana1 hud drives is a brushless motor with a gear reduction. It’s the same for mid drives. Unless you’re talking about a direct drive hub which has no gears and is proven to be more reliable. However, to get 120-160Nm of torque from a direct drive hub, it’ll be about 50lbs mass.

Its because regenerative breaks cause more wear and tear on the battery and make them loose capacity faster

@@lessdatesmoreonmyplates1457 It is because you would need a bike that has a cassette but no freewheel, which I don't think exists (as on normal bikes this would cause the crank to spin like a blender when coasting down hill). Also, regeneration does not cause more wear and tear on the battery or make them loose capacity. This has been tested on the eBike forum, and just makes rational sense considering that regen charging currents tend to be much lower than wall charger currents.

It is an option, you just have to get a direct drive hub not a geared hub

@@lessdatesmoreonmyplates1457 regenerative brakes do not cause wear on the battery. they also reduce wear on brake pads.

@@benjaminsmith4058 a bike with no freewheel exists

It is literally more of a motorbike than a motorbike. Motorbikes have engines unless it's electric, and ebikes have motors lol

Pedal response has nothing to do with motors. Get a better motor controller and sensors for a better experience.

There are bikes with rear hub motors 2000 watts or more! They can fly up hills!

Front hub and you have 2 wheel drive

The problem, is as I see it, is coordinating the two motors so they have the same power curve from a dead stop. Way I see it, you want the rear hub to have a motor to get you going quicker, so you can keep up with cars from when a stop light changes, and then use the Bafang motor to have a higher top end. A front wheel hub motor is a bad idea, by the way. Why? Because the amount of weight is by far the least on a front wheel versus a back wheel. And you want all of the torque and power through the rear wheel, so that it gets most efficiently used. However, I am thinking that for towing purposes, should I get an E-bike, I'm going to want to have both a rear hub motor and a mid-motor. The rear hub motor would be used for towing a steel 47 lb (21.32 kg) wagon I use for hauling everything from heavy tools to groceries. And I have hills I ride on in my town, some steeper than others, but one hill in particular that has at least a 20 or 25% gradient (I'm not being hyperbolic. On a normal pedal bike, non-assisted, I can reach a 40-50 mph top speed going down that hill pretty easy with little effort, though I've never actually measured it before.) Basically, if I programmed such a bike, I would have the rear hub only be used for towing purposes, as the extra torque would be useful from a dead stop, given that while I tow my wagon normally, I rarely, if ever, get out of the low gear on the crankset (the bike is a 29" 21-speed MTB I've modified to be a behind-pull bike, instead of a side-pull bike, as the wagon is a behind-pull wagon, rather than a side-pull trailer, as most bike trailers are). The other consideration is the weight limit: all told, I need a motor that can pull 1000 lbs without issue. The wagon has a weight capacity of 1000 pounds (453.59 kg), plus it's own 47 lb weight. And given I don't have a car or truck right now, I do automotive work as a side hustle, and need a way to carry/haul tools like a low-profile 3-ton jack and jackstands as cargo in the wagon.

Exactly this. He rode almost the whole trip on PAS5 and she only changed to it right at the end.

@@xtrck I picked up on that too and wondered why, but I think they were trying to demonstrate the more casual appeal of the hub drive. She did show that climbing the hill was effortless at PAS4, which I think was a key point to touch on. Sure the mid-drive made it up faster, but it's not like the hub was incapable. They have another video on the Juggernaut line that does show a Hub Duo vs. a Classic (750w mid-drive) vs. a Ultra (1000w mid-drive) going all-out up the same hill. Shows that the Hub drive is more than capable, doing 18 MPH up a 6% grade.

That's why you shift before the hill.

I wanted to see that too😁

I think the point was..the owner of a rear hub doesn’t need to know all that. However, I’m sure the young lady in this video did.

What could we improve on the explanation?

@@Biktrix Sorry, English is not my first language, i wanted to say along with explanation

Came here to say the same. They should have noticed that Electric cars have a fixed gear ratio. They don't have a gearbox, because they don't need it.

Exactly

It’s really up for personal preference as to how much pedal assist the rider wants to use..

I own and ride both a hub drive and a mid drive. On my mid drive I have 9 levels of PAS. On my hub drive I have 5 levels of PAS. Comparing PAS from one type of motor to the other is difficult. Each manufacturer can have different software/controllers, so they are not usually 1 for 1. Both of my ebikes have Bafang motors, but the controller software is different on them. Some ebikes allow you to set how many levels you have ( 0-9) in Pedal Assist.

@@Todd66 I ordered a new Dost e-bike that has the Bafang 750 watt mid drive. I like the idea that you can custom program each power assist level providing more flexibility. Just curious if you ever custom programmed your mid driver or not?

@@tampajim100 well I bought the usb cable and downloaded a different profile for the controller….does that count? It really fine tuned the controller in my opinion. Took about 10min to find the website, download and flash the controller. I did that one time and have not messed with it since….it was perfect for me. I would advise anyone capable to do it. I also have a eggrider V2 that allows you to do even more, but I like the bigger display, so I do not use my V2. The eggrider is pretty cool, you download a app to your smartphone, and have live data and the ability to customize each PAS level. You can even use your phone as your display if you wish. I just did like the idea of having my expensive phone on top of my handle bars, and I don’t care for the User Interface compared to my 850c display. I have a feeling you are going to love your new ebike. Thanks for commenting Jim, have a great weekend.

@@Biktrix Of course, it is a personal preference to how much pedal assist the rider wants to use, but then you can decide to not use motor assist at all as well. Please don't get me wrong, I don't want to come out rude at all, but for me, to say that it would be a fair comparison doesn't bear any logic and common sense at all. A comparison is only fair and objective under similar conditions, in this case with the same level of motor assist on both bikes. Very beautiful bikes btw. and nonetheless, thank you for making this video!