NeBD - the you can tell I'm not a bike journo edition

TL:DR I like it, I'm still scared of my shadow following a fall a few weeks ago but the bike is good. Have some pictures.

For those with a whole pack of hobnobs who can forgive my steam of consciousness and lack of editing :

Following on from a few recent threads on ebikes I finally made a decision and treated myself to a focus jam2 6.9, picked up from wheelbase last Tuesday.

There were a few things which made the decision for me in the end, sizing, bosch motor, local (ish) shop, price removable battery and kit spec. It's not quite the bike I wanted - I wanted a semi skimmed ebike but couldn't make that decision actually make sense so went with head over heart as it were.

Initial impressions were that the two tone paint helps it look slightly less hefty, it's still undeniably am ebike with all the visual "impact" that brings but I think it would pose more of a challenge in a solid colour.

It's heavy, lifting out on and out of the car isn't difficult but does need planning on a way that my other bikes don't.

The controls make taking the wheels of a Pita, not being able to just flip it onto the bars is a nuisance and the lack of a cage lock on shimano mechs makes removing a reinstalling the rear wheel with the bike on its side a bit of a pig.

A quick spin to the office on Thursday to fettle saddle height and the like before it was used in anger over the weekend had me a little concerned about the battery life, 10% on the way there 13k & 160m of tarmac isn't exactly confidence inspiring (I was faffing with assist modes and things quite a bit), but the return leg used a mighty 2% so assuaged those worries a bit.

Other than that it's been a long time since I've run shimano gears so the ergonomics are all wrong. Given the eulogising of shimano by its fans I was expecting something magical in the shift performance (xt 12) vs the sram I'm used to but no, it's much the same, it all works just fine but it's not imperceptibly smooth or quiet. I'd swap any very minor improvements for a cage lock out similar in a heart beat.

Db8 brakes just worked, they're a bit ugly and bulky and I expected to be taking them straight off but no plans to do that anytime especially soon now.

It is, without doubt a heavy lump of a bike, no amount of assistance changes that, it feels comically easy in anything other than eco, because it's still feels heavy it's just not hard to pedal in some sort of weird way, it's a bit like coasting down a steep hill into a head wind, you're accelerating, you're going quickly but you feel like you shouldn't. I'm sure I'll get used to that quick enough.

I turned the cap for eco down to 13mph, at 15 it was just too close to comfy speed for me on anything roughly flat so I kept kicking on and off the assist limit. That's a bit slower than I would be on my mtb on the flats but once the gradient kicked up beyond a couple of % it started to make it's self beneficial. With eco dialed down in happy plugging along at 15-16 without the motor and if the gradient goes up it creeps in nicely.

With the motor off drag is obvious at low speed and cadence but at above the motor limit is not bad at all.

It likes higher cadence than I'm used to on the mtb, dropping below about 80 flashed up "shift down" on the display.

The power and cadence reads on the display are nice, if I could pair a hrm it would be great, (I'll go into the display and things a bit further down.)

Overall I was a couple of minutes slower than on the road bike but closer to ten faster than the mtb. The one reasonable climb on route was 20 seconds off my PB on the road bike but 35 quicker than the mtb. I'll have a pop on turbo next time and see how it compares.

Come the crappy weather I'll be glad of it I suspect!

So, shakedown done I tubelessed the tyres / the wheels are pre-taped which is a bonus but the supplied valves are not insert friendly and the rear is barely long enough to allow a locking ring once the speed sensor is on. After that I headed off to Wales at the weekend and a proper run on Sunday and some spectacular weather.

I'd not charged before the ride - showing 88% so didn't see the need, part of the purpose was to get used to the battery usage and management. Lots of eco admittedly but by the time I finished it was at 59% 46k and 1350mtr so pretty pleased with that.

The first climb out of Llangollen was a steep - 14% average for 1.7k, eco most of the way but switched to tour+ for a few steep bits and a couple of times when I had data behind. The difference between tour and eco was something of a surprise and needed me to weight the front on that sort of gradient. It was a slog of a climb and wouldn't have been nice at all on the normal bike, especially when there were cars behind.

Second climb was up what may well be a stream bed, kaif way up was a rapidly-getting-crosser who had beached his bike and was struggling to get moving again. Walk mode was deployed at once point where, like the MXer, I couldn't get traction despite the extra power.

On the loose but not completely unstable climbs the extra weight delivers gobs of traction and the oomph from the motor means I can use it. I'm not sure I'd have cleaned the rest of the climbs on my other bike.

The first downhill was a bog, cattle and horse churned, with a good smattering of sunken rocks and a lot of windfall branches making slow and awkward going. I was more worried about not wedging one of the branches into the bike than anything else so was slow and ponderous. The bike pulled through the sticky mud brilliantly though and the tyres - big Betty rear and magic Mary front - were excellent in the slop.

The second descent was a broken road, rutted and pitted, plenty of small drops and wheel catching divots. One of the things that was immediately apparent about the bike, even on the run to the office, is the bottom bracket is very high, I guess in part on account of the motor. It is remarkably stable for a bike with such a high BB, again I guess down to the motor and the position of the weight. One thing that isn't so obvious when you're riding the bike is, despite the BB being high, the bottom of the bike isn't and I managed a few (very minor) scraping noises on edges as I picked way down. Longer term that's not likely to be such an issue but for a first ride on the bike I was taking it a bit gingerly trying to figure out how it handles and things and I also had a nasty off a few weeks ago which has left me quite nervy but the bike handled much better than I did including a couple of suboptimal line choices owing to MXers coming the other way.

Another long tarmac climb with a brief foray into tour for a steep corner led to a hill top track, turns out that high BB isn't high enough for some of the ruts but that would be the same on my other bikes. A fast double track descent allowed me let the bike run a bit without my confidence getting in the way and raised a few things to pay some attention to with the suspension, not enough to be a problem but enough to make me wonder if I'm I imagining it.

A long schlep over the tops to start the return leg was broadly uneventful, the motor just gets on with it and carrys you along that bit quicker.

One of the things I was really keen on with the kiox 300 display is it has a nav function on it. You can load a route into the "flow" app from a gpx and then push that to your kiox unit where it will flash up "100m turn left" or whatever over the data screens or it'll show you a line plot of the route - no map info though, just a white line on a black background.

As I was riding a route I've never done before somewhere I've not been before this seemed the perfect excuse to test it out. There were difficulties.

Firstly the flow app, despite having the GPX added and held locally needs a data connection to show you the list of tracks, so, when early on I realised I'd loaded the wrong one, I could stop the navigation (option for keeping the tracking going out stopping that too was nice) but I couldn't then load in the correct one because no data. That's really annoying but it's not distinct to flow and it's a pet hate that local data isn't visible/usable without a data connection, especially on this sort of app where you can be out of data range for an age.

The bigger issue though, and it'll need further investigation, is that the navigation had errors. I'm not sure if this was an issue with the GPX or data or what but it sent me a couple of miles down a road only to stop then tell me to about turn, it tried a few more times too but fool me once…

When it worked it was great and if I can figure out how to zoom in and out might mitigate the issue a bit.

What should have been the next descent was cut short - the track narrowed to a barely shoulder width tunnel of bracken and brambles, I decided if it got any narrower I'd be trying to reverse my heavy ebike back up it so I turned round and pedalled back up as the route rejoined shortly anyhow. On the normal bike out would have been a real slog steep enough and wet grass but the motor did it's job and got me to the top with a minimum of fuss.

The penultimate descent was a small helping of loose rocks scattered over hard pack and since roots. Very quickly made me realise I need to weight the front more than I was doing and that I was using the brakes way too much. Partly because I'm still nervous from dumping my self out on similar stuff a few weeks ago and partly because I do love my brakes.

The rear was a bit chattery and the front too firm.

I need to let some air out of the tyres they're much too firm and out of the fork. The tyres were nowhere near as good on the loose rocks as they were on the mud, even when I wasn't on the brakes they'd skip and slip worryingly on occasions. At least pay of this will be pressures and that over firm fork so should be easy to solve but it wasn't what my confidence needed to get me off the brakes.

The last climb of the day I had loads of battery left so popped it onto emtb. Again hard pack with loose rocks and it steam rolled up it in hilarious fashion. The extra speed and momentum allowing me to just plow up when the wheels momentarily lost traction or moved the rocks under the wheels instead of the bike over them where on a normal bike I'd probably have been dabbing a few times.

The final descent started out as broad gorse lined double track before turning into everything I dislike about the lakes, a number of walkers (in a pleasant twist a very diverse bunch too, which was good to see) stumbling up baby heads poured down a hillside in the name of maintenance giving a loose surface fine at speed but that can't be trusted without momentum on your side, but where those walkers mean you can't let it run for any distance.

I hugged the brakes down that bit but the top section gave me a bit more chance to let the bike go. It definitely needs some faff the rear which gobbled through its travel and felt quite wooden on even the smaller trail bumps. Again tyre pressure and some playing with the shock pressure will go a long way there I think.

Over all I'm chuffed, it was definitely a good workout despite the motor and though the route choice wasn't ideal for me on the day was a great ride. Most of the niggles are easy fixes and there's only really one thing I'm in a hurry to change from the standard spec which is the dropper. I'm not sure if the slightly spongy lever feel is the post or the lever, it's livable but weird, however, a 170mm dropper on an xl is silly. I get there are folks who might choose to size up for the extra reach but (a) they'd likely still for a 200mm post, (b) if large needs to be longer, make the bike longer, don't make spec the components so the xl can be ridden by someone 5' tall. I settled for a mid point height between ideal seated and can't drop the saddle far enough and it was OK but I really could do with the saddle another 20-30mm higher when seated and I've got about 80mm of post under the collar at the moment, so a one up 240 will be making it's way in due course I suspect.

(the saddle might go but that really is preference rather than any sort of fault.)