Since this thread came back up, I figure I’ll report on the Faraday e-bike!
So I did finally receive this. It was delayed a while, partially due to the labor strike on the west coast which delayed the ship carrying the frame (the frames are welded together in a small factory in Taiwan).
Overall, it’s been really, really cool. I’ve never ridden an e-bike before, so it was a cool experience.
Since it has a gates belt drive, instead of a chain, it’s virtually silent when you’re riding it. When the motor is engaged, you can barely hear a little whirr as it’s going. It’s pedal assist, which means that the motor only engages when you’re pedaling (as opposed to some e-bikes where you separately control the speed via a throttle on the handlebars like a scooter). This is a nice way to go, I think, as it makes riding it basically function exactly like a normal bike.
The only difference is that when you pedal, the little motor on the front hub (a 300W motor, putting out approximately 0.3 horsepower) gives you an extra little boost. The best way to describe it is kind of like the resistance on the pedals is as if you’re in a significantly lower gear than you are. So you can be in 8th gear, and it feels like you’re in 4th, or something like that. This has a few effects… one, it means you can get going quite fast without much effort. You’re still pumping your legs and getting exercise, but you’re quickly going 15-20 mph without really pushing it that hard, which is really cool. This also means you can get going fast and then coast for a while if you feel like it.
I live at the top of a pretty long and steep hill (at the end the grade probably approaches 45 degrees) and the motor really levels it out nicely. You’re still putting forth some effort to get up it, but the thing that’s nice is that since you’re going up in a high gear while still being able to pedal, you get up it pretty fast.
The mechanical components of the bike are all very nice, and the bike went together very smoothly. They definitely put a lot of care into the manufacturing process for it. The internally geared rear hub is nice, and I’ve never had a bike with one of those before. It’s cool that you can actually switch gears while stopped, which is nice. It also prevents any kind of dirt or debris from getting in there. Coupled with the fact that the belt drive doesn’t really need grease, and the whole power-train is very clean and quiet.
Now, the bad stuff.
Upon receipt, the electrical motor seemed kind of “glitchy”. It would periodically have issues engaging when starting up from a full stop, where you’d start pedaling, the motor would engage momentarily, and then stop. There are a few various things which could cause this… From potentially an issue with the motor, or a problem with the cadence sensor in the pedal assembly, to the computer that controls stuff.
The good news is that Faraday has been very cool with helping to figure out what the problem is. Currently, they had me take it to a shop and they’re going to work with the professionals to figure out what’s up. I’ll report what ends up coming from it. It definitely highlights an issue with EBikes though, which is kind of similar to modern cars… once the electronics stuff is in there, it starts to require much more specialized knowledge to actually fix them and stuff. Even the guys who are looking at it at the shop are going to have some issues, because there are only 300 of this bike in existence. They’ve done work on EBikes, but never this specific type. But the Faraday guys seem really cool, so I’m hoping they’ll be able to walk the shop guys from doing stuff.
The thing is, while the glitch is annoying, especially on a brand new bike that cost more than my car’s worth (in fairness, my car is a beat up Jetta that’s 14 years old), I still kind of didn’t want to take it into the shop and not have it… because I’ve been having a huge blast riding it all over the place. The little motor lets you go out on pretty long rides without really killing yourself… you can ride without the pedal assist at all, and it’s just a normal bike (at 40 lbs it’s not a light bike, but it’s also significantly lighter than other Ebikes I’ve seen), and then if you start getting tired just flip it on and relax while still covering good range. One friday after work, I decided to just take a long way home and ended up riding around for around 20 miles. It’s a very fun experience.
It seems like it’s an almost ideal mode of transportation for any kind of urban commute. You can easily cover long range quickly, but without getting all sweaty so even if your workplace doesn’t have a shower you’re cool. It costs virtually nothing to run, and has a range of around 30 miles when operating in high mode (the throttle can be switched between off, low, and high), although in my experience the range may actually be higher.
It’s still pretty early in the market for EBikes I think, but I suspect they’re going to start getting some broader acceptance once folks start becoming more aware of them. Also, the Faraday is nice because it actually just looks like a cool, normal (retro, even) bike… it doesn’t have any big bulky battery or motor on it. Most folks don’t notice it’s an EBike, although they do notice that it has a fairly bright LED Headlamp.
