I have revised my opinion of the gear ratios.
To recap: in my first impressions I said that the shift up into the more relaxed gear could happen a bit sooner – say, 10 mph rather than what seems to be 12+ mph.
I still agree with that – but the issue is less of a problem than I first thought. I realised that my first few rides were on routes with a great many stops and starts: road junctions, park gates, sharp corners, crossing signals, etc.
So what was actually bothering me was an inability to get going faster for any length of time. In practice on longer rides, the torque sensor on the e28.X makes it easy to accelerate to the higher gear, and you can then bowl along in that more relaxed cadence.
I have found that it requires about 12.3 mph (20 kph) for the Bafang H700’s automatic gearbox to shift up – but having done so, you can wind down the speed and stay in the high ratio. As others have reported you can, as it were, fool the automatic mechanism into changing gear just by pausing the pedalling briefly.
We have been away for a few days and we have had a lot of very wet weather, limiting the scope for cycling. So my evaluation continues. I am still deciding whether the 1:1.36 ratio higher gear gives a slow enough cadence for long distance comfort, or whether I would like to have more gears (in other words, a different e-bike).
Tyres
My e28.X came fitted with brown-walled Pirelli Cinturato Adventure 40-700 tyres, which I have seen described as all-round gravel tyres with relatively low central knobs and higher side knobs for good grip in various conditions.
They are rated for pressures of 36 to 58 psi (2.5 to 4 bar). I inflated them to a middling 45 or so to see how they were, and they seem fine, but I might lower them to 40 to see what effect that has on riding comfort.
Suspension
Talking of comfort, as delivered, the suspension is essentially the tyres and the Selle Royal Vivo seat. Roads hereabouts are strewn with uneven surfaces, disintegrating painted lines, sunken inspection covers, potholes and endless repair patches.
Would suspension be a good idea? Opinions vary on this from “you need to toughen up your bum” through “lower your tyre pressures” to “wow, such a difference”.
Estarli provide optional front forks and Redshift ShockStop Endurance seat posts, though I don’t think either of these was available when I ordered my Blike subscription; that said, I see the front fork is listed as an add-on for the e28.9 sibling, so perhaps it might have been for my e28.X: I didn’t ask at the time as I thought I would try the bare bones version.
Having done so, I would like whatever is going, please! Browsing online for what is generally available to order in the way of suspension seats, I see you can pay a wide range of prices and get a correspondingly wide range of technologies. Reviews of the Redshift that Estarli use suggest it is at the more sophisticated end of things and works extremely well. I think I will investigate further.
Lights and panniers
I touched on the integral lights previously but at the time had not had a chance to use them when it was properly dark. Having now done so, I can say that the split lens front seems excellent, with a broad splash of light immediately ahead of the bike and a brighter sort of horizontal lozenge shape at its outer edge.
Meanwhile the rear light, mounted vertically in a slot in the mudguard, seems plenty bright enough, and “looks really cool”, according to the person behind me.
I noted previously how the pannier rack that came with e28.x was an awkward configuration to fit my existing Ortlieb panniers, because of the position of the welds at its rear.
When I studied how the panniers were made, I realised the brackets along the top of them that hold the attachment clips were simply bolted through the fabric. If I undid these, I could cut out the middle section and reattach them such that the rear channel could sit further forward, the attachment clip could in turn slide further forward, and as a result the whole thing would fit better on the central portion of the rack.
With apologies to Ortlieb that’s what I did. It worked, and rather than make these old panniers redundant and have to buy new ones, I have given them a new lease of life on the new bike.
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