It's Not About The Bike ...

It was sunny yesterday morning, so I took my Orbea electric-assisted bike out for a spin.  It continues to delight me, and without much thought, I set out to the East, following a ride that used to be one of my favourites - over Titsey Hill, along the Pilgrims' Way past Chevening, up Star Hill and back along the top through Knockholt.  Haven't done it for years, and I had a lovely ride.  The vineyards have been considerably extended, some of the roads have been re-surfaced, and there were plenty of cheerful cyclists to give me a wave.

My general impression of the Orbea is that it has taken about a decade off my performances, and I realised that I now had the data to look at this a bit more closely.  So, here it is:

I took two slices of data from the roundabout at the top of Titsey Hill to Star Hill and back, by the same route.  On June 15th 2008 I rode a Specialized Allez, a light and stiff bike, good for climbing, that I had geared for the Alps.  On June 9th 2019 I rode an Orbea Gain M20, about 3 Kg heavier, but with an EbikeMotion X35 motor system.

You can pore over the graphs yourselves, but you'll see that the Orbea was just under five minutes slower over the segment.  So, where were the differences?  The main difference that stands out for me is that in 2008 I rode faster on the Pilgrims' Way, and that I rode faster along the top, too.  A number of data points show that the Orbea is actually faster, I just didn't ride it so fast.  That's age for you.

Looking at Star Hill itself, the Orbea shows a maximum of 250 Watts at 6.6 mph on the steepest part; the Specialized shows 207 Watts at 5 mph at the same point.  That's the motor.

So, there we are, the performance is indeed comparable with my old self.  I could have ridden faster on the easy parts, but chose not to, and I could easily turn up the motor, but, again, chose not to.  The important thing is that, on a sunny morning in June, things haven't changed much.

Quite happy with that.

Mark