Finally, put my ass in gear, and took my Orbea Gain out for her maiden ride.
Initial thoughts, I love the feel of the bike, by that I mean it's size and positioning for comfort and use. I obviously had the assisted power set slightly wrong, as man the pull up Durham Road and on to Wear Road was a slog. I had thought it would be a breeze on level 2.
Upon a quick check of my power settings, which you can customise using the Mahle Smartbike App, I saw that I only had 15% on level 1 and around 20 or was it 30% on level 2.
While I am on about the Mahle Smartbike App I have to say I absolutely detest it. I was running the App through my old Samsung Galaxy S9. It took an absolute age to connect, and then counted me down, saying I was connected.
My first ride out on the Orbea Gain was totally ruined by the Smart bike App, due to it constantly loosing connection, requiring me to turn it off and reset it, then also resetting my bike and in the end fannying on trying to reset the GPS on my mobile phone.
All I really wanted to do was go for a cruise and get to grips with the bike and see what the different settings did and how the motor preformed.
Things I do like are being able to adjust the power of the motor, there is a customisable setting, called "motor maps" so you can set power for levels 1, 2 and 3, or you can use the defaults of Eco, Urban and another couple which escape my memory.
The bike it's self just feels right, it is comfortable, when the motor is engaged and working it is quiet and when you get over the 15.5 mph cut off with pedal assist the motor disengages and doesn't hold you back with any resistance. Obviously the bike is heavier than a standard road/gravel bike due to it being an electric bike, however you don't actually feel it once aboard. The Orbea Gain also looks aesthetically pleasing, love this Ice green colour, which looks like a blue at times. Also like the internal cables and the dropper seat post I asked to have installed works super smooth from the Left Shimano R810 lever. I like the fact you can adjust the seat post gradually and smoothly, with a gentle flick of the lever.
In ending, if I can get the Mahle Smartbike App to work correctly and not keep disconnecting then having to reconnect upon each ride which is very frustrating,
I would be so happy with this new ride. Apparently Mahle decided to change from the previous App to this new version and a lot of people have been complaining about the same issues I have experienced. The old App looked far superior, even allowing for mapping in conjunction with a mobile phone.
Next time out, I will try and set up the app again and also look at the various power levels, experimenting to see how much peak power the motor can provide, not that I ride using full assist. Just enough to give me my leg back is enough for me.
