If you look at which electric motors are currently in demand and which are losing ground, parallels with the car industry spring to mind. In short: China is catching up, whilst Germany is struggling to keep pace. Specifically: Avinox instead of Bosch. Everyone’s talking about the Chinese motor – it’s now being fitted by a number of complete bike manufacturers, including many German brands. Long reserved for Amflow alone, it’s now found in Rotwild, Cube, YT, Commencal, Steppenwolf and others.
But what is the motor’s standout feature? Exactly: power. Unlike Bosch and the like, it delivers 150 rather than 120 Newton-metres of torque whilst being lighter, and up to 1,500 watts of peak power instead of 750 watts. And when it comes to power, it seems that more is better. Or as reader Gerhard Rassmeier put it in an email: “Better to have it than to need it.” Gerhard isn’t entirely wrong. After all, you don’t have to ride at the highest assistance level all the time – but you do have the option to switch on turbo mode when it really counts.
Bosch ambassador Stefan Schlie takes a critical view of the race for performance: “Above all, more peak power means more chain wear – and less range and tolerance.” With this last point, Schlie touches on a sensitive issue. After all, critics of high-performance cycling, such as bike designer Lutz Scheffer, have long warned that cyclists risk being banned from the woods. “Anyone riding up a hill at such high speed is testing the patience of other forest visitors,” says Scheffer. Schlie puts it even more bluntly: “It really annoys me how magazines and the industry alike are desperately clinging to the next performance record without giving any thought to what that means in the long term.”
Whether the patience of other forest visitors is really pushed to the limit by a few km/h more when riding uphill is a matter of debate. BIKE tester Florentin Vesenbeckh says it does. DIMB technical adviser Heiko Mittelstädt sees the danger elsewhere: “Ultimately, it’s not individual performance figures that matter, but the behaviour of us cyclists in the forest when it comes to acceptance,” says Mittelstädt.
Is there really not that much demand for more power after all?
A fact that contradicts the ‘more and more’ trend: According to Bosch, just 7.5 per cent of CX motor owners across Germany have downloaded the app update that unlocks up to 120 Newton-metres.
So not even one in ten takes advantage of the option to give their motor a bit more oomph via software. According to Bosch, even the update for more than 85 Newton metres was installed by only 10 to 30 per cent of users across Europe. Bosch CEO Claus Fleischer is not particularly surprised: “People don’t need even more power – instead, they’re more concerned about wear and tear and range,” says Fleischer. He simply regards the “more-is-better trend” as a bubble.
“No wonder Bosch sounds so critical – if they had an engine that was just as powerful, they’d probably be singing a different tune,” says an industry insider, speaking on condition of anonymity. #
It will probably only become clear to what extent there is greater demand for bikes fitted with Avinox engines once they have been on the market for a longer period of time.
Votes
“I ride the Avinox in Amflow mode and love it. It’s brilliant – it weighs just 21 kilos. And weight is key – especially when loading it into the car, by the way. The motor responds smoothly and is wonderfully quiet. It wasn’t the power that made me choose Amflow mode. I don’t ride at the highest assistance level anyway – that’s far too intense. Even in Trail mode, the motor provides enormous traction. I only use Turbo mode when I want to attach the child trailer at the back.”
Kathrin Baumann, owner of Amflow
“We are, of course, keeping an eye on the technical developments of recent years, but we do not regard individual performance figures as the decisive factor in determining tolerance within the forest. In our view, what matters most is how mountain bikes are actually used. Here, we believe the responsibility lies primarily with users to ride their mountain bikes – whether motorised or not – in a way that is environmentally and socially responsible, in accordance with our Trail Rules. Should technical developments demonstrably lead to changes in usage behaviour or additional conflicts, we would reassess the situation accordingly.”
Heiko Mittelstädt, Specialist Adviser at DIMB
“Driving up the forest track at more than 20 km/h was unthinkable for a long time. Other forest users aren’t used to it. People will get used to it – but there has to be a limit to how fast you can go.”
Lutz Scheffer, developer at Rotwild
“No, but people look at the figures. Whether you actually need that performance is another matter. We’re not hoping to boost sales through peak performance, but through the intuitive riding experience and the traction control of the Avinox M2S motor. By the way, the previous model performs almost just as well. So anyone who’s bought a bike with that motor needn’t feel they’ve made a bad choice.”
Jens Hebisch, Steppenwolf
“No, it isn’t. After all, we all want to ride bicycles, not mopeds. The small number of Bosch customers who have downloaded the update for greater peak power shows that range and reduced wear and tear are more important. Besides, 750 watt-hours is already a lot of power.”
Stefan Schlie, Bosch Ambassador
“Like any other motor, the Avinox is limited to 25 km/h. Ultimately, what matters isn’t the motor’s maximum power on an uphill stretch, but how we cyclists behave towards those around us. I ride past pedestrians just as considerately on the Avinox as I do on a Bosch.”
Josh Welz, Editor-in-Chief of BIKE
Laurin Lehner
Editor