It's the end of August, a summer's day as it should be. Just one week to go before the road bike tour with friends that I've been looking forward to for months begins. 2,000 kilometres across the whole of Italy, from south to north. A real adventure for which I have around 4,000 kilometres of training in my legs. And what am I doing? Riding through the local forests on a full-suspension mountain bike powered by an electric motor and having the most fun I've had on a bike. For years. What went wrong? You could say that I have lost all ideological reservations, resentments and rock-solid convictions about what "one" as a passionate road cyclist generally does/can/must do. But isn't that actually the best thing that can happen to you when it comes to getting to know and trying out new things? Especially when it comes to cycling?
The Centurion Numinis.E, which I picked up days before as a long-term test bike, is a first-class fun machine; this first impetuous ride leaves no doubt about that. I can't get enough of this new way of cycling - mountain biking in particular. It's not about playing the wimpy bag that can be pushed around with motorised power. Rather, it is fascinating how such a bike expands your own possibilities. How sporty, how playful, how safe riding such a bike can be.
I'm definitely not a good mountain biker, my riding technique is noticeably lacking. Uphill single trails are rarely a problem in terms of fitness, but at some point there's always a root or a rock or a step where I fail: the front wheel goes off track or the rear wheel slips on a root - the end. Not so with the E-Fully. I concentrate on the line, stay relaxed in the saddle and keep pedalling smoothly. The extra boost from the Bosch motor helps to push the rear wheel over the root. We, the bike and I, hop along in a controlled manner. Always that little bit faster to avoid getting stuck and always aware that we have enough thrust for the next hurdle. Root paths turn from tripping hazards into playgrounds. What fun!
Sport with e-thrust
I quickly learnt that if you see an e-MTB as a piece of sports equipment, you don't always need the turbo boost of the highest support level. The Eco or Tour mode is usually sufficient for leisurely uphill journeys over narrow climbs. Even if you want to train your basic endurance on forest motorways with moderate inclines, you hardly need more than the subtle Eco boost to keep yourself and the almost 20-kilo bike going. But there is another way. Then the Numinis.E becomes a speed mill. Flattening climbs at just over 25 km/h is an addictive experience. Addictive and broken. All previous visual and riding habits are overridden when the garden fence, where you used to be able to count the slats one by one, suddenly flies past as a blurred image in the corner of your eye. It is possible to race up steep climbs on a mountain bike at 25 km/h, faster than on any racing bike. And because I can do it, I always succumb to the temptation to do it. But it takes a lot of effort to synchronise motor thrust and leg work in such a way that the drive system can pump out all its watts. It takes so long that my legs burn and the air floods my lungs with an iron flavour. And the pleasure centre in your head does somersaults.
Through thick and thin
Over time, I learn to use the bike's four support levels in such a way that I'm not constantly travelling with wheezing lungs. Eco mode is sufficient for easy cruising; for endurance-orientated, longer laps, I use the "Tour" setting, which is ideal for keeping the average speed high and the heart rate under control, smoothing out the peaks. Short stretches or technically demanding passages are occasionally given a "Sport" or "Turbo" kick.
When rude forestry work in the autumn woods leaves behind muddy pits, the bike reveals its Land Rover qualities. With a low gear and full engine thrust, we burrow through hub-deep mud - always forwards. In my memory of mountain bike tours long ago, such passages almost always ended with getting stuck in the middle of the mud despite wild cranking and sinking into the mud with either the right or left foot. With a certain "E", I almost always make it safely back to solid ground on the other side of the puddle.
Similarly in the snow. I remember it well: if the snow was more than ten centimetres deep, it was a balancing act (for me), constantly threatened by the front wheel breaking out or the rear wheel slipping through. After a few hundred metres, I was usually so wide and so far that I preferred to lurch through the ranger car's stuck tyre tracks rather than fight against the "deep snow" between the tracks. The Numinis.E does things differently. Even when the motor housing is already dragging in the snow, the e-bike - in low gear at full thrust - still digs its way forwards. It's clear that such manoeuvres drain the battery pretty quickly. After a wintry snowplough ride over the Hegau hills on the western shores of Lake Constance, the display shows a range of five kilometres after 40 kilometres and a good two and a quarter hours of maximum fun. However, if you keep an eye on the display, you quickly develop a feeling for how far the power will last. After all, the battery management system constantly calculates how far you can go if you continue to drive with the current load. If you reduce the motor assistance, you get more kilometres in return.
However, the range was never the limiting factor on my tours. In autumn and winter, after three or three and a half hours, my feet and fingers are more likely to stop playing along than the battery because of the cold. On trails without any major technical challenges, I average around 22 km/h with a medium level of assistance, and the specified range then fluctuates between 70 and 80 kilometres. You have to come to terms with the fact that a 20-kilogram E-Fully is not a racing hardtail. Trying to lift the front wheel with the fork's 120 millimetres of suspension travel can end in a slapstick interlude. And if you can't get over or around an obstacle, you should have a good plan for the order in which you and the bike will get over it. Or ride alone if you don't want to become the laughing stock of your fellow cyclists.
On fast downhill sections, on the other hand, the fat chunk gives you confidence. The bike sits like a board, nothing wobbles or wobbles. Unfortunately, I can't really judge how the bike performs on demanding downhill trial sections; in any case, my riding skills and courage leave me well before the bike could take on a limiting role.
Border areas
A different kind of limit is the limit range in which the motor slowly fades out its assistance and leaves all further acceleration to the cyclist. The law allows sporty pedelecs to exceed the speed limit by ten per cent. On most e-MTBs, the motor therefore continues to push above 25 km/h before gently easing off up to 27.5 km/h and then stopping completely. This is exactly the speed range in which trained bikers often ride on good trails.
If the terrain is flat or only slightly sloping, the Centurion rolls remarkably smoothly on its huge 27.5 mm tyres even beyond 27.5 km/h, i.e. only with pedal pressure. But if you're only going slightly uphill, an e-bike without motorised assistance becomes a brake on fun at this speed. My realisation: You get used to it, stay within the limit of 27.5 km/h (only uphill, mind you) and use the gears and assistance level to adjust the load to how you want to train. And you can get it right this way, so that's clear.
My conclusion after around 800 kilometres in autumn and winter: I am convinced and enthusiastic about this type of mountain biking. I haven't had this much fun on a bike for a long time. If I ever buy another mountain bike, it will be one with an electric motor - although the Centurion Numinis.E has set the bar pretty high ...
By the way: Our road bike tour through Italy was a blast. Almost 2,000 kilometres, 30,000 metres in altitude, daily stages of up to 190 kilometres, southern Italian heat attacks and northern Italian winter spells included. I'm really looking forward to the new racing bike season. And the next ride with the endurance E-Fully. And the next road bike tour. And the next ride after that with the E-Fully ... And the fact that cycling in all its forms is too much fun to let ideological blinkers spoil any of it!
Thomas Musch
Publisher
