Wow California Bicycle!
My wife and I went out on our first ride yesterday with her brand new Colnago E64. We live near UCSD and our route was down Gilman and over to Liberty Station (for coffee) and back. Total mileage, 31 miles.
THE EXPERIENCE:
My wife really, really enjoyed the riding experience. The Stromer experience my wife has had is more like transportation, whereas the E64 is more like recreation. The E64 is a much more natural evolution for wives that want to keep up with their husbands or former purists who are aging. As much as we are happy with the Stromer, the E64 definitely kicks the fun up several notches.
THE POWER:
Being the engineer that I am, we rode in several modes and tracked battery drain vs distance in each and all that geeky stuff. When my wife was riding in ECO, Level 1, I definitely had to dial back my speed to allow her to stick with me. But cranking the E64 up just one notch to Level 2 allowed her to stay right on my butt at my normal cruising speed without any problem. Ditto when we hit the Gilman grade coming home. She was right with me and said that the power felt just like her Stromer. Easy breezy!
We’ve already used the mobile app to adjust ECO up a bit to see if there is a happy medium between pushing it and easy that will allow her a comfortable ride while conserving battery. When we first learned about the ability to adjust the power profiles, I thought it was neat but probably not really useful. Totally wrong. This is very useful as we will tailor her bike to be a comfortable (keep up with her husband) ride in Level 1 and then have Level 2 for extra oomph. Level 3 will be the insurance policy for big grades only!
THE RANGE:
Nothing but good reviews here as well, although we will still want the range extender battery. I won’t go through all the data, but instead summarize that our 31 mile ride (with some climbing on Gilman) left us at 59% battery (using a combo of L1 and L2). So I think we are looking at a 50 mile range in Level 2 with a ride profile like Gillman. L3, Turbo, appears to be quite power hungry and limiting. The range extender will put us in the 100 mile range area like we have with the Stromer which makes it a don’t care for any of our rides.
Bottom line, we are really happy with the bike and appreciate all your help!
Regards,
Two Happy California Bicycle Customers!