How fast does a tuned e-bike go?
19 April 2022
Christian
Stories News
Stories News
How fast does a tuned e-bike go? A good question, but not too simple to answer.
Basically, many factors play a role in achieving a certain speed. In addition to the combined motor/human power, these include rolling resistance, air resistance, system weight, surface, air pressure, inclination and a few more. Since the motor in a tuned e-bike still "only" produces 250 watts, the bike can make it to about 30 km/h without much help from the rider.
Beyond that, the rider must provide the necessary additional power, and this becomes very high very quickly. For 40 km/h you need more than 500 watts of power and for 50 km/h almost 1000 watts. The missing 750 watts are hardly achievable by a normal mortal, especially not in the long run.
If you want to play around with the physical limits yourself, you should refer to this speed calculator. There you can see how far you can get with what power. As a very rough guideline: in the long run, normal mortals usually cannot achieve much more than 150 watts, i.e. 400 watts together with the motor.
That's why we limit our tuning to the range up to 40 km/h, which can be used by most riders and doesn't let the joy of riding end at the tiresome 25 km/h. In addition, lower speeds are naturally more advantageous in view of the manufacturers' anti-tuning efforts.
Author:
Christian
Managing Director. Only active on two wheels for a few years at all, preferably with a gravel bike, with and without motor. Not only since Corona more and more often virtually on the road on Zwift.
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