#24 Avinox M2S – Everything you need to know and how it compares to other motors

The e-MTB motor war has entered a new phase. With the arrival of the DJI M1 (Avinox) system, the industry’s obsession with peak power and Newton meters has reached a fever pitch. Today they launched the M2S version. 1,300 watts peak and 130 Nm. Will this outnumber the competition like Bosch, Mahle, Brose, …? The last couple of weeks we had been busy. After countless back-to-back tests, climbing challenges, and rider feedback loops, a more differentiated picture emerges. More power is not always better. Different philosophies suit different terrains, riding styles, and expectations. But there is a place for the new high power Avinox M2S. Follow us into what now is possible and what is at stake.

Full article with all important motors with their data and more details you can find here.

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Transcript

Jens Staudt (00:11.049)
Yeah, the thing we need to cover, I have a big list of data for... data, Germans. all in on data. Bigger numbers, bigger, bigger, is better, besser. No, just kidding. No, we try to help people understand that there are differences in...

how a motor delivers power and the philosophy of the different manufacturers.

Alex (00:45.262)
You've got it right there. Well done. and it's interesting why are we talking about this briefly because we happen to both have a bike from the same brand which had two different motors on them and we put them together and like explored the philosophy of the two motors and there we go.

Jens Staudt (00:48.925)
Hahaha.

Jens Staudt (01:10.867)
Yeah, the big question and maybe it's not obvious to the average consumer out there because DJI, now Avinox, created major turmoil in the bike industry because they pushed what is not necessarily possible but what's legally allowed in some kind of way.

But more power is maybe appealing to a lot of people and yeah, more power, created a lot of revenue for them. So they ended up being spacked on a lot of bikes in the industry. if you ride an Avinox bike, you instantly, in the parking lot at your local bike shop, you feel the difference how power is delivered. The question is for those who has...

Alex (02:06.926)
You've just said the key word, how it's delivered. Well done.

Jens Staudt (02:11.495)
Yeah, the question is, and this is...

We did a lot of testing. We put many different people on these bikes and these motors. It's now eight from my side. And there's a mixed output of what they actually like. And we did a lot of climbing challenges over the last year with Bosch, Shimano, TQ, Fuzua, you name it. And the question is like, what, Mala, you did a lot of Mala testing.

Alex (02:42.304)
as well.

Yeah. Yeah.

Jens Staudt (02:46.729)
The question is what people actually want and what they like on the trail.

Alex (02:54.702)
It's a difficult one to answer. mean, even what I've discovered is even saying that there's a difference, that's caused controversy. Not even just saying whether I'm, everyone's very confused about my position on which motor is the motor of the moment or whatever it is. And I've never actually said which motor.

If you get into the nitty gritty of all of the details, I've never actually said which motor is the one of the moment. I've never, I've always tried to actually at the end, I've provoked, but I've stepped back from the brink to make people understand and think about, okay, we need to be considering carefully what we're going to buy. it's, cause I feel like a lot of people have rather than buying a bike,

they've gone towards the motor which is kind of a little bit unfortunate.

Jens Staudt (03:56.435)
This is maybe a bike industry thing. I mean even 30 years back you could sell a full bike saying this is a full XT build and or this has an XT or XTR derailleur. So it's not about like in the car world. You have to go very high end to actually talk about maybe brakes and motor and tuning. In the bike world you have like a mix of brands and while some brands try to pull everything in

It's not so well perceived from bikers. for instance, like taking a handlebar if it's like a one tracker from track It may have not the same reputation as a rental

And now, as you said, you have motors and they have a different... Every motor has a very specific image. And this image helps selling bikes.

Alex (04:54.848)
It's interesting how the image created around the Avanox has come about and that's how I kind of started this whole examining the motor power. And you said it yourself and that, you know, if you try one of these motors in a car park, you're like, wow. So I even asked the question, I thought, well, hang on a minute. It's a bit like Apple store. You go into the Apple store and you pick up a phone.

and you see that there's an amazing software. get this touchscreen, all these apps, everything there. But that is actually designed for the point of sale. you go in, your experience with the phone is very much being curated. And I was wondering if motor companies are now doing this, because the Avanox gives you that impression. Because when you actually convert it to the trail, it's a totally different thing.

Jens Staudt (05:49.129)
I wouldn't go as far as comparing it to Apple because Apple is like a specific customer experience having kind of environment to it. Like if you have a MacBook and you have an iPhone and you can use AirDrop and everything just works seamlessly. It's just the flawlessness to it. That's what's appealing to people. For the motors, I would either compare it to

kinematics of a bike, because every manufacturer has different kinematics in it. And this will mainly be noticed on climbing technical terrain or going downhill or bike geometry. So a slack head angle for instance, which gradually and continuously got slacker over the last decade, will not feel so good at low slow speeds.

the parking lot. But once you are up to speed and you need to compare the speeds of your parking lot experience in front of your local bike shop to the stuff you ride on the trail. So what might not feel very good on a parking lot can feel amazing on the trail. So the same goes with the motors and I would would argue that it's not necessarily... It might help that

Alex (06:48.034)
Mm-hmm.

Jens Staudt (07:13.757)
depending on what you like or you just like have this zoom zoom effect like in a car you have a lot of horsepower and you just kick down

Alex (07:19.042)
Yeah, the zoom zoom effect is a good point. Yeah, zoom zoom effect.

Jens Staudt (07:22.729)
Yeah, it's just like, you know, once you put a person the first time on an e-bike and they just hated cycling because it's just like too hard for them or whatever. They're going up a hill and then they experience it. They just have a blast on it.

Alex (07:34.8)
yeah.

Alex (07:40.398)
So I've got a really good experience that I had yesterday on the Propane Sresh SL with a TQ motor and I was riding up 16 Nm, 250 W nominal. It does about 350 peak more or less.

Jens Staudt (07:48.457)
16 Newton meters.

Alex (07:59.042)
Battery is 580Wh. It's very much a cadence based motor so there's not really any torque involved in it really. It's like because it's so connected to the pedal so it just it matches pedal input exactly of the rider. Very MTB but cadence. So when you I was riding up a climbing trail which was not super technical but in places people have seen them in my videos the trail that I'm talking about and I kept going all the way to the top and

I did something I've never done before. I looked at the speed I was doing as I was going up the hill on the display, because I never look at the top tube display. never look at any display when I'm riding on a bike. So I just happened to have it on the speed setting and I looked down and I thought, well, I must be pretty slow. I'm on a slow, weak motor. I looked down and although the trail was 10, 15 % in places, I was doing an average of 22 kilometres an hour. I was like, oh.

Jens Staudt (08:56.456)
Okay.

Alex (08:58.016)
I was like, hang on a minute. This is an interesting point because it doesn't matter the motor. I put in full power motor there, all that extra weight, effort and gain and I gain three kilometers an hour. So I'm like, it really made me think about the whole power thing, you know? And there's some technical sections there where I climb up them.

that's pretty much as steep as anyone's really going to ride if they're riding enjoyably, let's say. Unless you want to ride a vertical wall, I think that trail has got everything you would ride on a normal trail if you're climbing up a hill and in different types of conditions. That's why I often use it for all my tests because it's got a bit of everything, tight corners, rocky, slippery bits, off camber bits, everything you can imagine, flat.

sections undulating up down trees close in or far apart there's everything and I was just like okay so Popane have put together here an incredible bike

Jens Staudt (10:06.825)
Absolutely.

Alex (10:08.492)
and it is only 350 peak.

Jens Staudt (10:15.399)
No. you mean the Thresh. Sorry. No spoiler. Don't talk about a new one yet. No, no, yeah, it's a really e-bike that rides like a mountain bike. But there will be a more in-depth comparison of these two, like the new one coming in the next couple of weeks. So no spoiler here.

Alex (10:18.38)
Yeah, the stretch S-O. The stretch S-O.

Jens Staudt (10:43.261)
But the thrash, as you put it, it's a really mountain bike feel riding this bike. while you get support when it's getting hard in a climb, you are always in control. Like, it's not with the Bosch race motor, with the race setting and the overrun, when it came to market. And we tested it.

It was like that... Yeah, it's something you need to get used to. And the entry into the e-bikes on a thrash, propane thrash, TQ motor, way easier.

Alex (11:13.166)
Yeah, you can lose control if you're not careful.

Alex (11:26.466)
Yes, definitely. also it's worth noting the build of the bike I was riding is 20.9 kilos, I think we measured it, and with pedals and it's got a 38 Zeb fork on it. Not the very latest one, but the one before and the bike is just...

unbelievably capable but it stays in the whole, I'd say firmly in the all-mountain category. It's not an enduro bike but it's, you can do it if you've got the skills but fundamentally you'll have the most fun in the all-mountain trail category.

Jens Staudt (12:01.287)
I currently have the Orleans build from Propane here on the Thrash. And it's a coil shock in there, so it's a little bit heavier, but you can ride it hard. It's not an enduro bike, but it touches the segment. it's also like the new one, they tone it a little bit down. if some people think...

Alex (12:05.613)
Okay.

Alex (12:17.496)
Exactly.

Jens Staudt (12:29.289)
Having all the travel makes sense because in the case you need it, it's just like a car. You don't need 500 horsepower. You don't need like the biggest T5 Volkswagen because you're not hauling around stuff all the time. So it's like what is reasonable for your average ride? You do the most often. This is the question I'm asking myself because I often made the decision like to opt for

Alex (12:50.99)
Exactly.

Jens Staudt (12:57.829)
more of an all-mountain or even a trail bike even though at some trails it's limited and it's holding me back but in 80 percent of the time it's just enough and it's more agile it's more direct and then it's not too much

Alex (13:17.794)
this is something which you can go back to the whole battery thing which started

about four years ago, where everyone's a couple of companies started producing bigger batteries, 700 plus, 900 in some cases, which have all been scaled back a bit to 800. I honestly never flattened a 900 watt hour battery. That's something which I'm quite in was always stayed with me. And yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, you carry around a big battery when you use half to three quarters of it most of the time, because you might be worried. And at the end of the day,

the 90 % of the time you don't need that extra 200 watts or whatever it is.

Jens Staudt (14:00.585)
It's a matter of taste and as you put it, maybe we need to touch a little bit on the physics of it. The more wattage you're putting out, the more current you pull. So you... Yeah.

Alex (14:16.002)
Yeah, and the more heat you get, the more resistance goes up in the cells. So you therefore need, it becomes like a sort of runaway calculation. need extra power to support it.

Jens Staudt (14:24.167)
Yes, absolutely. When you have the possibility to do some real back-to-back testing on a track that stays the same, you start one day with trail mode, and the other day with 100%, and the other day with maybe just the boost mode, the turbo mode, whatever. And then you can see the percentage of the battery. If you're in boost, they're like,

You can see it draining. It's ridiculous.

Alex (14:55.064)
Yeah, whatever the bike, this is really important, whichever motor, which you cannot sit there and claim 700 watt peak plus doesn't drain a battery, it drains the battery. So that's a really important point.

Jens Staudt (15:07.273)
It does. It is just physics. You can calculate it. You said 800 watt hours, you never really drained it or a thousand?

Alex (15:22.36)
twice last year.

Jens Staudt (15:24.029)
Yeah, if I'm 100 kilos.

Alex (15:25.614)
I rode more than a hundred times and I drained it twice.

Jens Staudt (15:31.015)
Okay, so I'm 100 kilos and I actually, okay, now maybe we go towards what people actually like about the differences in the system and which system they prefer on their riding style. And I'm 100 kilos and if I'm riding an e-bike while I have a mid-power e-bike and I enjoy it, don't get me wrong, I really enjoy it. I see the appeal of like the thrill of speed, you may call it, and going up stuff and just...

faster and having more power like you yourself eight times more. while you enjoy this, it's an 800 watt hour battery. Suddenly isn't that much anymore.

Alex (16:18.4)
No, it's true. I mean, I think I posted a video talking to a software engineer the other day. And one of the things he was saying was about the maths of everything really, you know, like it's a choice. So if you want high power, you need

something to support it. So their motor comes out at 850 peak and I've actually looked at the dial as I've been riding it and I've only ever seen it peak at 850 a couple of times you know. Which I've said in previous videos and at the beginning of this video we're talking about is I think the bike industry does need to define what is peak power because otherwise it's a little bit of a it's something that you're never quite sure how long does it stay there so

And where are we measuring it? At the wheel, at the battery, at the motor? There's a variation of where you can measure it. And that's something which I think needs to be considered or at least defined, which would also help, I think, with the whole concept of when you're trying to sell to consumers with big numbers, you've got to define what those numbers are, in my opinion.

you know, and what they mean. So it's all very well saying nominal 250 watts, but the average end user doesn't, in fact, the average person in the bike industry doesn't know what that means.

Jens Staudt (17:50.985)
Let me pull that up like here's like eighth or ninth grade physics So we're talking what maybe maybe circle back and talk about Newton meters I quote and this is verified by actual engineers. So it's just not some stupid bike genres so if you compare for instance because like bigger numbers might sell better in the bike shop, right so you have an

Let's say 85 Newton meters bike on one side and 100 Newton meters on the other side. A motor with 100 Newton meters could ride or feel similar to an 85 Newton motor. Just one gear heavier. And this is because the motor torque is transferred to the rear wheel via a shiftable gear ratio. This is what you just mentioned. Like this makes a difference.

This means if the rear sprocket to size is higher than the front, your rear wheel torque is amplified, meaning it is higher than the motor torque. If the rear sprocket is smaller than the front, then the torque at the rear wheel is reduced. The gear ratio is calculated by dividing the T's at the cassette with the T's at the front. For example, 33.2s in the rear add force gear.

and a 34 tooth chainring in the front is a ratio of 0.97 almost similar. So and this also makes a difference because sometimes you need even on a muscle bike a heavier gear to make a climb because you can put out more torque and have more traction rather than just spinning the wheel and losing traction because you're just putting too much force in the ground.

Alex (19:23.734)
almost one-to-one.

Alex (19:41.838)
Mm-hmm.

Jens Staudt (19:50.067)
And same goes for e-bikes. So if you are in this kind of... Sorry.

Alex (19:52.376)
So let's.

So let's jump to your questions because this is very technical and we could end up getting lost because you had some important questions to follow on this whole talk. So you've done some research. I proposed to you a review. You looked at it. You said yes, but there are some things missing.

and you've come back to me. now give me or let's point in those directions of that what's missing.

Jens Staudt (20:30.909)
You mean maybe this one can be added out, but the question is like how much you need or why you want to go with this.

Alex (20:37.474)
Yeah, both those questions. How much do need when you want to go with this?

Jens Staudt (20:42.089)
The question is, we have, okay again, unfortunately this is getting again a little bit more in depth and nerdy, but there are regulations and they differ in the European Union and in the US and in the US again from state to state. We won't dive into that details here. Maybe we put some links in the description and then you can educate yourself and go down this rabbit hole.

The question I'm asking myself is where is actually the limit? And the question should be asked because also Hans Ray asked for it and I as a test rider experienced that also these high-power e-bikes have a different impact on the trails and also

the riding style differs. And I'm not like throwing the whole mountain bike community under the bus, but maybe it makes difference if you just pedal along, greeting nice to the hikers and or just swooshing by because you can. So.

Alex (22:01.006)
So yesterday on the climbing trail, it's also got hikers on it and I came around some tight corners and there they are. But because I was on a very lightweight, light powered bike.

I was just going walking pace at that point and there was no, they weren't shocked, they were calm, everything was a good experience for everybody. I stopped, I waited, they passed by, I then continued. There was no motor noise, so it wasn't even like a noisy experience for them to experience some kind of threat. It was like just sort of, stop.

wait, hi, hi, thanks, nice to see you, nice day, blah blah, everyone walks by. So if I'd done that and I've done that trail on full power bikes, including the Avanox, and I would say that I'm not going around those corners calmly.

Jens Staudt (22:52.169)
It is, okay, it is always a human problem, a person problem. It's, it's, it's,

Alex (22:58.57)
Exactly. That's my fault.

Jens Staudt (23:02.313)
You will have the black sheep and they will just zip by people and just no greetings and whatever. So it's not about the motor alone. It's just like some people using things and it's not like I'm not the person that overly asking for regulations. This is a whole different discussion. But if you have this kind of power at your hands, you might spark more controversy and discussions.

Yeah, my personal fear is that trail access might be limited. because we are exiting what a mountain bike is and e-bikes are still counting as a mountain bike and this could be difficult for...

Alex (23:50.774)
I think we're on the edge with the high-end power bikes. I think we're on the edge of what's...

I mean, they're not motorbikes. They are not motorbikes. You ride them. They're definitely not motorbikes. They're pedal activated. They're limited to 25 kilometres an hour because often people want to take the speed limit off and go faster. But when you do that, you are actually going into speedpedal-like motorbike categories and they are not allowed on public walking trails or riding trails.

because they are classed as a motor vehicle, you need insurance, all that stuff. So we end up, so like, the speed limit is one of the most important things. that's why I never remove it unless you're doing racing, because there are some categories of racing which you can do with unlocked speed on e-bikes.

They're run by the FIM and it's called category E2 and I've done it. And honestly, I didn't really find myself using it very often. I was just pretty much staying at normal speeds, even though I was in a race where we had permission to go as fast as we liked with the assist. So I thought that was a super important experience. There was like one section of about 50 meters where I probably went over 25 kilometers an hour on a climb, you know? And the rest of the time I was just riding. So.

Hang on a minute, give me a second.

Alex (25:14.798)
Guy, can I call you back in a second? Yeah, no, okay. I'm just doing a podcast. right, cheers, dude.

Alright, sorry.

Jens Staudt (25:25.801)
I jump in on that because you brought up a really interesting point. You said like you're going over 25 up a hill and this brings us back to maybe battery capacity. You will drain your battery way faster and e-bike racing there are even formats you can swap batteries and it's like Formula One. You could maybe get to the start and have like

I don't know, half a tank only and you're lighter at the start. This doesn't apply to a battery of course. But you could like use more power at a certain section and go faster therefore, but need to swap out your battery earlier.

Alex (26:14.606)
Yeah, I mean, okay, so what, so when we look at the new peak powers that are coming out now, what's your feeling on them? Your hunt, do you think they mean something to the average consumer? Or do you think that they're just numbers which help define a category of bike, which maybe has gone beyond where bikes were a year ago or two years ago?

Jens Staudt (26:44.381)
We're trying to stay within cat 1. Like e-bikes. There are now some ways around it, like specialized does it with a cat 3, which can be toned down to cat 1.

From a consumer perspective alone, the feedback I got is that a lot of power is very appealing to a lot of consumers because we could say like the zoom zoom effect. You just pedal it and you're really noticing something that maybe the problem with bicycling for a lot of people that is actually hard physically is just gone.

It's just like a throttle, but the throttle is at your feet.

Alex (27:34.454)
So, good segue. How should we deliver power? Should we deliver it by pedaling where the motor very closely matches the input of the rider, like a TQ? Or should we deliver it by just...

Even low-end e-bikes do this where they don't have torque sensors, they just measure the speed of the pedal movement and they just add in power according to a rough calculation. Which one do you think?

Jens Staudt (28:09.521)
I can, I did some OE level development as well. So I know how you can influence this kind of stuff. And you put it pretty well, but how was the name of the engineer from Malhe again?

Alex (28:25.08)
I'll bet so.

Jens Staudt (28:26.469)
Alberto, maybe, yeah, also put that in the description so people can maybe listen to that interview as well because it's very interesting. It is a decision. It depends how you want to deliver the power. So you can actually decide how much pressure you apply to pedals.

Alex (28:46.496)
let's come back. So my camera went to sleep. on. Yeah.

Jens Staudt (28:50.249)
You can decide as a manufacturer how much pressure or how much input you give via your pedals and how much output you're getting out of it. So you're getting in maybe 120 watts and you're getting maximum power already. Or you can have like only 50 % of power. And the thing is, it's like the human body can adapt for what you are getting out of it.

If you're riding a bike for some while, you get a better understanding how the power is delivered. And you will know, okay, I can do this climb or I can't do this climb. It's the same with the muscle bike. Depending on your front chainring and your gear ratio, you know, okay, I can do this or I'm dismounting and I'm pushing. And with the motor, you need to learn how much the motor will actually help you and what you can achieve on a bike. Torque based.

Like a Bosch for instance, I can climb insanely technical pieces on a Bosch motor because I really feel how much power I get and if I push more I get more power. It's not necessarily the p-

Alex (30:05.614)
and how that relates to the trail, because the trail pushes back at you, shall we say. Like you can feel it, the effect directly on your inclination, let's say.

Jens Staudt (30:15.047)
Yeah, and maybe let's talk about a really extreme example like you're having a climbing challenge, right? So it's like maybe super steep and a switchback to switchback over a rock. So this is maybe high end quality technical climbing for mountain bikers. And then if you have a Bosch system, you can put your saddle down, you balance your weight, you get your center of mass forward, you

You into the... you get your weight over the front wheel and still balancing between front and rear wheel to get the traction on the ground. And then you work your feet in a certain way to get more power and you feel how much you can get before the wheel actually slips. So I have a really... my feet give me feedback of what I can achieve and how I can...

actually achieve this super technical section, how I can conquer it. And you need to have, as a human, as a human system, you need to interact somewhat with the machine and you need feedback. It's like in a car, if your clutch would work just like instant and you're starting to drive on a hillside, like no assist that your car wouldn't roll back. And if your clutch will always just chung!

yank in and you would just kill the motor. You couldn't do it. But if it's more like a soft spot to it, you could work the clutch, you can work the power and you can get your car to start in a steep section. It's the same with the bike.

Alex (32:03.758)
So we get to an important point. When it was pointed out to me by a motor engineer, the whole cadence torque balance, let's call it, then I was understanding, that's interesting. Well, what do people like? And I started to realize that people are calling to the engineer.

tend to like more to cadence. But you end up getting less of a bicycle feel depending on how much power you put into it. Depending how much power you put into it. If you put 300, 500 watts, Shimano 500 has quite a strong cadence feel to it. Has some power bump to it. But when you do it back to back against the Bosch in the time, you can feel that it was more of a cadence ride to it. yeah.

Jens Staudt (32:41.373)
Yes.

Alex (33:01.868)
So basically that balance was...

not really an issue, let's say, until or a thing, let's even call it a thing, really, until you started lumping lots of power. It's a little bit like high power cars. Okay, you've got a car that can go 400 kilometres an hour, 300 kilometres an hour. You need suddenly then to upgrade the brakes, upgrade the tyres, upgrade the suspension. Suddenly everything has to multiply to be able to deal with that power. So the classic one with all this extra power is drivetrains.

Like, theoretically we should all be using the Shimano link glide system. 10 speeds... But, yet, we're all trying to go to...

Jens Staudt (33:49.097)
Stronger chains. You shouldn't use stronger chains because the wear and this is maybe I don't know if we should open that kind of worms because you will wear everything out. You will break stuff. You will ruin your cassette, your chain. You will wear through stuff if you have a lot of power.

Alex (33:58.71)
Yeah.

Alex (34:07.566)
Remember, you calculate, so here's a calculation you can do, which we can get into even more weeds if we wanted to, but just mention it briefly. If you calculate the cost per kilometer or per charge on your cassette and chain, and then you add in, well, I want to fast charge my battery. And as quoted by a company called Specialized, they told me that you can fast charge our batteries 250 times, and then you are risking...

premature wear on the battery and having to replace it. So I calculated that that would lead to a cost per ride of about five euro on battery wear and tear for every time you fast charge it. like, and yeah, so I, so brings me to the question of when you put fit an Avanox motor, for example, with these very high peak powers onto

a normal mountain bike, I've experienced some really nice bikes with the system, but also I've got questions, more questions than I've had answered about the rest of the bike. I mean, it's not something that many people would consider, but I have more questions about suspension geometry.

We've mentioned chains, brakes. There's a whole lot going on there, you know?

Jens Staudt (35:39.465)
You have an asymmetric drive train on the bike. So if you even have like a super light cross-country bike and if you really put the power down, it doesn't even necessarily need to be a cross-country bike. But if you just like look down and you really start accelerating, you can see how everything bends. Now, this is a human torque. If you now add the motor to it, it is

Alex (36:03.022)
Mmm.

Jens Staudt (36:09.321)
times X. And if we have systems that claim eight times your power, it's a lot. And it's also lot of wear on bearings, you're flexing everything. It's just, yeah, you need to stiffen up the bike. You need to construct a frame accordingly. And we are a weight sensitive sport. So...

Where are you going? as you put it, should the bike then be heavier, more weight will eat up performance in climbing because it's the power to weight ratio gets worse.

Alex (36:51.488)
So then you end up back at, well, a lightweight bike might be better with less power.

Jens Staudt (36:55.059)
less power.

Jens Staudt (36:59.709)
Yeah, absolutely. It's like a Mini Cooper, an original Mini Cooper. It's a super light construction, doesn't necessarily have the strongest motor to it, but the power to weight ratio is good. So in a corner, in hill climb track, it will outperform heavier cars with maybe even stronger motors because it's more agile. The Avinox system... Sorry.

Alex (37:21.774)
Exactly. So, yeah, I wanted you to get into the Avanox. What's your feeling on the Avanox system?

Jens Staudt (37:28.637)
Yeah, the Avinac system is.

I kind of find it interesting because it brought a different philosophy to the mountain bike world, to the e-bike world. While we aimed always towards a more natural feel and think of like when Bosch came out with their first system they had a hard time to catch up to Shimano and the first step was e-MTB

Alex (37:40.835)
Mm-hmm.

Jens Staudt (38:01.405)
mode which got introduced and it was a big improvement. even from there now, mean Bosch, would say they are pretty much the best in regards of power delivery and being controllable via your feed. Still, even though with the now launched Avinok system, because I did back-to-back testing and the Avinok system has different strengths. So while

A barge system in a technical climb will mostly outperform a Navinok system if for sheer power. And we were talking about this before. Maybe Google hill climb Rahao, which is not bike related, but it's motorcycle related. And they did like this crazy steep hill, which is pretty much impossible on a motor.

Alex (38:48.29)
Mmm.

Jens Staudt (38:57.787)
motorcycle and they build custom motorcycles with big ass tires and long chainstays and spikes to it to really climb that but it's a straight. So if you're going up a straight hill

Alex (39:08.846)
Mm-hmm.

Alex (39:13.069)
the Avernocks

Jens Staudt (39:13.317)
on an Avinox, it will win. Bosch won't have any chance. But again, if it's getting technical and you need maybe to start again and you stall and your speed comes down and you don't have the room to really spin your pedals to get that cadence-based power delivery, Bosch. It's a Bosch win. And other sections, it's an Avinox win.

Alex (39:19.789)
No, no.

Alex (39:43.074)
I find the new M2S is basically an improvement on the M1. It has a better, faster, smoother response.

Jens Staudt (39:50.334)
Yes.

Alex (39:58.026)
I do think though there's still room in the software updates in the future to send it in other directions maybe. I don't know what their choices are because we've heard from Alberto, from Marla, that they have choices between software and how it produces and it sounds like it's not...

that's constrained by the mechanics of the motor. But at the same time, I don't think that's exactly true because there's always going to be some kind of compromise going on. like if you want the and it has it's interesting the Marla system has the same gear layout as a as an Avinox. It has the same planetary style gearing system on it.

So, and they have a 600 % rather than 400 like a Bosch or 420 like a Bosch. Avinox has an 800. So I think they're probably quite a good middle ground sort of as a point of reference to understand what's going on. And I believe that you could probably tune that.

Mahle up to 800 % and you could probably detune it down to 400%. In fact, you can because you can change it on the display, the support ratio. You can't go higher, but you can go lower. So I'm wondering if really, and I've seen this in the comments section, consumer you have on your display, because you have a touchscreen display on the Avanox, you could have a slider button where you push cadence based, torque based. So you could literally...

stop at the bottom of a hill, slide it to talk, and then off you go. Rather than sitting there going through the menu and trying to make your individual plus minus and fast start, I think it could have a more, a bit like when you edit a video you have, you want to put the sound towards the front or the back, you have like a little ball button, you can push the sound around to make it have a characteristic that you want, you know, inside a spherical.

Alex (41:58.606)
layer, I think that could be something which would be super important to consider to cover all bases. But then you get to the question, can one motor cover it all? Or are we actually in a place now, still, and we will be for a while, where a heavyweight motor can't do a lightweight motor job, a lightweight can't do a heavyweight motor job, and a torque based can't do a cadence based job, a cadence based can't do a

talk-based. Like if I've got an Avanox and I just shuttle run trails to go down and I'm not really bothered about climbing at all, I just want to get to the top. That's the motor of choice.

Jens Staudt (42:42.743)
You mean technical climate.

Alex (42:44.59)
Yeah, if I don't do technical climbing, just take a shuttle ride. That's the motor of choice. There's like, you know, and I'm trying to understand with all the new bikes that have come out is how many of those bikes have been made with which kind of a consumer in mind, because the whole industry has changed where we've gone, who's the rider? I don't know.

Jens Staudt (42:50.365)
Yeah. You just blast up.

Jens Staudt (43:15.109)
I mean, we should be grateful for Avinox that they brought up and they maybe shook the industry or rethink like your philosophy of how your power is delivered. And I think it's good to have these kind of options. a heavy motor always could be toned down, which may also result in a longer battery life.

a longer.

gearing life, the whole thing will experience less wear. It's the same with the car. If you now look at the maybe 1.2 or 1.1 liter engine and you press out, I don't know, 180 horsepower, it obviously will not last as long as a 2.5 liter engine with the same power. So it's

Alex (44:15.99)
A lot of that's down to heat. Like if you overheat something, you know, then the heat adds resistance, adds stress on components, expansion, contraction. There's all kinds of things that goes on. Anyway, what's the next on your list? Have we covered everything or is there something missing that we need to touch on?

Jens Staudt (44:41.063)
I think there is like one major point every manufacturer and every consumer needs to question themselves. And it's the question of balance. You have to balance weight, durability and power.

So you can't have everything without breaking the bank. at some point, Bosch has titanium spindles, right? So there's always room for better materials, which will add to cost. And we should maybe get away from 15k e-bikes. And you also said it, how many rides you're getting out of a battery before you need to replace it.

Alex (45:09.742)
Mm-hmm.

Jens Staudt (45:28.701)
Maybe a lot of people don't have that in mind. If you run a bike with a lot of power, you will experience a lot of wear. Chain, cassettes, chainrings. And if a battery is one grand...

Alex (45:37.985)
Mm-hmm.

Jens Staudt (45:44.617)
When will be due? In two years from now? How much are riding? In three years? Will the battery still be available? I mean, we see a lot of improvements in cell design right now. Will new cell design influence the shape of batteries? So if you buy a 10 grand e-bike today, three years from now, if you need to replace the battery, will it still be available in that shape?

Alex (46:14.668)
That's a very good question. And one of the reasons why this year I bought a non-e-bike.

Jens Staudt (46:23.817)
We had a podcast in German with Friso from DT and we were talking about sustainability. And he brought up the example of an old road bike. An old road bike, not a lot had changed. And it might need some new tubes if you pull out a 30, 40 year old road bike. Still totally fine rideable. You could still get replacement parts, even an older road bike.

But mountain bikes already may be difficult with hub widths, boosts, super boosts, non-boosts, gravel the same thing, hub flanges, everything changes. E-bikes is even worse.

Alex (47:11.438)
Boost really came in strong from 2015 on.

Jens Staudt (47:16.349)
Yeah, e-bikes in 10 years from now, this bike is not rideable. I reckon it's over. You can't get a replacement battery. You can't get the replacement parts. What do you do with it? You just put it in a landfill? At 10 years.

Alex (47:23.436)
Yeah.

Alex (47:36.702)
I think that's definitely something industry needs to work on.

Jens Staudt (47:40.549)
And a regular mountain bike, 10 years old, most of the stuff can be ripped.

Alex (47:52.13)
Yes, you're right. It's an important question. And I think that's where the battery and the motor. So if we move into also Avanox, they did their own mounting system.

Jens Staudt (48:07.825)
Every... You mean for the battery?

Alex (48:10.924)
for the motor and the battery, but they did their own mounting system. that again, but then I think, do they stay the same? mean, Bosch last year changed or two years ago changed, no last year, sorry. They changed from the Gen 4 mounts to the Gen 5, you know, like.

Jens Staudt (48:12.461)
yeah. Yeah, everybody does it.

Alex (48:32.448)
I wanna upgrade my Gen 4 to a Gen 5. Can't.

Jens Staudt (48:36.425)
It's the same with cars. I had like a mix up with wheels in my old rental apartment and I pulled out the wrong summer tires and it looked pretty much the same. It's almost there but the whole pattern is just different and both were VWs. So it's

Standardization is maybe a whole different topic, especially in the bike industry. You can't win that one.

Alex (49:07.31)
So what's our consensus then or lack of consensus on the whole Avanok's arrival in the market taking quite a large proportion of availability, let's say. Let's say there's a 65 brands or plus with the system. What's that going to achieve or what are we getting to now?

Jens Staudt (49:32.073)
out of a consumer perspective you need to make a decision.

Every system, may it be a mid-power, high-power or super high-power system, has its pros and cons. And you will have trade-offs. And as we put it, we went a little bit into detail how a Bosch system climbs versus an Avinok system. And while you can adapt for every specific...

power delivery style, it's maybe important to... I always like to ask people to attend a demo event and actually ride the bike on a trail. And then maybe really try to feel if it's a match for your riding style. So if you want to do technical climbing,

Alex (50:16.142)
Mm-hmm.

Alex (50:20.056)
course.

Jens Staudt (50:32.755)
take the Avinok system there and compare it to a Bosch system and figure which one is working better for you. the media shouldn't be up here and saying, this is the best, or you can't. You can't say that. Because also, a spoiler, a little bit for upcoming comparison review we are doing,

Alex (50:43.608)
That's always, that's just the point. I agree.

Jens Staudt (51:02.633)
There are people that are favoring a 16 Newton meter system, even if in a back-to-back setting.

So I don't know if this is a good ending or a good conclusion because it leaves more questions again for the consumers. I guess we as bike testers, bike media are not there to tell people you need to buy this.

Alex (51:14.627)
Hahaha

Jens Staudt (51:32.189)
That's... we should explain.

Alex (51:33.048)
think we have to make people think and question and all this kind of stuff rather than just follow a large shouty mass along the road towards the downtown bike central organizing committee to try and kick them out. I think we have to...

Question, what are we doing? Always.

Jens Staudt (51:59.143)
And there is a personal preference in the amount of travel you have on a bike, the geometry you want, the kinematics that suits your riding style. And the same goes for motors.

Alex (52:13.966)
Exactly. And I think that's where we should end it.

Jens Staudt (52:19.603)
So yeah, I don't know. That's your part. I can't do that very well. So let us know in the comments. What is your take?

Alex (52:21.133)
Okay.

Alex (52:26.509)
Yeah.

Yeah. What does your take exactly?

Jens Staudt (52:34.035)
What is your take?

Alex (52:36.526)
I people need to answer that and try it, as we've said. So there we go. Anyway.

Alex (52:45.9)
So, should we just a quick thank you goodbye or?

Jens Staudt (52:49.501)
Yeah, you can do that better.

Alex (52:50.936)
Okay, okay. So thanks for watching. That's our discussion. We're trying to stay out of the noise, out of the... We're gonna push you a little bit, but we're not gonna sit there and tell you what to think.

Alex (53:08.312)
Thanks for watching. Don't forget to like and subscribe. Testpilot.bike, Alex Bike Tester at YouTube. Bye everybody.