What I wanted to achieve?
When I bought the HAIBIKE SDURO I wanted primarily a bike to ride to work on as often as possible, leaving my car at home as much as possible on a bike that could cope with a mainly off road route of between 12 and 14 miles to work and then get me home as quickly as possible on a hilly 10 mile B Road route.
To complicate matters I need to carry quite a bit of stuff to work and prefer to use a rear rack and panniers to do so. The tracks I use are too rough for the trekking style bikes so my choice was quickly reducing. I looked at a lot of bikes but in the end decided I needed a hardtail electric mountain bike that I could fit a rack to.
After a lot of research I found myself returning to the e-bikeshop site and focusing on the Haibike sDuro and xDuro HardSeven. I rang Martin who was very helpful, and reassured me that they could fit racks to either bike and said I should come to the shop and try them out.
In the end I attended the demo day and was able to ride both the Yamaha and Bosch systems on great tracks and meet some really friendly like-minded people.
The Yamaha motor
As other people have noted The Yamaha motor is a gem. The zero cadence works brilliantly off road and means it responds immediately to your input on the pedals and the torque of the motor will pull you up and over anything you aim it at.
It will try and engage with any weight on the pedal and if you are at a road junction or set of lights I sometimes switch the assist off while I am waiting and back on again when it is time to set off. Either that or just take your feet off the pedals or un-weight the pedals.
Riding the eBike
I have now been riding the bike to and from work for seven months throughout the summer and hardly had to use the car at all. The off road route to work is a sheer pleasure and I have added more demanding tracks knowing that the bike can cope. I actually want the exercise and now predominantly only use the eco mode on the 13 mile off road route to work but know the bike can pick up the pace and fly at the push of a button.
Getting home fast is also a pleasure I use the second standard level of assistance and never use the highest assistance level even on the steep hills and turn the motor off on descents.
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