the reasons are seemingly endless why i would choose a mid-drive over a hub drive
every single time except for one very specific instance i get to ask this question all the time
it's like hey will you install a hub drive on my bike and i always ask like sure but why do
you want to hub drive and they're usually like i don't know what's the difference
and i'm going to break down the differences now and hopefully i'm going to debunk a lot
of myths or a lot of like misconceptions that people have about mid-drives and hub drives
so i want to go down the list and compare pretty much side by side the pros and cons of each one
and i'm going to be using a buffeng 750 watt hub motor and i'm going to be using a 750 watt buffeng
mid drive for my examples on this one it's close to an apples apples-to-apples comparison as you
can possibly get same manufacturer same wattage we'll go down the list of what makes each one
different all right if you're new to this channel i'm johnny nerdout i've been a professional e-bike
mechanic converter builder since 2017. um i've worked for a few different e-bike manufacturers
and different custom shops before i went off on my own and started doing it on my own so i have
a decent amount of experience probably more than the average bear that gives me some credibility
i'll take it all right so let's start shall we all right so first i want to start with performance
this is for me the one of the biggest ones hub motors just they can't keep up with a mid-drive
first of all hub motors are rated at 80 newton meters of torque whereas a mid-drive is rated at
depending on where you get your spec sheet from 120 to 160 newton meters of torque that's double
that's twice as many newton meters of torque if you've ever driven in a car that had 150 foot
pounds of torque and then driven in a car that had 300 foot pounds of torque you would appreciate
that difference it's very it's crazy it's it's a big difference in performance and what you're
getting even though it's the same rated wattage it's still drawing the same amount from your
battery it's just using it so much different it's like having that kind of different torque in your
car but getting the same gas mileage but really what it comes down to is how that power is applied
mid-drive comes from the crank and it uses your gears in the back like a transmission i'm going to
use this car analogy as much as i can here it uses those gears in the back so essentially you have
an eight-speed transmission in the back whereas with a hub motor you have one speed transmission
so it's like being stuck in third gear in your car so if you only had one choice but to be in third
gear in your car for all purposes highway driving climbing hills starting from a red light that's
what it's like having a hub motor acceleration is gonna be really slow you're not gonna really
be able to climb hills very well it's gonna be all right around like mid range mid gear it's
gonna be fine and you know towards the higher end it'll be it'll be okay but it's just not nearly as
effective way to use a motor versus using gears to like really dial in use that power where you want
it so a mid-drive is going to outperform a hub motor across all speed levels low end climbing
hills from a start all the way through to top end it's using a more efficient gear ratio so it's
going to have a higher end top speed and a better lower end and here i'll insert a clip here of
same bike that i converted from a hub motor to a mid-drive using the same battery and everything
just switched out the the motor and you can see the difference between hill climbing and top speed
so you can see how just using the gear ratio is makes a world of difference and also just to bring
up put a finer point on that is think about what that does if you only had third gear on your car
think about what that's doing to your motor like it's it always it's a lot of strain on your motor
just like on a hub motor you don't want to be you want to find that ideal range to keep your motor
in the best health that it can when i used to work as a e-bike mechanic at a shop that we only sold
hub hub motors we would get so many bikes in with burnt up hub motors and we would replace them we'd
get bikes sent back into us from our dealers of burnt up hub motors because if you ride a bike
hard or if you don't really know what you're doing and you accidentally ride it hard you're
gonna burn up your motor motors don't like to get a lot of amps or a lot of power sent to it without
spinning real fast and with hub motors you have no choice but to send a lot of it you're putting
a lot of strain on it whereas with a you know mid drive obviously you could put it in your lowest
gear and that motor's spinning and that's what it likes i would easily say i've seen a 10 to 1
ratio of burnt up hub motors to mid-drive motors all right the next myth i want to talk about is
reliability this is a common myth that i hear a lot about especially from you hub drive fanboys
and you know who you are this is just nonsense it's the biggest misconception i think there is
is reliability that hub drives are more reliable than mid drives because oh if you snap your chain
you're not getting home but if i break my chain in my hub drive i'm still getting home which is true
but that's why i just carry an extra 15 chain in my pannier bag at all times it takes up no space
and in the off chance that i happen to break my chain which i've only broken a chain probably
twice in the last 3 000 miles of riding that i've done and that was more my fault because it was
me climbing hills giving it full throttle which i have a bbs hd motor so it was putting over 1500
watts of power on that chain and climbing a really steep hill that was more my fault i've only broken
two chains and that's only 15 apart that i could fix on the side of the road in under five minutes
but what hub motor people don't like to talk about is their fatal flaw you know what i'm talking
about let's think about how power gets from the motor to the tires the only thing that's holding
it together are spokes these little tiny spindles of steel or aluminum whatever ones you're using
those things work themselves loose hub motors work spokes loose i don't know how many times if i had
a penny for every time that i've had to replace a spoke on a hub motor i'd have at least ten dollars
i've had so many people bring in a hub motor that has just shredded that they had to like walk in
left them stranded you can't repair that on the side of the road unless you happen to be packing
in extra spokes extra nipples and a wheel truing stand which nobody does and it's much easier to
get a chain fixed anybody's going to be able to replace that how expensive it is to get a rear
wheel built with a hub in it a lot of bike shops won't even touch it they're like i don't know what
this is they're not they don't feel comfortable doing it or their business licenses and doesn't
cover that so yeah and it's very time consuming and expensive to replace spokes get a whole hub
motor wheel rebuilt intrude whenever i see a customer bring in a hub motor bike if i check
the spokes on that motor in the wheel where the motor is so many times there's loose spokes in
there they're just waiting to fail i would much rather replace a chain than get a wheel rebuilt
easy it's so much easier so reliability i say goes to mid drives all day every day twice on sunday
all right now let's go to price and aesthetics price generally it's going to be the same price
we're talking about within 50 bucks if you want to get a 750 watt hub motor or the mid drive
mid drive comes as a kit comes with everything motor controller everything a lot of times the
hub motors you have to just just the wheel is you know quite a bit less expensive but then you also
have to buy the controller and everything else so it ends up pretty much costing the same amount
within 50 bucks but aesthetically mid-drives the buffeng the controller is built into the motor
so it's all a nice sleek package with a hub motor you have this nasty brick of a controller that you
have to somehow try to mount somewhere and make it look nice if you care about that at all it's
just it's a pain and also it's less surgery to your bike you don't have to get rid of your whole
rear wheel it's you're getting rid of your whole wheel you have to either throw in the
garbage donate it or hang it up in your garage for some day that you're totally going to reuse
it on a different bike someday but you probably never will with the mid-drive all you're doing
is removing the front crank and you're losing your front derailleur that's it and then it just
slides right in place it's much more cohesive and it looks more slimline as far as ride ability i'd
say that this also goes to mid drives it's a much more natural feeling you get to set which
power level of assist that you're putting in and all that doing is just adding to whatever you're
doing to a bike so it's just like riding a normal bike hub motors have a way different feeling it
can be nice if you're not used to riding a bike because it's nice just having this little like
this little bit of power kind of float behind you like a little cloud and add to it but if you've
ridden a bike or if you want to get back into biking or you know you give it a little bit of a
learning curve you'll actually i think you'll find that it's more enjoyable because it's just like
riding a bike it's just adding a little bit of more power to you so it makes it more enjoyable it
reinforces the basic fundamentals of riding a bike being in the right gear you know and it's just
going to make your bike last longer and reinforces good fundamentals who doesn't like fundamentals
it's fun okay now here is the grand finale the only time that i would ever choose a hub motor
over a mid drive and that would be if i was ever using a single speed application like a motorcycle
conversion where i didn't have a chain ring in the back or cassette or something like
that or if i was doing just a single speed bicycle conversion but the one caveat is i would want to
make sure that it was like a higher speed motor if i was doing 3000 watts or more in that hub
then the differences start to become less and less that gap performance gap starts to get less and
less when you start getting to like 10 000 watts the performance level starts going down you higher
the voltage higher the amps like electric cars they all use hub motors they're using units of 400
plus volts going through it in enormous amounts of amps that's why you get teslas that are doing
zero to 60 in under two seconds because they're just putting gobs of power to it and they have
you know three four motors one per each tire it's just throwing so much power to it that it doesn't
really matter at that point but when you're using an e-bike and you're using low power
like under a thousand watts you could totally tell the difference it's night and day um so
if i was ever do to do a like a motorcycle conversion i would probably use a hub motor
because at that point there's not much difference and it'd be a lot easier to convert that's why i
only do mid-drives and why i would only recommend mid-drives to anybody ever thinking about either
buying an e-bike or converting an e-bike is unless you're getting a screaming deal like someone's
selling one for like two or three hundred bucks if you plan on riding an e-bike at all just get
a mid-drive it's way more fun way more enjoyable way less of a headache it's just the way that
it's the future hub drives were cool 30 years ago when that was the first that they were the first
technology and it's an old technology mid-drives are yeah as of this they're like 10 years old
roughly they're the new technology and they've they finally got to the point now where they've
worked out all the bugs or most of the bugs it's way better way better if i buy you mid-drives are
the future they make e-bike riding so much more fun you won't regret it and stay tuned i'm going
to be putting out another video about my thoughts on dual hub motors versus a mid-drive later guys