This is a serious family hauler that will change the way people use bikes.

Regular readers will know that I like the European style of electric-assisted bike with pedal assist (pedelec), rather than a sort of downsized motorcycle with throttle controls. Oh, and the motors should be limited to 250 watts so that it plays nice in the bike lanes. I thought that E-bikes should be regular bikes with a bit of a boost.

Well, you can forget all that. I just spent a day riding through the snow and ice of Minneapolis on a Surly Big Easy long-tail cargo e-bike, and it totally changed my thinking.

The Big Easy eats SUVs

Lloyd Alter on a Big Easy/CC BY 2.0

I once quoted analyst Horace Dediu, who said, “Bikes have a tremendous disruptive advantage over cars. Bikes will eat cars.” But people still complain that bikes can't replace cars, that you can't really shop on a bike. Or they can't easily get the kids to school on a bike. Or that it is too far, or too hilly, or too sweaty.

The Big Easy puts paid to all of that. It doesn't just eat cars, it eats pickup trucks. Modelled after Surly's current non-electric cargo bikes, it has a low center of gravity, fat grabby tires and, like all Surly bikes, is a bit out there for adventurous get-out-there types. But add a big Bosch motor to it and it becomes the Ram 3500 or GMC Denali of bikes: it looks the part of a working tough truck but suddenly it is almost effortless. It belies its brand name and isn't surly at all.

© Bosch motor on Big Easy/ Surly

The Bosch Performance CX motor is so smooth on the pickup that you really can pretend it is not there; it senses you pedalling and gives you a smooth boost that feels totally natural. Switch it up from eco through touring to turbo and it feels totally supernatural; you have power to push this heavy bike to 20 MPH (the motor has a governor limiting speed to 20 to comply with regulations) and it feels like you could go anywhere. I wondered how it could be so smooth and spoke with Rick Hoak of Bosch, who explained that there are three kinds of sensors:

...a torque sensor (measures pedal force / human input), a cadence sensor (measures how quickly the rider turns the pedals around), and a speed sensor (measures the speed of the eBike). Each is measured over 1000 times per second to intuitively blend support and human power for the perfect ride experience.



The motor is rated at only 250W but peaks out at 600W, with a maximum of 75 Nm torque in Turbo. So many readers have complained in other posts that 250 Watts are not enough for big hills and heavy loads, but this bike just chews up the scenery. How does Bosch do it? Hoak explains:

On a basic level, what this means is as follows – Rated Power / Nominal Power refers to an amount of power a drive unit can produce for extended periods without experiencing a heat related issue / reduction of power. This factor is determined in a lab with defined conditions and a constant power source.



I'm in eco mode, of course. / Lloyd Alter/CC BY 2.0