Tonight, tonight the highway’s bright
Out of our way mister you best keep

Other Tero X5 posts

While the sun does shine let’s do some bike-to-bike street racin’. How does the Tero X5 e-bike compare with my ’22 Merida hardtail from a standing start over a kilometre, both on standby and powered up? Will it even be close?
I’d already done my local 12km, road & trail lap with the Tero switched off. More tiring, less fast and more gear changing for sure, but good to know it’s even possible. It’s all exercise.

The drag strip was a straight country road with a bit of a dip but which climbed a few metres to the end point. I was helped by a 16kph tailwind, used my Garmin Montana to log the data and clock in at around 95kg after breakfast.
I don’t normally ride like this: accelerating to flat-out and keeping it up. On each run I was soon panting like a spaniel on a treadmill and comfortably exceeded my daily quota of cardio.

If you’ve read this far you’re probably wondering just what the heck is the world record for cycling one kilometre from a standing start? The answer is 55.4 seconds, by Dutchman Jeffrey Hoogland in 2023 (below).

He averaged no less than 65.4 kph and hit nearly 75 kph, but was inside a well-lit and windless Mexican velodrome at nearly 1900m where the air is thinner. But with less oxygen too, when he came in he collapsed, threw up and needed oxygen. Meanwhile, I was at a paltry 34m asl, battling air thicker than chilled Swarfega. Which explains the following results…

• Unpowered, there’s a lot less in it than I expected, though I was flagging well before the end on each run
• The Merida accelerated to 36kph 30 secs faster than the unpowered Tero, and in half the distance. So basically twice as fast
• But on Turbo, the Tero reached top speed twice as fast as the Merida.
• The Tero is geared high; on neither run did I get anywhere near the 10T 12th gear
• Even then, average speeds were surprisingly similar
• Maybe tyres don’t matter so much after all (especially with e-assist on hand)
• Powered up on Turbo, the Tero obviously accelerates very fast, but assistance cuts off imperceptibly at 25kph, then you’re pushing a 28-kilo bike.
• I wonder if the lumpiness of the Merida and Turbo decelerations are significant, alongside the unpowered Tero’s graph (below, middle). Perhaps its unpowered mass acts as a damper.

What have I learned? Besides acceleration, over a short distance there’s not much in it. But I bet over 10km, let alone a full day, the numbers would stretch right out and the unpowered Tero would be slowest while producing the biggest cumulative fatigue. Who wants that?

I also wonder if, alongside weight and motor drag, the knobbly tyres also hold the Tero back. You don’t see these tyres on the TdF, but I’ve already had a thorn flat on the OE Ground Controls. I had the same within hours trying some similar Schwalbes on the Merida last year and soon refitted the ageing Conti Double Fighters. They’ve never punctured, and though they weigh nearly kilo, are appropriate for my sort of riding. I may fit them – or something similar – to the Tero.
Conclusion: light is right if you’re young and fit (and light). For everyone else, a bit of e-might used judiciously across a full day will see you get in without feeling wrecked.