Bianchi Aria e-road
Beat the wind without beating yourself up
Iwas recovering as I was riding into a headwind. There’s a phrase I never thought I’d write. But it’s true. I was cruising i nto a headwind of about 30 km/h that was coming from the northwest. There were gusts of 48 km/h, but they didn’t faze me. I maintained a speed of a little more than 30 km/h at about 55 per cent of my maximum heart rate. It was a sunny day. The Bianchi Aria is a good aero bike.
“The speed was like something you could do on a really good day.”
It’s the company’s wind-cheating machine that comes in at a lower price than the top-end Oltre. But it wasn’t any aero features of the frame that allowed me to motor into a headwind. It was, well, a motor at the hub of this Aria e-road.
The drive unit is the light, hub-based Ebikemotion X35. The day before my headwind recovery ride, I set the assist levels for the drive unit using the Ebikemotion app. I set Assist 1 to 33 per cent, Assist 2 to 66 per cent and Assist 3 to 100 per cent. Then I hit my local incline for some hill repeats. The first interval, unassisted, was a bit tough as the bike weighs 11.94 kg, which is light for an ebike, but up there for a road bike. On Assist 1, the help up the hill felt subtle, but the speed was like something you could do on a really good day. Assist 2 was simply not normal. Finally, Assist 3 at 100 per cent felt very motorized. Still, I was pedalling hard. It was quite a strange feeling to be straining to get up a familiar hill as quickly as possible and moving faster than I think I ever have on that stretch of road, a little less than 29 km/h. It was hard to find the right gear to work with the motor on that effort.
On flat roads, the 100 per cent assist felt “surge-y.” If I was hovering around 32 km/h, the maximum speed at which the motor will give you a boost, I could really feel the system engaging and cutting out, then engaging and cutting out. These surges weren’t as noticeable at lower assist levels.
Wherever I rode the Bianchi Aria with the X35 system, it looked sharp. It’s sporty, and it can make you sporty.