BOOST ISN’T ALWAYS BEST
If you’re just riding up a normal hill or trails, or on fire roads or tarmac, it’s obviously fine to put the bike in Shimano’s Boost setting (or the most powerful setting on other motors) and get on with it. But there’s a lot more to think about when trying to get up a complicated technical section. Your approach angle, spotting your line, your gearing and your power mode settings all come into play. A lot of people assume at first that just whacking an e-bike into its most powerful mode will be the best way to climb and that the resulting boost is going to help them surge up anything. But it needs a lot more finesse than that to get through a technical section, especially if it’s wet or loose. Often, I try to stay on the underside of power and use my legs more, because Boost can hinder you by putting too much torque through the cranks and ultimately robbing you of traction – any wheel-spinning or surging, when you need a delicate consistent power delivery, stops you dead. As soon as an e-bike spins out at the rear tyre, the power cuts and you’re left without any assist at all on a bike that weighs double that of a normal bike; it’s then going to be impossible to get going again. I tend to use Trail mode most of the time for this reason.