My MCM5 Triumphs, Tribulations, and Failures

[MrT]

Sorry I think I just realised where I've been going wrong! I should have been in the wheel settings and then alarm mode Oops!

[Phunny]

When I first got the MCM5, I set tilt back to a low speed (16kph) and noticed, as the battery drops the limits drop linearly. As the battery dropped, it scaled back starting from 16, instead of scaling back from the 60some kph hardware limits. I had plenty of battery left, but was tilting back at 6-7kph at that point. I've since raised it, so I can use more of the battery before that happens.

[Pengloong]

Hi, I am new to MCM5 and I have a question please. Is there anyway of telling the battery level/percentage on the wheel itself without an App? Thank you.

Edited May 16, 2019 by Pengloong

[Marty Backe]

4 hours ago, Pengloong said:

Hi, I am new to MCM5 and I have a question please. Is there anyway of telling the battery level/percentage on the wheel itself without an App? Thank you.

The front 6 to 8 LEDs (I can't remember the exact number at the moment) provide you the battery level. There are various LED modes, one of which I think turns all of the LEDs off. Unless you are in that mode, you should always be able to view the battery state by just looking down.

[Vanzen]

Cant get bettter ....

Nikola's pedals ... The power of a 14" with the comfort of a 16"

[Sketch]

10 minutes ago, Vanzen said:

Cant get bettter ....

Nikola's pedals ... The power of a 14" with the comfort of a 16"

What’s tight turning like with those?  It seems like I’ve been scraping pedals  the most on my MCM5 with standard pedals.  I like the larger size for comfort though.

[Vanzen]

No problem for me, but maybe cause am not doing tight enough turns ...

[Sketch]

25 minutes ago, Vanzen said:

No problem for me, but maybe cause am not doing tight enough turns ...

The pedals looks great.  How do you like the new grip material?

[Pengloong]

2 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

The front 6 to 8 LEDs (I can't remember the exact number at the moment) provide you the battery level. There are various LED modes, one of which I think turns all of the LEDs off. Unless you are in that mode, you should always be able to view the battery state by just looking down.

Thanks for your response Marty. Being new to the wheel I thought the front LED lights are part of the LED disco display lights that I am not too keen on. However, I do like the all red running LED light display mode. I will certainly pay more attention to the LED as the battery level changes. 

[Marty Backe]

1 hour ago, Vanzen said:

Cant get bettter ....

Nikola's pedals ... The power of a 14" with the comfort of a 16"

  

1 hour ago, Sketch said:

What’s tight turning like with those?  It seems like I’ve been scraping pedals  the most on my MCM5 with standard pedals.  I like the larger size for comfort though.

My sense is there are pedal scrapers and non-pedal scrapers. The pedal scrapers among us will always scrape their pedals regardless.

I don't know if I've ever scraped my MCM5 pedals and I can turn on a dime.

So I think pedal scraping is a consequence of turning technique. When I put the huge new KingSong pedals on my KS14S I experienced no additional pedal scrapes.

[Marty Backe]

3 minutes ago, Pengloong said:

Thanks for your response Marty. Being new to the wheel I thought the front LED lights are part of the LED disco display lights that I am not too keen on. However, I do like the all red running LED light display mode. I will certainly pay more attention to the LED as the battery level changes. 

Yea, the "flowing red" mode is my favorite, where the LEDs fade instead of abruptly turning off. I think in that mode the wheel has to be stopped before the front 6-8 LEDs turn into the battery status mode.

[Flying W]

7 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

  

My sense is there are pedal scrapers and non-pedal scrapers. The pedal scrapers among us will always scrape their pedals regardless.

I don't know if I've ever scraped my MCM5 pedals and I can turn on a dime.

So I think pedal scraping is a consequence of turning technique. When I put the huge new KingSong pedals on my KS14S I experienced no additional pedal scrapes.

I would fall into the pedal scraper category.  It doesnt happen all the time but I do like leaning at speed and sometimes no matter how far I get my body off to the inside and weight the high pedal it touches down anyway. 

This only happens when riding foolishly, under normal cruising around they dont hit. 

I did just cross 1k miles on mine and replaced the tire at 970 miles. My LEDs come on when they feel like it but everything else had been great!

[Marty Backe]

1 minute ago, Flying W said:

I would fall into the pedal scraper category.  It doesnt happen all the time but I do like leaning at speed and sometimes no matter how far I get my body off to the inside and weight the high pedal it touches down anyway. 

This only happens when riding foolishly, under normal cruising around they dont hit. 

I did just cross 1k miles on mine and replaced the tire at 970 miles. My LEDs come on when they feel like it but everything else had been great!

Wow, you had to replace the tire after only 1000-miles. What the hell have you been doing? 

But seriously, that's not a lot of miles.

The LEDs I can believe. Gotway isn't a believer in using the highest quality components. My Mten3 LED strip was of the lowest quality.

[Sketch]

15 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

  

My sense is there are pedal scrapers and non-pedal scrapers. The pedal scrapers among us will always scrape their pedals regardless.

I don't know if I've ever scraped my MCM5 pedals and I can turn on a dime.

So I think pedal scraping is a consequence of turning technique. When I put the huge new KingSong pedals on my KS14S I experienced no additional pedal scrapes.

I don’t think I would categorize myself as a pedal scraper, but the MCM5 is so quick and responsive it just asks to make quick adjustments and sometimes quick tight turns.  When I’m in a more leisurely mood, I don’t have this issue.  I never have the issue with my other larger wheels, but then again those wheels aren’t as twitchy and quick.

[Flying W]

2 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

Wow, you had to replace the tire after only 1000-miles. What the hell have you been doing? 

But seriously, that's not a lot of miles.

The LEDs I can believe. Gotway isn't a believer in using the highest quality components. My Mten3 LED strip was of the lowest quality.

The mcm5 has become my commute wheel of choice. I feel safe being to accelerate and break so quickly. All the start and stops on the way to work wore the tire pretty quickly.  

If I didn't go off road a lot on days off I could have squeezed more miles out of the tire. 

My 16s has a little over 1500 miles on the original tire and it's in great shape still. Pulled a packing staple out of it then other day, slime saved me some trouble!

[Marty Backe]

6 minutes ago, Flying W said:

The mcm5 has become my commute wheel of choice. I feel safe being to accelerate and break so quickly. All the start and stops on the way to work wore the tire pretty quickly.  

If I didn't go off road a lot on days off I could have squeezed more miles out of the tire. 

My 16s has a little over 1500 miles on the original tire and it's in great shape still. Pulled a packing staple out of it then other day, slime saved me some trouble!

If we ever ride together you'll have to show me your braking and acceleration technique.

[Flying W]

3 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

If we ever ride together you'll have to show me your braking and acceleration technique.

I'd bet its the stopping wearing the tire.  I like to slalom at the same time when breaking, dont even know why I do it either. I also like to carve back and forth and you can hear the tire digging in. 

If the 16x can handle your stress test (I really hope it does) then I'll finally have a wheel to joint you on the mt Wilson ride. 

[trya]

I finally made a couple of mounting trail rides, and happy to report my own impressions:

Pros:

• - wholeheartedly agree with the labeling this wheel a "mountain climber" - the power and the torque makes it a lot easier to climb the steepest trails I ever tried, and I managed to do some trail segments, which I couldn't make before on my KS-18 wheels (800W and 1200W).
• - my temperature alarm was quite conservatively set to 60C - it riched this temperature by the very end of the climb, I had to readjust it to something less conservative, like 70C - that was never reached.
• - the 90A alarm was triggered just a few times, when the high torque was necessary at low speed to go over small boulders or roots, and also (surprisingly for me) it was triggered once when I was going downhill, not sure why - too strong regeneration current?
• battery (800Wh): at the end of 8 mile trail with 4500 feet elevation I had 38% of the battery left. Back home (another 8 miles mostly downhill)  - I had 48%.
• agility is top-notch. It helps on the trail, when you need to maneuver between some rocks and other obstacles
• on top of that, personally for me it proved to be not only the trail wheel but also a freestyle wheel at the same time - it is a bit more difficult to manage than my V5F (because of the extra weight), but otherwise - it is perfectly suitable for all the moves. Just nice to have the same wheel at my "summer" spot for both my favorite activities

There are no "ideal" wheels, even for a specific purpose, so here are some issues I noticed during these two rides.

Cons:

• agility is partly attributed to a narrow tire, but there is a price to pay - it bounces too much when hitting small obstacles, like rocks and roots, too twitchy. Use its agility to avoid such obstacles - and it'll get better   
• it doesn't like loose gravel at all - it is manageable when there is just scattered gravel on top of the hard surface, but as soon as the gravel deepens - the wheel becomes very hard to control, especially on slanted surfaces. I skidded quite a few times, and fell too  
• the clearance is way too low! Not pedals (although I wouldn't mind if they were higher) - the shell at the bottom hits even the small rocks (1 inch or even less) and can hit the walls of a relatively small ditch or a mound. I'll think about cutting the bottom part of the side shells. Wonder if somebody has done it already.

Here is happy me today at the top of the Nestor Peak (WA)
 

 

Edited July 4, 2019 by trya

[Marty Backe]

1 hour ago, trya said:

I finally made a couple of mounting trail rides, and happy to report my own impressions:

Pros:

• - wholeheartedly agree with the labeling this wheel a "mountain climber" - the power and the torque makes it a lot easier to climb the steepest trails I ever tried, and I managed to do some trail segments, which I couldn't make before on my KS-18 wheels (800W and 1200W).
• - my temperature alarm was quite conservatively set to 60C - it riched this temperature by the very end of the climb, I had to readjust it to something less conservative, like 70C - that was never reached.
• - the 90A alarm was triggered just a few times, when the high torque was necessary at low speed to go over small boulders or roots, and also (surprisingly for me) it was triggered once when I was going downhill, not sure why - too strong regeneration current?
• battery (800Wh): at the end of 8 mile trail with 4500 feet elevation I had 38% of the battery left. Back home (another 8 miles mostly downhill)  - I had 48%.
• agility is top-notch. It helps on the trail, when you need to maneuver between some rocks and other obstacles
• on top of that, personally for me it proved to be not only the trail wheel but also a freestyle wheel at the same time - it is a bit more difficult to manage than my V5F (because of the extra weight), but otherwise - it is perfectly suitable for all the moves. Just nice to have the same wheel at my "summer" spot for both my favorite activities

There are no "ideal" wheels, even for a specific purpose, so here are some issues I noticed during these two rides.

Cons:

• agility is partly attributed to a narrow tire, but there is a price to pay - it bounces too much when hitting small obstacles, like rocks and roots, too twitchy. Use its agility to avoid such obstacles - and it'll get better   
• it doesn't like loose gravel at all - it is manageable when there is just scattered gravel on top of the hard surface, but as soon as the gravel deepens - the wheel becomes very hard to control, especially on slanted surfaces. I skidded quite a few times, and fell too  
• the clearance is way too low! Not pedals (although I wouldn't mind if they were higher) - the shell at the bottom hits even the small rocks (1 inch or even less) and can hit the walls of a relatively small ditch or a mound. I'll think about cutting the bottom part of the side shells. Wonder if somebody has done it already.

Here is happy me today at the top of the Nestor Peek (WA)
 

 

Glad you finally had an opportunity to use this in the mountains. Sounds like it didn't disappoint.

I could feel you grabbing for something to say in the Cons section, just to make an attempt at fairness  

The power really is amazing isn't it?

Good stuff 

P.s. Nice picture

Edited July 4, 2019 by Marty Backe

[trya]

18 minutes ago, Marty Backe said:

The power really is amazing isn't it?

oh, yes. Having both MCM2 and MCM5 - I can really testify to the progress these wheels have made in just a few short years!

[Rehab1]

6 hours ago, trya said:

Here is happy me today at the top of the Nestor Peak (WA)
 

Beautiful photo and proud moment! Curious...did you ship your wheel out to WA or drive out there? 

[trya]

4 hours ago, Rehab1 said:

Beautiful photo and proud moment! Curious...did you ship your wheel out to WA or drive out there? 

My friend and windsurfing buddy drove his RV,  took my wheel too,  along with his wife and dog

[Rehab1]

2 hours ago, trya said:

My friend and windsurfing buddy drove his RV,  took my wheel too,  along with his wife and dog

Unfortunately I don’t t have a windsurfing buddy with an RV.   I’m headed to Vegas in a few weeks and thought about shipping a wheel out there. 

[Snowball]

A question for MCM5 owners

I've just received the wheel (800Wh). Great EUC!

But there's something that I've noticed that' I'd like to understand.

I know that these are warm days (I'm Italy here) but after turning on the wheel, even not riding it, the internal fan starts going. I know it is normal but what's weird it the cycle of it: the fan starts for a few seconds (let's say 3-4) and then stops. After a few seconds it starts again, 3-4 seconds running and stops again. And so on.

Doesn't it sound weird to you?
Thanks for help.

[who_the]

2 minutes ago, Snowball said:

I know that these are warm days (I'm Italy here) but after turning on the wheel, even not riding it, the internal fan starts going. I know it is normal but what's weird it the cycle of it: the fan starts for a few seconds (let's say 3-4) and then stops.

Every Gotway I've owned since the MSX has done this, and our temperatures are much lower here in San Francisco. As @Marty Backe can attest to, the Gotway fans are there for a reason, especially in warmer climates.

Wow, to ride an MCM5 around Italy... Might you share where in Italy you are? I taught in Urbino one summer and toured through Genoa, La Spezia, Assisi, Venice, Rome and many villages and towns. Could only imagine doing it on an EUC.... someday.