What kind of throttle do you prefer?

[lazarus2405]

For your eBike, what sort of throttle do you prefer to use, and why? Please be as detailed as possible with information such as comfort, ruggedness, ease of mounting, and applicable "coolness factor", and such.

With no experience on the topic, I throw myself upon your mercy.

[BiGH]

For your eBike, what sort of throttle do you prefer to use, and why? Please be as detailed as possible with information such as comfort, ruggedness, ease of mounting, and applicable "coolness factor", and such.

With no experience on the topic, I throw myself upon your mercy.

I've tried the thumb and half twist - the half twist is great. I used to have a motey - i'd like to try a full throttle, i think it would be more comfortable - esp with gloves. the biggest problem is that electric throttles on high power setups are rather twitchy :s (and not waterproof hehe)

[lazarus2405]

i think it would be more comfortable - esp with gloves.

Why? I don't follow the gloves bit.

and not waterproof

Then how does one ride in the rain? I suppose if it shorted, it'd be at 100% the whole time.

[D-Man]

With a half twist, it won't rotate when you hit the brakes or bumps as the palm of your hand is on the non moving part. Also less hand fatigue.

[TylerDurden]

Our esteemed member The7 made a full-T from a half-T... I might try that, to see what works better for me.

My hands complain of being in the same position after about 3 min.

[knightmb]

I've done a 100 mile ride using the thumb twist and half-twist throttle. The half-twist wins hands down (ha, no pun). But, the problem I had was the thumb twist would make my thumb numb, which eventually started to make my hand numb.

The half-twist as mentioned already, gives you something to "hold on to". So if you don't have cruise control, you rotate the position of your hand against the non-moving part to get comfortable. I think a full twist would work fine for short rides or rides where you are constantly doing stop and go. But I think if you decided to go on a really long, consistent ride, the full twist might be difficult to get into comfortable position for the long ride.

No mention of the thumb trigger? (like on ATV?)

Actually, I think those work best for an ATV because you are going over a lot of crazy bumps and a twist throttle would cause constant over revving.

[fechter]

Back in my ICE motorcycle days, I could ride pretty much all day without much hand discomfort. Of course, motorcycles have a full length throttle.

Now my butt was another story....

[lazarus2405]

Now my butt was another story....

Yeah, those bikers gangs... what can I say?


--------

Really, though, what do you mean by "ICE motorcycle days"? I'm sure you don't mean racing *on ice*...


Edit: Ohh... Internal Combu...ah, nevermind. Interestingly, though, I found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_racing#Motorcycle_ice_racing

[TylerDurden]

Back in my ICE motorcycle days, I could ride pretty much all day without much hand discomfort. Of course, motorcycles have a full length throttle.

Now my butt was another story....

All-day on a kawasaki 500?

[Rassy]

Somebody had to vote with the thumbs up. I have found that on my little Yamaha 80cc quad my thumb does get a little tired on long stretches of the same constant speed. But on the bike or trike I always peddle along, and am constantly changing and releasing the throttle to reduce battery use. Maybe in places where the roads are flat and the wind is constant it would be different (and boring) ). I have also had some problem when using a full twist with rolling the throttle on when braking. A lot of this discussion was repeated last month at:

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2141

[Ypedal]

Half twist here !!!!!! That's what i have on all my bikes..

[lazarus2405]

Thanks a bunch for that link, Rassy. I dislike asking questions with old answers already on the forums, but with the lamentable quality of the forum's search function, what can one do?

Anyway, thanks for the input. Because an issue of comfort like this so often varies wildly on an individual basis, I had considered ordering one of each just to try them all!

[fechter]

Back in my ICE motorcycle days, I could ride pretty much all day without much hand discomfort. Of course, motorcycles have a full length throttle.

Now my butt was another story....

All-day on a kawasaki 500?

Yep. A two-stroke no less.

I rode from San Francisco to Salt Lake City the long way (hwy 50) and back on a Honda 500.

I never did try ice racing, though it was close to that on some of my commutes in Utah during the winter. Unfortunately I did not have studded tires.

[vanilla ice]

Triple Kawi?

Half twist and full are all I've tried, half is great.

[BiGH]

i think it would be more comfortable - esp with gloves.

Why? I don't follow the gloves bit.

and not waterproof

Then how does one ride in the rain? I suppose if it shorted, it'd be at 100% the whole time.

once you've got your bike to 2.5kw+ the throttle becomes twitchy. I find that the half throttle requires finger dexterity to keep turned right. with full length motorcycle gloves (which you'd want to wear if you machine is capable of sustained 50kph) its dificult, and liable to slip on the throttle more (in my opinion - i'm sure others will disagree).

the throttles are not waterproof. according to reports by other members, they tend to let the water in before other components (ie controller and hub motor) do. Its also not possible (in any simple way) to modify a throttle to be waterproof. One user (I'm sorry i forgot his name - as feltcher said designed a throttle that is waterproof. It uses a motorcycle throttle with throttle cable to pull on a wire that passes to a waterproof box - much safer than an electronic plastic unsealed throttle!

So far i haven't ridden in the heavy rain with my bike, I don't have a kill switch and won't risk it until i do.

[Ypedal]

As far as i know ( and someone please chime in if it's not the case ) the Full-On throttle problem when wet only affects LED equipped throttles. not the Non-Led types.

[Johnbear]

Half twist with the grips pressed up tight against them makes for a nice cruise control!

[Eric G]

I voted full twist,I have only used a full twist and a thumb throttle. After using a thumb throttle for about 20min. my hand cramps up,that never happened when I had the full twist.I'd like to try a half twist though.

Been caught in the rain many times with my non LED thumb throttle no problems to date.

Removing the spring from the thumb throttle makes a poor mans cruise control

Eric

[Mathurin]

Poll is missing torque sensor & PAS throttles

I've used full grip & half grip. Full grip severely cripples the bike, you can't use the handlebars anymore so you can only pedal very sedately. If a bike has grips that can turn that's something that needs to be repaired, breaking it by design is just retarded. Anyways the one I was using broke pretty fast from the torque...

Half grip is nice, yields a bike you can actually use. On one side I have the throttle and on the other a grip shift, instead of the super short hard plastic grips I got some oem rocky mountain grips they pull from bikes that people buy and want to upgrade right out the box.

[Link]

I've used a thumb on an ATV. Thumb was hurting bad after a few hours of quadding. I had a really bad cold, too, so I missed out on almost everything on that vacation . No way I was going to miss that, though.

I have a half ready for the bike. Half twist beat the thumb before I got it. Played with it a little, and I can tell it's much better than the thumb. I wish it twisted more than 1/4 the way around, though. It feels a little touchy the way it is.

I haven't taken it apart yet, so I don't know how easily I could waterproof it.

[kmxtornado]

I have never used anything other than a half-twist but I can imagine I would prefer a thumb throttle. I figure it'd be easier to hold on for dear life if I needed to. Like others have mentioned, the half-twist may be twitchy and hard to hold onto white controlling throttle. But then again, it's sorta weird having your thumb stick out while the remaining fingers are wrapped around the grip. After all, it's the thumb that provides security and here I'd be using it to throttle. Hmm,....perhaps I'm second guessing myself.