I did my test ride today, ~2000 feet of climbing spread over 30 miles of rolling hills with a couple of decent climbs. The title of my review could be "The honeymoon is over". Not that I am disappointed, just not blown away. I ran it in default settings.
The good:
1. Torque sensor works very well with very little lag and very little overrun.
2. Strong climbing power in Race level 3
The bad:
1. Noise. Turns out it does get noisy when you load the motor up at higher RPM like in a climbing situation. In fact, it sounds a good bit like my X1 Pro Gen 2 in that regard. Good old straight cut gear noises. When you are cruising along at speed on the flats it is quieter, with the wind noise easily overcoming anything coming out of the motor.
2. The SW102 display that I love for its simplicity is almost unreadable in bright daylight. Yes, I had it in the higher brightness setting. It could probably benefit from a negative image, i.e., having black text on white background instead of the white text on black background. It is like running a screen in night mode in the daytime. I can barely read the MPH and make out the battery SOC bar but that's about it. I may have to upgrade this to the DS103. I just should have got that at purchase.
3. Not sure if this is a problem with the app or the display firmware but I can't get my 26" wheel size setting to take. I can change it and save it in the app but the wheel size in the display settings menu is locked on 29 and will not let me change it. So, of course everything in the speed display and trip data is just wrong.
The "not sure yet"
1. Heat. Motor temps were generally fine, hitting a max of 140F rolling along at a 20+ MPH average speed. The warmest it got was 190F on the one sustained climb, about 1K, 400-500 feet vertical with a couple of fairly steep steps. The good news is that temps come down quickly when you get off the gas or go downhill. That seems as good as my TSDZ2 with the cooling mods. TSDZ2 without cooling mods would hold those high temp much longer. So, I say not sure, but for my riding I think it will be fine until I get out into our local mountains with longer and steeper climbs. We'll see how that goes one of these days. But someone may take one of these and try to time trial Alp D'Huez in level 3 and that would almost certainly cause it to overheat.
One other note on heat and the seeming ability to cool off fairly quickly... that is good if you assume the temp probe is in the motor core. But I don't know exactly how it is installed. For instance, if the temp sensor itself is near the case it might be cooling off faster than the core and giving a bit of false hope. Hard to know without seeing the innards.
Bottom line is I can't say that this is a huge upgrade from my OSF TSDZ2. The hardware is certainly better engineered and looks more robust, so maybe it will be more durable. Can't say that yet. But for the rides I do I would not be able go much if any faster with the Photon as compared to TSDZ2. Riding each in max assist I spin out at 30-32 MPH and both motors will do that (TSDZ2 with OSF field weakening). Now the Photon will climb a bit faster on its highest level (3) whereas Photon level 2 feels about like TSDZ2 max level. Well, maybe just a tiny bit stronger than TSDZ2 max. So, if you really press it on the hills on level 3 and if heat doesn't become a problem, it would be a little faster overall on a ride.
Compared to OSF TSDZ2 I am not sure that there is $400 of extra value with Photon. The hardware and design are certainly better, but performance is not that much stronger... and to use any extra power on a flat road you'd need a bigger chainring to access those potential ~5 more MPH. And it is noisier.
Anyway, that's my take for today. YMMV, of course. I'll update this if I learn things as I get more miles.
) transport.
