Luna is promoting a motorbike with specs that don’t appear to be attainable. A 58-pound carbon-fiber full-suspension mountain bike with a Bafang M600 motor and a 48V 18.5Ah battery that someway achieves 2.5kW of energy. That makes it a just lately marked down $4,000 mountain bike with gentle moto-like velocity that may propel the bike previous 30mph on flat filth.

I’ve been driving the Luna X2 with the $350 Ludicrous choice for nearly a yr now, and I’ve grown to like this factor, however with some necessary caveats…

Luna X2 Ludi

Luna sells some particular bikes and motos, and the Ludi X2, which bridges the 2, is perhaps the perfect instance of that. They took the Class 3 500W-rated Bafang M600 Motor that advertises 120Nm of torque and are pumping greater than quadruple rated energy by way of there, generally as much as 2500W.

Whereas there are some superb benefits to this – notably, the unimaginable acceleration, even uphill – it additionally presents some issues. Clearly, that motor must be overheating, contemplating each the best way extra volt and amps than it’s specced for. Luna is legendary for hot-rodding Bafang motors, nonetheless, particularly the M600, they usually’ve performed some actually sensible stuff right here with warmth dissipation with their bespoke controller. After a yr of driving this factor, I can say it someway works! Principally.

One other downside is whenever you add pedaling to 2.5kW of energy – rapidly, a mountain bike sprocket and chain rated for below 1kW of energy are going to be pushed to their limits. I’ve already melted some sprockets by mistakenly altering gears up a steep hill on the Frey CC. I’ve been cautious to keep away from doing that on the X2 Ludi, however I nonetheless expertise some slippage in high-torque conditions. In contrast to the Frey CC, the place I’ve misplaced use of my second lowest sprocket, nonetheless, I’ve not performed any harm in a yr of driving the Luna X2, even up important hills.

Talking of going up hills, that unbelievable energy will usually pull the entrance wheel off the bottom when climbing steep hills, presenting points with steering and unintended wheelies.

Overheating

My first journey up our native 800-foot hill was going nice at about 20-plus mph till about two-thirds the best way up – I misplaced energy and acquired an “Error 10.” I used to be capable of energy cycle the bike, and after a couple of minutes, I regained energy. After rooting round within the boards, I discovered that the motor was overheating and shutting down.

Clearly, I can decelerate to round 15mph and loads much less energy and get loads farther. However I needed to grasp precisely what was happening. Seems, in steep hill climb conditions, you wish to hold your cadence very excessive to chill the motor and reduce the amps requirement. Most individuals that push this factor to the restrict use the VESC software operating on an Android app to fine-tune this factor and hold it operating optimally.

Luna makes use of the VESC app to tweak the Ludicrous controller, which is a paid obtain for $4 for Android or iOS, however I acquired an older model from Luna’s web site. It means that you can pair to Luna’s controller and get virtually real-time readouts of a lot of the vitals of the bike. The app isn’t terribly user-friendly to arrange however is extremely informative and nice for keeping track of velocity. You may then create completely different rider profiles to assist you to change your velocity and energy traits. I did discover the readout to be somewhat small on rides, as somebody that requires glasses for studying. I assume I want an even bigger Android pill!

In my case, the necessary readout is the underside proper motor warmth sensor. Whenever you begin going up a hill at excessive energy output, it’s going to begin rocketing upward. As soon as you might be at 100 levels C, you’ll hit the orange indicator, which is your sign to put off the throttle and decrease the pedal help. As a result of the warmth indicator is lagging by a couple of seconds, the motor might be already closing in on its 120-degree cutoff, so you might want to lower energy instantly.

You may reduce to decreasing warmth by limiting the motor to its authentic 500W 120nm output. That’s nonetheless lots for hill climbing, simply not at 20-plus mph. I discover the bike operates fairly properly within the 80-100°C vary.

On the opposite aspect of the spectrum, I wasn’t capable of coax out even half the ability on freezing chilly days. That’s a disgrace as a result of the bike’s Maxxis Minion tires are nice for snow. After a couple of minutes of driving, the battery and controller do warmth up, and the traits once more return to regular.

As soon as I discovered my method across the warmth elements, I may push this factor to its most.

As an example, I used to be capable of simply climb Bromley Mountain’s 1,334 toes (407 m) in Vermont, which doesn’t have a motorbike carry or official bike driving path. I made it up the mountain with stage 2 pedal help with out even coming near overheating (myself or the bike!). On the similar time, with the sunshine body and nonetheless highly effective motor, I used to be nonetheless flying up the mountain to the purpose that it was really enjoyable to climb.

As a result of there isn’t a carry and most mountain bikes don’t have this sort of energy, I had the mountain to myself and was even capable of finding some off-the-beaten-path trails, which have been tons of enjoyable.

I used to be capable of do 4 separate rides up the mountain earlier than I wanted to recharge, which I assumed was fairly spectacular. Luna is aware of their batteries, and even with driving Ludi with these chonky tires, I used to be seeing ranges over 20 miles. If I put smoother tires on right here and ran on a street, I may see hitting 40 miles at 20mph.

Luna X2 specs

The Luna X2 is loaded up with some premium, if not top-shelf, elements that will virtually justify the $4000 price ticket and not using a battery and motor:

• Rockshox Debonair Yari 160mm entrance fork
• Rockshox Deluxe Choose+ 210mm x 55mm in rear 
• Sram Eagle SX 12-speed cassette (customary HG driver, not the XD from SRAM)
• Sram GUIDE 4 piston hydraulic brakes 200mm entrance 180mm again (6 bolts rotors)
• Maxxis Minion 27.5×2.8-inch tires 
• 44 56 non-integrated headset
• Double wall alloy 40mm 27.5-inch rims
• Dropper seat-post with inside routing
• All cables all through the bike are internally ran
• Through-axle hubs in each entrance and rear 15×110 Enhance entrance, 12×148 Enhance rear (size 180mm, 1.75 pitch)
• 160mm entrance journey and 140mm rear journey

One little further bonus on the Luna X2 is the Carbon Fiber body paint job. You’ll discover we’ve acquired the steel flake galaxy paint job, or as my spouse likes to name it, “your glitter bike.” No disgrace right here – I really like the look of this factor.

In actual fact, to the untrained eye, the X2 appears to be like loads like an acoustic mountain bike. The 820Wh (48v 17.5Ah LG) battery is properly hidden within the downtube, and the Bafang M600 motor or its warmth sink solely peeks out a bit from behind the pedals.

Nevertheless, for individuals who know, the massive “Luna” brand is what will be the massive inform. Luna has lengthy been outfitting electrical bikes that pay extra consideration to what’s attainable than what’s technically authorized. Nowhere is that extra obvious than the X2, which is described on Luna’s web site:

This bike options our model new Luna Controller the Ludi v2 which is a sport changer. This controller will put out as much as 60 battery Amps (2500 watts) As most Luna followers know, Luna has been hot-rodding Bafang motors for years with nice success and this controller is sporting the heritage from our mighty BBSHD v2 controller. The Ludi v2 is 72V-rated controller which makes it extraordinarily dependable at 48V and balances the user-adjustable buttery clean pedal help with the uncooked torque of 100 part Amps available on the throttle. It even spins sooner than every other M600 due to the Area Weakening and easily protects the motor from thermal overloads.

The X-2 is available in three sizes:

Electrek’s Take

The Luna X2 is actually a ridiculous mountain bike. It’s a comparatively gentle carbon fiber mountain bike that may dangle with the dearer bike store manufacturers, like Specialised Turbo Levo and Trek E-Caliber and, in lots of instances, has higher elements.

The place the Ludi X-2 actually shines is the drivetrain. Having 2.5 kW of energy at your disposal, even when only for quick bursts, is like quickly turning your mountain bike right into a Talaria/Sur Ron and screaming throughout filth roads at 30+mph. Having that energy on a light-weight mountain bike body simply doesn’t appear actual.

Due to its excessive velocity, I even discovered myself taking the X2 on my every day espresso store commute if I used to be in a rush or needed to blast up our huge native hill.

The famous downsides of excessive energy stress on the chain and sprockets in addition to the overheating will be mitigated with some care and studying the bike. Luna has just lately dropped the value of the X2, which might now be had for below $4K with an extra add-on for the Ludi controller.

General, this appears like the recent rod of mountain bikes, and I’m right here for it.

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