I'm not sure if I've understood all that I've read about electric bikes but I think I've read that mid-drives tend to be more efficient than hub motors. One of the advantages is that mid drives allow one to use the gears of the bike and operate in a more optimal zone for the motor.

Is it possible then to generalize say that a 250 watt mid-drive is typically equivalent to say a 350 watt hub motor?

I had a Bionx 250 watt system and I found the system to be not nearly as helpful as I thought on hills. For sure the power helped, but I found the significant weight was a drawback. I eventually sold the bike to a co-worker as I found that as my fitness improved there was not an appreciable difference between commute times on my cross bike vs. my e-bike.

I'm interested in getting an e-bike again. Mainly because someone posted about the Vivax system and I was blown away by how light it is. I've started to read more about e-bikes and I think a mid-drive is the way I want to go in the future. I'm just wondering if I could generalize and say 250 watts of mid-drive would be more useful than the 250 watts I had with the Bionx.

The Vivax sounds great adding 200 watts at only 3 lbs, but there are no North American distributors.

Anyhow I would appreciate some enlightenment from the more knowledgeable members of this forum.

Thanks