New Aventon Aventure disappointment BEWARE !

[Astrotraveler]

So, regen braking is an overhyped cash grab, but hydraulic disk brakes with huge rotors are really necessary?

Huge load of BS.

Are there situations where they are a good idea? Sure. Are they a need for most ebikers? Absolutely not.

Gear for bike snobs, and adrenaline junkies.

Necessary for safety, not at all. Cable actuated disk, regen braking, even rim brakes are fine for many, and less of a maintenance hassle.

Use the right tool for the right job. Nobody needs a useless tool.

Fair points, but I don't know how "snobby" hydraulic brakes are. Many ebikes use inexpensive Chinese hydraulics (my Aventon Aventure is a good example). Hydraulics in some respects are"low brow" imports from the motorcycle industry. In the cheap guise such as the brakes on the Aventure, they are used more for marketing purposes to appeal to the "Gee Zeke, she looks like a motorcycle! Cool man!" demographic, than for efficacy. Aventon easily could have spec'ed higher quality more effective mechanical discs relative to the cheap hydraulics they used. Likewise, they could have spec'ed much better hydraulics with much more bite than the cheap units they chose.

Brake adequacy really depends on the mass of the rider, mass of the bike, and the velocity achieved by the pair. A thin fit rider on a light bike has no problem managing 50-60mph mountain descents with plain old cantilevers as 60 years of mountain road bike racing demonstrates. Put a big boy on a big bike and hav him hang on the throttle all day, maybe big boosted brakes are needed to haul it all down to a stop. Dunno. I don't have mass problems.