Short answer: a mid-drive climbs a steep Sydney pinch better, because it pushes its torque through your gears instead of straight into the wheel. A hub motor wins on simplicity, drivetrain cost and the flat-to-rolling riding most of us actually do. Neither is universally better. They fail in different places, and the thing that decides it is heat.
At Cyberbikes Leichhardt we get this question several times a week, usually from someone who has just walked a bike up Darling Street and decided there must be a better way. So here is the engineering, with the marketing stripped out. If you want the full background first, our guide to how e-bikes actually work: motors, sensors and controllers covers the fundamentals this article builds on.
What actually separates a hub motor from a mid-drive?
A hub motor sits inside the wheel and drives the wheel directly. Its speed is locked to your wheel speed: at 20 km/h in a 26-inch wheel, the motor is turning at roughly 160 rpm whether you are in your lowest gear or your highest. A mid-drive sits at the bottom bracket and drives the chain, so it passes through the same cassette you do. Change down, and the motor spins faster for the same road speed.
That single difference drives everything else, because of one equation. Mechanical power is torque multiplied by rotational speed. Grin Technologies, who publish the most honest motor data on the internet at ebikes.ca, give the working form: power in watts is roughly torque in newton-metres multiplied by rpm multiplied by 0.104. Their own example is blunt — 20 Nm at 100 rpm is about 209 W, but the same 20 Nm at 300 rpm is about 628 W. Same torque. Three times the power. The motor did not get stronger; it got to spin faster.
A mid-drive can choose its rpm. A hub motor cannot. That is the whole argument in one sentence.
Which one climbs a steep Sydney hill better?
On a sustained steep climb, the mid-drive. On the short, sharp Inner West pinches most riders meet daily, a well-built hub motor is usually fine. Here is why both statements are true.
Why gearing beats raw watts on a steep pitch
Grin’s own data shows a direct-drive hub on a 36V 20A controller peaking at about 600 W of output at 40 km/h. Push the same motor with a 40A controller and it peaks near 1058 W, but at 33 km/h. Notice what is happening: peak output lands where the controller hits its current limit, and it lands at speed. Crawl up a 12 percent grade at 8 km/h and you are nowhere near that peak — you are down in the part of the curve where the motor is making torque and almost no power, and converting the difference into heat.
A mid-drive in a low gear keeps the motor spinning near its efficient rpm while the bike crawls. Same motor, same current, far more useful thrust at the back wheel. This is also why our post on e-bike watts versus newton-metres matters: a quoted torque figure at the motor shaft means something very different depending on whether the gearbox between it and the road is your cassette or nothing at all.
Why heat, not power, is the real ceiling
Copper losses in a motor scale with current squared times resistance. Double the current and you quadruple the heating. Grin put it plainly: it is the output torque of the motor, not the output power, that heats it up and eventually kills it. Their own measurements show a 45 mm MXUS hub — routinely sold as a “5000 W” motor — reaching roughly 100 degrees Celsius core temperature at 250 rpm while producing only about 800 W of output.
The saving grace for Sydney riders is time. Grin note that hub motors take one to two hours to reach a steady-state temperature, while a typical hill climb lasts five to ten minutes. Winding enamel survives excursions around 150 to 180 degrees, even though continuous ratings are usually set far lower, at 100 or 120 degrees. In other words: a hub motor that would cook on a 20-minute alpine ascent will shrug off the 90 seconds it takes to get up Norton Street. If you want to test your own case rather than trust a blog, the free ebikes.ca motor simulator models output across the speed range and predicts motor core temperature, including how long until it reaches 150 degrees.
Which setup gives you more range per charge?
Range is not decided by motor type. It is decided by energy in the pack and energy burned per kilometre. Watt-hours equal volts multiplied by amp-hours, so a 48V 25Ah pack holds 1200 Wh — that is the exact figure listed on the 2026 Cyberbikes Centauro spec sheet, and it is simply 48 times 25. Divide watt-hours by your real-world watt-hours per kilometre and you have your range.
Where motor type does bite is efficiency at the operating point. A mid-drive held near its efficient rpm by gearing wastes less on a long climb. A hub motor forced to lug at low rpm wastes more. On flat Inner West commuting at a steady 25 km/h, the two are much closer than the forums suggest, because the hub motor is sitting in a perfectly reasonable part of its curve.
One more variable people forget: the rider. Grin’s notes on pedal-assist systems describe torque sensors as a multiplier on human effort — a 2x setting delivers roughly 2 W of motor output for every 1 W you put through the pedals. Pedal harder and the system draws more from the battery, not less. Range follows average battery power, whichever motor is doing the work.
What does NSW law say about hub motors and mid-drives?
Nothing, directly. NSW law regulates power and speed, not motor architecture — and the numbers have changed, so check them rather than trusting older articles. According to Transport for NSW, a legal e-bike may have a maximum continuous rated power of 500 W. From 1 March 2029 that drops to 250 W, and only e-bikes certified to EN 15194 will be allowed on NSW roads — look for the EN 15194 EPAC mark now rather than later. Pedal assistance must stop providing power above 25 km/h, and throttle-only operation must cut out at 6 km/h.
Two details catch people out. First, a bike that exceeds those limits is illegal even if an app, switch or firmware setting restricts it. Second, since 21 August 2026 NSW Police and authorised officers can seize illegal e-bikes used on roads and road-related areas and dispose of them. That is a real risk, not a theoretical one.
The practical consequence for this comparison: a 25 km/h assist ceiling flattens much of the mid-drive advantage on the flat. You are not chasing top speed; you are chasing thrust at low speed and thermal headroom on climbs.
Which costs less to live with over three years?
The hub motor, in most cases. A mid-drive sends every watt it makes through your chain, cassette and chainring, so those parts wear faster than on an unassisted bike. A hub motor leaves the drivetrain alone; your chain only ever carries your legs. For a rider doing 100 km a week through Leichhardt, Annandale and the city, that difference shows up as fewer chain replacements and fewer cassettes.
Mid-drives also complicate retrofits. Grin note that bottom-bracket torque sensors must match the original spindle length and bottom-bracket shell — 68 mm, or 73 mm on some frames — to keep the chainline correct. Hub motors sidestep that entirely.
Against that, a mid-drive keeps weight low and central, which you feel when manoeuvring a loaded bike. If you regularly carry cargo up a steep driveway, that is worth paying for.
So which should you actually buy in Sydney?
Buy a mid-drive if your daily route has a sustained climb of more than about five minutes, or if you tour with heavy loads over varied terrain. Buy a hub motor if your riding is urban, mostly flat to rolling, and you would rather spend your money on battery capacity and brakes than on consumables.
That second description fits most of our customers, which is why the 2026 Cyberbikes Centauro uses a 250W rear hub motor paired with a 48V 25Ah (1200Wh) Samsung lithium-ion battery, UL 2271-certified. The rest of the build is specified for the loads that actually break e-bikes: an ISO 4210 MTB-compliant 6061 aluminium alloy frame, full suspension with 100 mm front and 120 mm rear travel, 4-piston hydraulic brakes on 180 mm x 2.3 mm rotors, 26 x 2.4 tyres, a 150 kg maximum rider and cargo load, and a rear cargo rack welded to the frame rated to 50 kg. It is listed at $4,249.00 online as a bike-in-box, or $150 more assembled and ready to ride from our Leichhardt store.
A 1200 Wh pack behind a 250 W motor is the point. Thermal headroom on climbs comes from not asking a small motor to make big torque for long; range comes from carrying enough energy that you never have to.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a 250W hub motor enough for Sydney hills?
For the short, steep pinches typical of the Inner West, yes, provided you pedal and use your gears. Grin Technologies note that hub motors take one to two hours to reach steady-state temperature while a typical climb lasts five to ten minutes, so brief hard efforts rarely overheat a well-built motor. Sustained climbs of twenty minutes or more are where a mid-drive pulls ahead.
Does a mid-drive wear out the chain faster than a hub motor?
Yes. A mid-drive transmits motor power through the chain, cassette and chainring, so those components carry both your effort and the motor’s. A hub motor drives the wheel directly and leaves the drivetrain to your legs alone, which usually means longer intervals between chain and cassette replacements.
What is the legal motor power limit for an e-bike in NSW?
Transport for NSW states that a legal e-bike may have a maximum continuous rated power of 500 W, dropping to 250 W from 1 March 2029, when only EN 15194-certified e-bikes will be allowed on NSW roads. Pedal assistance must stop above 25 km/h and throttle-only operation must cut out at 6 km/h. A bike over those limits is illegal even if software restricts it.
Come and feel the difference
Specifications settle arguments on the internet. Hills settle them in person. Book a test ride at Cyberbikes, 281 Parramatta Road, Leichhardt, and take a Centauro up a real Sydney pinch with your own bag on the rack. Browse the range at cyberbikes.com, or call us on 0491 794 668, Tuesday to Saturday.
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