Stunning day to be biking to Paradise. Cool temps but blue sky and Rainier visible everywhere. Met Skip inside the park 3 miles from Longmire. Pie and coffee afterwards.
No assist before Longmire, then level 1 at the 50% reduced assistance. Skip is at level 1 at 100% and it becomes readily apparent that the extra assist allows him to go faster than me. Plus I am in my lowest gear working hard and he still has two gears left to shift to. Duh!!! At mile 21.5 near Narada Falls, I have 86% battery life and both of us shifted to level 2 support. My level 2 assist has been set for 70% and Skip is at 100% but I can stay with him on speed. At Paradise my battery read 66% vs 72% the when I rode it last week. But I went to level 2 a mile earlier than last week and apparently it uses 4% per mile. The other 2% I cannot explain.
Bottom line to all of this is that if you want to maximize battery life by reducing level of assist, you also have to give up speed when climbing. Double duh. No free lunches here