Let’s “Torque” Cadence and Electric Bikes

Walk into any bike shop in the UK and ask about electric bikes, and within about ninety seconds someone will say the words “torque sensor” as though that settles the matter. It doesn’t. Torque and cadence are the two most used and least understood words in the e-bike world, and the way they are usually explained (one is good, the other is cheap) is simply wrong.

The truth is more interesting, and far more useful if you are choosing a bike or trying to get more out of the one you already own. Torque and cadence are not rival technologies. They are two different ways a bike can decide to help you, and on the right e-bike they are not a purchase decision at all. They are modes, selected with your thumb, changed as often as the road and your legs require.

This guide explains what torque and cadence actually are, what each mode does to the way a bike feels beneath you, which mode suits which kind of British ride, and how VOLT’s SpinTech system puts both of them under your thumb rather than making you live with whichever one the factory chose for you.

But if you’re looking for a shortcut to e-bikes that offer both modes on the same bike, you can explore the VOLT Torque and Cadence range here.  

The confusion worth clearing up

Torque is a physical quantity: rotational force, measured in newton metres (Nm). Your legs produce it. So does the motor. It is the twisting effort that turns a crank or a wheel.

Cadence is your pedalling rate: how many complete revolutions of the cranks you make per minute (rpm). It is a rhythm, not a force.

Torque mode is the bike responding to how hard you are pushing. Assistance rises and falls in proportion to your effort.

Cadence mode is the bike responding to the fact that you are pedalling. Assistance arrives steadily as soon as the cranks turn and holds at the level you have chosen.

So when someone says “it’s a torque bike” or “that’s just a cadence system”, they are describing the behaviour of cycling. Every e-bike produces torque. Every rider has a cadence. What differs is which of those two signals the bike is taking its orders from at any given moment.

Cadence: the rhythm of your ride

Cadence is the metronome of cycling. Pedal slowly in a heavy gear and you might be turning at 50 rpm. Spin quickly in a light gear and you could be at 100 rpm or more.

Most riders, left to their own devices, pedal more slowly than is good for them. A comfortable, sustainable range for everyday riding sits somewhere around 70 to 90 rpm, roughly a bit faster than one pedal stroke per second. Pushing a big gear at 50 rpm feels productive, and it is exactly how people give themselves sore knees. 

Grinding puts high force through the joint on every stroke, whereas spinning spreads the same work over more, lighter strokes and shifts the load onto your cardiovascular system, which recovers far more gracefully than cartilage does.

This matters on an electric bike for three reasons.

Your gears still exist, and still do the heavy lifting. A surprising number of new e-bike riders leave the bike in one gear and use the assistance level as a gear selector. It works, after a fashion, but it makes the motor do work that a simple downshift would do for free. Changing down before a hill so you can keep spinning is the single biggest improvement most riders can make to how their e-bike feels, in either mode.

Motors have preferences too. Electric motors are not equally happy at all speeds. A hub motor being lugged along at very low wheel speed on a steep gradient is working harder, running hotter and drawing more current than the same motor spinning freely on the flat. Keeping your own cadence up tends to keep the bike moving at a speed the motor finds comfortable, which is better for efficiency and better for the motor’s long life.

Cadence is the cue that cadence mode responds to. Turn the cranks and the help arrives. More on that shortly.

Torque: the force that actually moves you

Torque is what gets a loaded bike away from a standing start at the lights, up a 12% ramp out of a river valley, or into a headwind on an exposed coastal road. It is the shove.

Here is the relationship that makes sense of everything else:

Power = torque × rotational speed

Power (in watts) is the product of how hard something twists and how fast it twists. This is why torque matters so much in the UK market specifically.

Under UK law, an Electrically Assisted Pedal Cycle (EAPC) must have a motor with a maximum continuous rated power of 250W, and assistance must cut out at 15.5 mph. Every legal e-bike you can buy here sits under the same power ceiling. The Department for Transport consulted in 2024 on raising that limit to 500W and on allowing twist-and-go throttles, but the proposals were dropped in early 2025, so 250W and 15.5 mph remain the framework.

That has an important consequence. If all legal e-bikes share a power ceiling, then watts are not the interesting number. What separates a bike that shrugs off a steep hill from one that struggles is how much torque the motor can produce at low speed, and how intelligently it decides to deliver it. Which brings us neatly to the modes.

What the two modes actually do

Underneath, a well-built e-bike is measuring both things at once. It knows how fast you are pedalling and it knows how hard. VOLT’s SpinTech drive system senses both continuously. The mode you select simply decides which of those two signals leads the power delivery, and that single decision transforms the character of the bike.

Cadence mode

In cadence mode, the trigger is the turning of the cranks. Start pedalling and assistance arrives at the level you have chosen on the display, then holds steady for as long as you keep the pedals moving. The bike is not asking how you feel about the hill. It has decided to help, consistently, until you stop.

The ride feel is distinctive and genuinely lovely: like a hand in the small of your back pushing with the same reliable pressure regardless of what you are contributing. It asks almost nothing of you, it is wonderfully predictable, and on a long flat towpath or a commute at the end of a twelve hour shift it is exactly what you want.

The trade-offs are equally distinctive. Power arrives shortly after you begin pedalling rather than the instant you press, and eases off a moment after you stop, which takes a little getting used to in slow traffic. And because the level of help is set by the button rather than by your legs, you manage the display more actively, dropping a level for a village high street and raising one for a climb.

Torque mode

In torque mode, the trigger is your effort. The bike measures the force you are putting through the pedals hundreds of times a second and scales its response to match. Press gently and you get gentle help. Stamp on the pedals to pull away from a junction and the motor stamps with you. Ease off and it eases off, instantly.

Riders almost universally describe this as feeling “natural”, and the reason is worth spelling out: torque mode does not replace your effort, it multiplies it. You are still the one deciding how fast the bike goes. The motor is an amplifier wired to your legs. For anyone who has cycled for years and wants an e-bike that still feels like cycling, this is usually the moment the penny drops.

It is also generally the more frugal of the two, because the motor only ever draws what your effort calls for. Coast, soft-pedal or roll downhill and it contributes nothing, which is battery you keep for later.

The trade-off is simply that it asks something of you. On a day when your legs are empty, or on a very steep gradient where you would rather the bike took over than met you halfway, proportional assistance gives you precisely as much as you have earned, which is not always what you want.

Side by side

	Cadence mode	Torque mode
What the bike listens to	Rotation of the pedals (regardless of pressure/speed)	How hard you pedal
Power delivery	Steady, set by your assist level	Proportional to your effort
Feel	A consistent push, effortless	A natural amplification of you
Response	Slight lag on and off	Near-instant on and off
Best for	Relaxed rides, tired legs, carrying loads, returning to cycling	Hills, stop-start traffic, longer distances, keeping fit
Battery use	Generally higher, help is constant	Generally lower, help tracks effort
Asks of you	Very little	Real, if amplified, effort

Why one mode was never going to be enough

For years, e-bike buyers have been asked to make a permanent decision at the point of purchase. Having to choose between a pedal assist sensor based on the torque or cadence approach. The problem with this is that riders evolve and change as they grow in confidence and ambition. What might have been right at the time of buying may not be ideal twelve months down the line. In fact, what might be right for today’s choice on a short trip to the shops or work, might not be the right choice for that longer ride out at the weekend. That’s the beauty and freedom an e-bike with both modes brings: flexibility, versatility and ultimately increasing longevity of your purchase.

SpinTech: both modes, at the touch of a button

As a leader in the UK market since 2010, VOLT was quick to recognise the limitations some riders may feel at being restricted to just one sensor mode. Which is where the latest evolution of the VOLT SpinTech rear hub motor system comes in. Because it senses both your effort and your pedalling, it does not have to commit to one behaviour. It hands the decision to you.

The latest evolution of our SpinTech rear hub motor technology gives riders the best of both worlds through a choice between torque and cadence modes at the touch of a button. Torque mode delivers a natural, responsive ride by matching the motor’s assistance to the effort you put into the pedals, so the bike becomes a true extension of your own power. Cadence mode, by contrast, offers smooth, consistent assistance the moment you start pedalling, ideal for relaxed riding, effortless journeys, or whenever you want the bike to carry more of the load. By letting riders move freely between these two distinct experiences, VOLT delivers a level of versatility never before available on any e-bike motor. Where most competing systems force a single, permanent choice, our innovative SpinTech technology invites you to adapt the bike to your mood, your terrain, and your style at any moment, transforming every journey into one of greater comfort, control, and joy.

In practical terms, that means one bike with two personalities. The hardware does not change: the same SpinTech drive system built in partnership with Bafang, paired with Panasonic battery cells, running a 250W motor that keeps you comfortably within EAPC rules, with five levels of pedal assistance on a clear, waterproof LCD display. What changes is how that power reaches the road, and you change it with your thumb, mid-ride, without stopping.

It is worth being clear about how the two controls interact, because they are often confused. Your assist level decides how much help is on offer. Your mode decides how that help behaves. Level three in torque mode and level three in cadence mode feel like two different bikes.

At present, our models offering both Cadence and Torque modes include the folding Metro and Metro LS, the classic Burlington, the Pulse and Pulse LS hybrids, and the Alpine electric mountain bike, so the offering covers commuting, leisure and off-road riding rather than being reserved for one flagship model.

Which sensor mode, when?

Having both modes is only useful if you know when to reach for each. Here is how they tend to earn their keep on real British rides.

Switch to torque mode when:

• You are riding in stop-start town traffic, where instant on and instant off matter for confidence at junctions and in cycle lanes.
• You are climbing. Proportional power means the harder you push into the gradient, the harder the motor pushes with you, which feels enormously satisfying and keeps the bike settled underneath you.
• You want the ride to count as exercise. Torque mode is the fitness setting, because you set the pace with your own legs.
• The surface is loose, wet or greasy. Power that tracks your effort is easier to modulate than power that arrives in a steady block, which helps the rear tyre keep its grip.
• You are trying to stretch the battery to the end of a long day.

Switch to cadence mode when:

• You are tired, recovering, or riding with a niggling knee or hip, and you want the bike to carry more of the load.
• You are in ordinary clothes and would rather arrive without having worked up a sweat.
• You are loaded up with shopping, a child seat or panniers and want consistent help without having to ask for it.
• You are on a long, flat, steady stretch where a constant push is exactly what the situation calls for.
• You are new to cycling or coming back to it after years away, and you want the reassurance of assistance that simply arrives.

A tip that applies in both modes: use your gears. Change down before the hill, not halfway up it, and keep your cadence in that comfortable 70 to 90 rpm window. An e-bike ridden in the right gear is quieter, faster, kinder to your knees and noticeably more efficient than the same bike ridden in the wrong one, whichever mode you have selected.

What the modes mean for your range

Battery range on any e-bike is a moving target, shaped by rider weight, load, terrain, tyre pressure, temperature, wind and how much assistance you ask for. Your choice of mode is part of that picture too.

Torque mode is typically the more economical, because assistance is proportional. Roll along gently and the motor sips. Cadence mode delivers what you have asked for whenever the cranks turn, so on an identical route it will usually draw more.

The useful implication is strategic rather than restrictive. Think of cadence mode as a resource. Ride in torque mode by default, then switch to cadence for the section where you want a break: the last hilly stretch home, the leg into a headwind, the point in the afternoon where enthusiasm runs out. Being able to move between the two mid-ride effectively gives you a reserve tank of comfort.

Manufacturer range figures, VOLT’s included, are measured under favourable conditions. Treat them as a way of comparing models rather than a promise about your particular Tuesday.

E-bikes and the UK legal picture (briefly)

Because the subject comes up constantly, it is worth stating plainly. In Great Britain an e-bike is treated in law exactly like a traditional bicycle, with no licence, tax, insurance or registration required, provided it meets the EAPC criteria: working pedals, a motor of no more than 250W continuous rated power, assistance that cuts off at 15.5 mph, and a rider aged 14 or over. Throttles that propel the bike above walking pace without pedalling need type approval and are not part of a standard EAPC. Northern Ireland’s rules differ in places.

Neither mode has any bearing on legality. Both are simply ways of deciding how a compliant 250W motor delivers its assistance, and in both cases you are pedalling.

Frequently asked questions

Is torque mode better than cadence mode? Torque mode is better at feeling natural and at conserving battery. It is not better at carrying you home when you are exhausted. “Better” depends entirely on the ride you are on, which is why it’s so useful to have both.

Can I switch modes while I am riding? Yes. 

What is the difference between changing mode and changing assist level? Assist level sets how much help is available. Mode sets how that help behaves. You can be on maximum assistance in torque mode and still get very little from the motor if you are barely pressing the pedals.

Does cadence mode mean I am not really exercising? Not at all. You are still pedalling, still moving your joints, still out in the fresh air rather than sitting in a car. E-bike riders consistently ride further and more often than they otherwise would, and the health benefit of a ride you actually take beats the one you don’t. 

What is a good cadence to aim for? Around 70 to 90 rpm suits most riders for everyday cycling, in either mode. If your legs are straining and the pedals feel stuck in treacle, change down a gear.

Does torque mode make hills harder? It makes them feel more like cycling, and it rewards you for pushing. If you would rather the bike simply took over, that is what cadence mode is there for, and it is one button away.

Can I really feel the difference? Immediately, and it is one of the few e-bike features that is far more obvious in the saddle than on paper. Ten minutes on a test ride, flicking between the two on the same stretch of road, teaches you more than any article can.

The last word

Torque and cadence were never competing technologies, and they should never have been sold as though they were. Each makes for a distinct and thoroughly enjoyable way to ride and each has days where it is exactly the right answer.

The genuinely interesting question was never “which should I choose?” It was “why should I have to?” That is the question SpinTech was built to answer, and the answer sits under your thumb.

Browse the models that offer both modes at voltbikes.co.uk/e-bikes/torque-and-cadence, or better still, come and feel the difference for yourself and book a test ride.