back to the Ebike temporarily

Since I returned the HF 2.5 hp motor I reset the ebike and began to ride it. First of all I can ride it on the scenic trail. They don't allow motor bikes, but they never say anything about the ebikes I have ridden there.

So this is a fairly dull story but there is a point at the end.. When I rigged it, I set it up very simple and with only basic controls. A simple wheel on wheel motor with an on off switch. So I hung a couple of 12v 12ah batteries from the top bar and off I went. The round ride is about four miles from my house and down the part of the trail I like. I pedal assisted the drive and when I got three miles done, I had to push the bike up the last hill and it was very hard to pedal without the motor. The power was pretty much gone.

Next I added a second battery pack with a trailer and off I went. When I got to the point where I was about to tackle the last monster hill, I hooked up the trailer and off I went. made it home with no gut busting pedaling required. But pedaling the bike with the motor on the tire was still difficult even though the motor is supposed to have a freewheel.

So I rigged a lift for the motor and tried it again with the trailer in tow. Instead of pedal assisting the motor drive, I only used the motor when I was really winded or the hill was a gut buster. I got up the first of the final hill, inside the park, that almost killed me on day one.

By changing my riding habits, there was enough power to make that hill reasonably efficiently. So I went on and had only a minor gasping episode on the true gut buster hill. I even got home witth the pack reading 26.1 volts. Still enough power to help me if I had another hill to climb. I didn't use the reserve trailer pack at all.

So I told my wife I want to try that again and be sure that it wasn't a fluke if not I'll leave the trailer home. Off I went this morning. I got to the trail and discovered that I had forgotten to bolt the trailer on, so I was even more careful to only drop the motor when needed. I also used only the amount of tension necessary for the conditions at hand. I did the ride even more comfortably. I got plenty of exercise and the hills were tamed even on the big ole coaster bike. I got home with 26.2 volts on the battery pack.

Here is what is interesting. I know now how they can make those claims about ebikes and battery packs. Just make your test like I rode the park the last couple of days. Coast all you can, pedal when it is easy to pedal, pedal anytime the motor is on, vary the amount of performance of the motor to the situation. Do that and you can achieve maximum output from your batteries, even on a very low tech bike.

If I lived in a totally flat area, and i wanted to pedal most of the time and only kick in the motor when I had gone as far as I could go without working up a sweat. Then turn it off after I had rested and pedal some more, I could get the max from the batteries.

That is probably true of the 100mpg on the gas bikes as well.

To be honest I started with ebikes during my build an old fart a bike campaign. I wanted to create a bike that was easy to build and senior citizen friendly. I tried gas but found it too much maintenance and too much detail for us older guys.

I messed with controllers and all that crap and now I am back to the easiest possible way to make a motorized bike. It's more about the mind set now, than about the cost, or the bike's performance even.

The rider of this bike has to understand, he will have to work, if he wants a five to ten mile range. Also he will have to settle for a bicycle pace not a motor bike pace. Most of the time it's going to be his own power and it should stay at about the same speed with the motor. It will run faster than I can pedal, but I try to keep it down by limiting the tension on the wheel. I think this drains the batteries less. I also pedal whenever the motor is own. I think that also conserves battery power.

I live in a town called high point because it is just that. There are hills everywhere and I think I can get 5miles on my year old 12v 12amp set of two batteries in series. With the light weight trailer and second set of batteries, that takes almost no power to pull, I can double that, Probably I can do even more by adding more batteries but then I would think gasoline is the way to go.

You have to have the 'pedal whenever you can' mind set to make them efficient. Before you say well just use the bike and pedal up the hills. I have had a couple of heart attacks and though they don't bother me, I have decreased oxygen supply. Big hills kick my butt, but I can make it up pretty easy with this little bit of assist.

I can also envision this scenario. I live about a mile from a shopping center. The shopping center has a grocery store, a Dollar General (much smaller walmart type store), a thrift store, pawn shop, and auto supply store and other stuff I have never been inside..

The shopping center is at the bottom a steep, steep hill. So I can coast the bike down with my heavy, but milk crate size bed, trailer pushing me along. I can fill it with groceries or parts from the auto store, then I can pull the whole thing back up the big hill using the electric motor.

I live about two miles from a shopping area with fast food and sit down restaurants everywhere also a drug stores and the like. I would probably need to use a little power to get there but it isn't huge hills more like gentle inclines. I can see that using simple conservation thinking I could do it with my electric bike no problem.

Don't get me wrong I like the idea of a gasoline bike and will most likely build another one very soon, but life with the Ebike is very doable, if you live in an urban setting. Even a cheap home made ebike is doable with a little experimenting.

With the new, way to expensive, battery technology it would probably be much better, but I'm not ready to invest in that just yet.

It was raining this morning so I built a couple of 6volt batteries from some nimh batteries I have around. I added one to two of my three battery packs for the ebike. It is now running at 30V which is about all the wiring can stand. I did the park thing today and it did fine.

Here is the power breakdown. At a total of 25V the motor is pretty useless. In other words it isn't pulling much, if at all.. Because I dont have a controller the motor will not shut down if the pack gets below a certain voltage so I have t think about that.

For my purpose of pulling my fat butt around the min battery pack is 26v. A full 24v pack is actually 27.4 coming off the charger.

Runnng the park and home the best I did was coming in a 26.2 very close to empty at four miles. On pavement I might get five miles before the bike motor is useless. Now with the added 6.4 volts the battery pack is 32v or 33v. The bike came in at 32V or so when I was finished with the ride today. In theory I can pull the pack down to 26V which is going to give me a significant range increase. I'll just have to see about that. I expect it to bottom out sooner than that.

Well going from 24 to 30V did nothing for me. The bike runs a little faster at 30V but it dies after the same number of miles. There are more volts left but the bike won't pull. I must be the amps that have fallen. The increased speed must pull out all the extra amps. form the 6vt battery giving me a zero net gain.. Oh well it isn't worth the hassle for the increased speed. I really don't care about that.

My long bike test track is out to the marina and back. I is full of truly nasty hills and about three miles as the crow flies. So when my wife got home from church. so she would be available to identify the body, I hooked up the trailer.

With the trailer and the bike's mounted pack, I had two battery supplies of 24v 12ah @.. So with the motto PEDAL FIRST burned into my conscious, I started. Some of the hills even with the motor assist were real gut busters. Nonetheless I made it to the marina with what seemed like some power left in the battery pack.

I disconnected the on board pack and connected the trailer pack and headed for home. I made it but that battery pack seemed pretty weak and so did I.

Story of the meter.. assuming they both started with the same charge here is how they ended. The pack on the bike used to get to the marina was a respectable 26.4V.... The trailer pack used for the return trip was 25.8v roughly half a volt difference. I credit that to different ups and downs in the terrain and I was already tired when I headed home and might have relied more on the motor coming back than I did going out.

Anyway it was darn good exercise, but I did miss my big ole gasoline bike.

Since I am trail riding the Ebike is really nice to get my heart pumping and my lungs gasping for air. So I'm going to build and even lighter one for the trail. I have a motor on the way. If it isn't any good, i will reuse the setup I have on the lighter bike.

But I tried to ride the ebike on an errand and i thought I was going to have a heart attack. I came home and ordered a 99cc predator motor from HF. It is supposed to be the improved version of the 79cc greyhound.