Zen & pp/e bike

deacon said:
"I watched you when you first started to ride in the neighborhood. I see you about every day. I just have to ask,'How much weight have you lost?"

"About fifty pounds," I replied.

"I thought so, you have been an inspiration to us all. In the last year since you started I have seem lots of senior citizens out on their bikes or out walking."

I had no idea anybody thought anything except I was the nut with the motor bikes. I had no idea that more people my age were out moving around because they saw me out riding. It's kind of what I hoped to promote someday but I haven't done a thing to start it yet.

Well I didn't think I had.
Click to expand...

Somebody once said we all have much more influence than we imagine on those around us ... I think that's true. Must be nice to find out you've been such a good example!

BTW, how did you lose the 50 pounds? I'm up to 200 now and need to drop at least 25 pounds ... 35 would probably be better. I'm about 5'10". I weighed in the 150 range most of my life. How I miss those slim, trim good ol' days! Somehow one day I woke up and was over 60 years old and fat ... can't figure it!?

.trk.
 
I forgot to mention that with the nice weather I am getting a lot of comments on the odd looking bike. Kids shouting questions as I pass. And I CAN answer them because I hear them. An old man giving me a thumbs up as I pass him.

Everything worked as it should so yes some days the ride is zenish....
 
I rode the bike with the double battery pack today for about five miles. I intentionally went on some really nasty hills. Things I would avoid under normal conditions. There was one I didn't think I could pull but finally managed to get up it. That particular hill has always been a problem so i avoid it like the plague. I just had to try it and i did.

After the bats charge I'm gonna take bubba back out with one battery pack to judge the difference on that and one not quite so bad hill. I want to see if the second battery pack made any difference.

When I reconstructed the trailer I did it so that it could convert easily from one to two packs.
 
I tried it with the trailer and one battery pack and there is no difference it's the size of the motor. Just not enough umph to make it an easy pedal up those really steep inclines.

I'll have to mark that off my routes. I had trouble with some of the hills around here even with the china bike 80cc which really isn't. I'll just bubba from the big hills.
 
Is there any way you can build a switch to switch the batteries from parallel to serial to to increase the output for a short burst of power? Go from 24 to 48 or 36 to 72, to get up the hill without destroying the motor
 
I have been talking to people on a different forum about the effects of over powering an engine. Everyone says this particular motor could take a small increase in power. The controller I'm iffy on. The best I can imagine is to go with a higher voltage controller but then it would shut down when you tried to low voltage it.

Would a higher voltage burn up the controller on the bike Now I have no idea. 48volts is a lot of voltage to but into a 24volt controller.

If I try to over power this one, I think I would go with about 6volts make it a thirty volt system. I have a 6volt low amp battery charger I could use on it.

these things are hard to find so I hate to burn it up till I am sure what it does without the boost. even adding six volts should give it a 25% increase in power. If the controller doesn't shut down or burn up it should be interesting.. Now that would be interesting to kick in and out. I think I'll ask that in the other forum to see what would likely happen.
 
Today's ride took me into one of those historical neighborhoods. It would have been a great ride if I had planned better. I hit one of those long steep hills. I ran out of energy before I ran out of hill. I made it to the top without stopping but I was flat gasping for air. The ride was a little over two miles but I headed for home. I was out of breath.

I rested, cut my grass and then rode again. It is a fun thing to do but I almost got run over by a woman backing out of her drive. She saw me and didn't stop actually she seemed to speed up.

Oh well good thing this bike goes slowly and stops well.

I saw two old guys sitting on the back of a pickup as I went by. The trailer seems to be the thing that fascinates people. The ebike part they don't really get till I'm past, then they realized that I didn't pedal the bike at all.
 
Remember me saying that there are three things I need to take into consideration when I ride the bubba bike. speed... range... typography of the route.

Well I went to the senior center today to pick up a calendar for the month. My wife is retiring at the end of April and she wanted to know what kinds of things they have there. So the route up there is pretty flat with a few long slow inclines, but coming home it has always been a bear.

The reason is that the city planners made one north/south road one way going south and another one way going north. The one going north had a huge hill and the one going south doesn't. Since they run parallel one block apart I have no idea how that happened.

To avoid the one going north my only real option is to go onto main street. That puts me into three or four times the traffic but I decided to try it today.

Of course I also forgot to wear my helmet, even the joke bike helmet. I was wearing only a knit watch cap. So off I went onto main street. The first policeman who passed me didn't seem to notice that I was riding a power bike let alone one that qualified as a moped. That was my intention when I hid the batteries. So that part worked I guess for now.

Main street is more typographically friendly for an e bike. I still got to pedal a bunch but it wasn't gut wrenching pedaling so I was happy. The yellow caution light for power came on in about the same place even though I had gone a bit farther. I didn't think it would come on at all to be honest.

The batteries read 25.7 volts when I returned. that figures about 12.65 per battery. About the same consumption as before running the bike wide open all the way. The main difference was in the amount of human energy required to make the trip. Probably the same amount but without the one heavy heavy exertion.

In other words a successful trip.
 
Last edited:
In my never ending search for truth, justice and the American way. I decided that I needed to test the limits of my bubba bike. I added six volts to the battery pack. The battery pack is supposed to be 24 volts which is really about 28 or so at the just charged stage. So I tossed on 6volts more.taking it to about 34 volts. It ran the bike fine in the drive with the wheel off the ground. I seemed to be a little hinky as it picked up speed but when it hit a hill it just shut down.

Of course I thought I had burned the controller or the motor. I unplugged the six volt battery and it took off and ran like it always did. Now I have no idea what the heck happened but I think this is what it did,

I think when I increased the voltage, I allowed the motor to demand more amps. If I am right the controller has a protection to prevent it from drawing more amps than it was designed so it just shut down. I'm glad that it doesn't seemed to have burned anything else.

I am calm and peaceful again. I now know that to make the ride easier i need to get my fat butt in shape

Or move to a flatter terrain
 
Last edited:
I took the bubba out to test a few things today. I did battery and trailer tests. I think I can live with the results for now anyway,

I have bought two bikes while riding in the hood. One of the old guys who sold me one flagged me down. He wanted to know if I would sell him my bike. When he heard what I had in it, he turned white and decided it was not the hobby for him after all. $250 without batteries is a lot more than he thought. Heck it's a lot more than I thought I would ever spend as well.

He looked at me as though, I might really need to have my head examined for going this route. At the moment I'm living by the old saying, in for a penny in for a pound. Just thought you would be interested in knowing that a look of pity is a sad thing for an old timer to see on another old timers face. lol...
 
I took off on my bike ride today. Just the workout ride, I had no where to go. I did want to test the bike since I blew the 24volt charger I have been using a 12 volt conditioner and doing one at a time.

I finally got them all charges so I took off on a ride. I got twenty yards and the power cut out. It came and went for a mile then I pulled back in the shop to re-solder the connections on the battery pack.

When I went back out the bike did perfect.

What I wanted to see was if the bike would go as well on batteries charged with the smaller charge. It did exactly the same I'm happy to say. I am going to hold off on the 24volt charger till I decide whether to go with the liths. They have a different charger, I understand.

One thing I have decided is that all the hype about battery range is just plain misleading crap. You have to test them for yourself, your bike, your body, and your topography. The manufactures claims even if valid for their twelve year old on a flat track means nothing in the real world. My results should mean nothing to you.

Nonetheless here is my latest interpretation of the data. MY bike, with my setup, on my course will comfortably do about 4.5 miles before the bike shuts down. I think if I were more careful I could stretch that to five miles. That is with two 12ah batteries. I want more so I am thinking lithium. I have enough batteries to get about eight miles by dubbling the battery packs which I will do for a longer trip. At least for a while.

Oh yeah you might as well paint that yellow light black for all the good it does. Mine comes on when I leave the house and goes out and comes on and goes out. I can tell better from the 'feel' of the bike than the light. It's that zen thing.
 
Last edited:
deacon said:
I finally got them all charges so I took off on a ride. I got twenty yards and the power cut out. It came and went for a mile then I pulled back in the shop to re-solder the connections on the battery pack.

When I went back out the bike did perfect.
Click to expand...

Oooh, I hates when it does that. Mine turned out to be the fuse holder. One contact broke off so I mickey moused it. :o Then it started cutting out whenever I gave it full throttle. Darned contact was arcing so I finally bit the bullet and took a drive to an auto parts store and I bought one of those "U" fuse holders. I hates it cause it took me an hour to figure out what was wrong. I hates electrical problems. :-||
 
I think with e bikes it is a thing we are going to have to get used to. I never did figure out exactly which one was cold. I just did all the joints again and it started to work.

Now I want to find someone who switched from sla to lithium to get an idea real world comparison... I need to know how much battery to buy with the lith. If I ever go that route.
 
I switched the battery packs and went for another ride. I rode with battery conservation in mind. I work much harder that way, which is good for my old flabby body.

I covered the same ground exactly and made it back without the bike dying at all. It also had a reading of 12.47 as opposed to the earlier 12.11 Maybe I could have nursed it a half mile more. So lets say it will do 5 miles if I am careful. That has been pretty much consistent with either charger. The batteries start out a full volt and a half lower with the 12 volt charger. But that doesn't seem to matter much.

Also I made one more discovery as well. The pollen has picked up a lot. I have just a touch of allergy and my nose is dripping. I know too much information on the drip.

I had someone notice my bike again. It isn't a china two stroke, but it is a bit of a novelty. One more thing i over took a teenager on a bmx and blew him out. Probably could have gotten a few more yards but I couldn't resist it. Lots of people out on bikes today. I usually see one or two all day even on a pretty day, today i must have seen six or seven. Pedal bikes that is.
 
If they grow proportionally with the size of 8 and 12 ah sizes you would need a trailer for sure to pull around one of those monsters.
 
By the way on the zen and ppe bike front, I rode to the local chicken joint to buy some coleslaw for hot dogs tonight. Its about a three mile round trip. The batteries held up but alas the Styrofoam cup didn't.

I was carrying it in a European style string bag that I sling from my handlebars. The paper bag inside the string one got mashed which caused the silly lid to warp and come loose. The dressing leaked out but the slaw stayed in thank god.

Next time I'm going to wrap the bag tight around the slaw to hold the lid on somehow. It was my second trip to this store but my first one using the better route. The traffic is worse but the terrain is better. I thing topography is going to trump traffic. Now there is a lesson in that somewhere lol

By the by: When i got home I read the battery charge. In the old days they said a charge of 12.75 was a full charge and 11.5 was empty. this controller reads it much differently. I got back after the three mile ride with a charge of 12.71 but the bike is dead at 12.25 I think. I does keep the batteries from going to the state where they are damaged by the lower discharge point.
 
Last edited:
Deacon if the chicken place started with a P i have their recipe for cold slaw,if you want it.How long does it take to charge your batterys after a ride.I have noticed it only takes mine less than 1 hour,for a 30 min. ride.HD
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top