It's really fast. How fast, I'm still not sure, because it's scary. I was able to keep up with traffic on Guadalupe last night. I'm surprised how much pedaling I still do just out of habit. I'll probably put a bigger chainring on the front so I can pedal at speed. Right now after the first 5 seconds or so I can no longer pedal fast enough. The only drawback is that if the bike breaks down I won't be able to pedal uphill. We actually drove it so much at work yesterday that the low voltage disable kicked in and I had to pedal the rest of the way home.
I ended up getting about 10AH out of two of the packs. They're rated at 11AH, but I haven't charged them in almost two months, plus they're new and haven't been broken in yet.
Once I got home I swapped out the dead packs with the fresh ones and headed on down to meet Nisha at El Chile on Barton Springs. I then rolled over to my older brother's place and then back to Nisha's; total distance 12 miles. I've used about half the battery pack at this point, so that's about 50 miles total. Obviously, I'm new to riding it and have been enjoying the speed, but I still don't think I'll hit my 100 mile BHAG. I bet I can get 80 though. Time will tell.
Two main concerns thus far:
1. People don't expect me to be going fast and I've had a couple of cars pull out already.
2. I don't think my aluminum frame will hold up to the additional stress at speed. So I'm looking at some other ideas:
A: Surly Big Dummy. Steel frame (no low cycle stress fatigue) with built-in xtracycle. Very nice frame, but definitely expensive. Frame is over a grand.
B: Kona Ute. Ugly design, can't buy just the frame, but only 899 -15%=~760
I'll definitely keep the motor on my current bike for now, but long term I'm going to get another frame.
