My initial observations of having an electric bike after riding 129 miles:
-The typical back roads a regular bike rides on are too slow because there are too many turns, which means too much starting and stopping
-There really aren't a lot of roads that are long to bike on. Thus far, the only two I like are Mesa and Shoal Creek; anything further south than 38th street is slow due to all the stop signs/twists/turns.
-Don't ride in the rain. I rode when it was misting and it's really slick; the motor breaks traction in a jiffy.
-Having a front and rear suspension would be great
-I'm pushing a lot of the equipment to the limits riding around at these speeds.
-I need a comfortable seat
I got a flat the first day I tried to ride the new bike to work on electric. The first 4 miles took 8 minutes; the next 4 (walking) took an hour and a half. It's very difficult to change a flat on the road. You must take off the batteries, undo the motor, untighten the very tight bolts, take the chain off (required due to the chain tensioner), unzip tie the phase wires, take off a protective wire cover, take off the rear panniers, flip the bike over, carefully take off the wheel, slide the new tube around the phase wires, and then reassemble. It's really a nightmare; if you mess anything up there's a good chance you're stuck.
To prevent future flats, I put Stan's in the tube and will get slime inserts, in addition to the beefy Armadillo tire.
The new 10 gauge phase leads appear to be working fine. I found another defect in the motor design: the key that locks the axle to the stator has about 5 degrees of play in it. Since the phase wires route between the two metal pieces, each time you start or stop, the wires are subjected to a 5 degree rub. This explains why the wires wore through so fast on the old motor. To prevent this from happening with the 10 gauge wire, I Dremeled the axle out very wide and very smooth. I also made a rubber washer for the phase wires to rotate in to prevent them from chafing on the axle walls. This will minimize the wear on the wires, which are enameled and then wrapped in two layers of electrical tape.
I calculated the cost per mile of this bike and had a hard time representing it meaningfully. I played with the numbers until I came up with this staggering figure: driving my truck 600 feet costs the same as ebiking 100 miles!!!! That's insane.
On the charging side, after using 1.04 KWh, a full recharge only consumed 1.28 KWh, which means the charging efficiency of the batteries and charger is 81%. I imagine most of the loss is in the charger because it remained quite warm throughout charging. The batteries therefore convert almost every electron received on the terminals into chemical energy. In comparison, normal batteries have around a 40% efficiency.
Since I've been hot rodding thus far, I haven't gotten anywhere near my 100 my range goal. Going up and down hills fast, I got an estimated 50 mile range. Since I'm enjoying the motor, my average Wh per mile is currently around 80. Experienced ebikers can get around 20Wh/mile, but they pedal a lot more and go slower.
I'm very happy with this bike, but still have quite a few things to do:
create protective cover for phase wires as they exit the motor. This is to prevent whatever's in the left pannier from rubbing the enamel or shifting the wire position. I plan on forming a piece of aluminum for this. After that, I need to realize the concept mounting location of the battery packs. Right now I have one pack in the right pannier, and the other strapped on top of the wooden snap deck. This leaves almost no room for anything else and also makes the bike both unbalanced and top heavy.
Tomorrow I'm going to my lbs (local bike shop) to get the beefiest spokes possible... I've broken three spokes on a brand new wheel and after showing it to an experienced mechanic he says the build I have is shit, uses inferior parts, and is not the correct lacing pattern. I'm going to see about getting a refund from the guy who incorrectly built it.
This bike is fun! As of now, I need to bike 25,000 miles to realize the gas savings in the truck. This means I still have 24871 miles to go before I break even. I don't expect this bike to pay for itself in its lifetime due to the experimental nature and the high component failure rate.
I'm considering saving up 20 grand and then buying a Honda Insight with a dead motor, dead batteries, and/or a failed electrical system. I'd then convert it to an all electric vehicle, which would rock! I'm also considering the Aptera series hybrid, once it comes out. For the time being, though, I'll be cruising along on my ewonder!
