23 miles 40 degrees total battery cycles 5.

After several days of rain I wanted to see how the batteries did in the cold. This was a tough day to not take the car due to high winds and cold. Performance was good and assist was used for most of the ride. Of course I had my first mechanical on the set up in the cold. The bike rack attach point as the seat post snapped. This was expected because it was made from molded plastic. Had to tie the rack up with my shoelace to keep the rack from rubbing the tire. There was a Home Depot alone the route so was able to replace the retaining ring with a electrical conduit retaining strap. This is a good solution.

Battery voltage after ride was #1 12.64 #2 12.58 #3 12.60

I should be able to dig a little deeper into the pack when motor is used only as an assist. I don’t want the battery voltage to drop below 12.3v which is about 65%.

Batteries took 1.3 Hours to charge. Recharge was .05 Kw/h

13 miles 50 degrees total battery cycles 4.

Had a few stops to make so I used the used motor assist for 90% of mileage with ½ throttle. Once again there are no bike racks to lock your bike up. Bike performance was good and the motor is really a big help when you want to just jump on the bike without clip-in and shorts. Ran into my neighbor leaving the grocery market and we talked and as I was leaving said “ I’ll race you home” He laughed and said “yea right”. It’s only 2 .5 miles to the house and I ended up rolling past him as he was turning into the garage. He stopped as I passed with a look of disbelief. Chock one up for people power transportation.

Battery voltage at the end of ride was #1 12.89v #2 12.84v #3 12.86v

I received my Kill-A- Watt yesterday so I will see how many watts to recharge the battery.

Batteries took 1.3 Hours to charge. Recharge was .05 KW/H.

Battery voltage after 3 hours:

#1 13.16v #2 13.14v #3 13.13v

51 miles, 50 degrees Total battery cycles 3

Decided to take the bike on the long commute today. You can defiantly feel the added weight of the batteries and hub. Hypermiled the pack since I have no instrumentation to tell what state the pack is in. That the next thing on the list, instrumentation.

The route is 25 miles each way with quite a bit of rolling terrain. Used the motor sparingly on the way out. Used for climbing the hills only. Was using ½ throttle for the climbs. This was giving between 14-17 mph in the climb. Most grades are 2-3%. with some up to 6%. Was able to take 10 minutes off the commute using this technique. Had a chance to opportunity charge the pack and was able to get a full charge in under an 1.5 hours.

On the return used the motor a little more then on the way out. There is more climbing on the return with the longest sustained climb being a little over a mile. The last 4 miles was using assist quite a bit because I was feeling the extra weight of the bike in the legs. Saved 20 minutes on the return. Battery voltage after the ride were in the 12.57 range.

Bike performed well. Up hill starts from a stop are a problem because of the weight and the out of saddle riding is still not possible. The wheel is in need of truing again. I have yet to get it just right and think that once I get it set it will stay true. I’m also think that I night need to go to a 25C back tire. The 23c seem to be stressed with the extra weight of the battery pack.

Batteries took 1.2 hours to charge. Voltage after waiting 3 hours once charged.

#1 13.21 #2 13.17 #3 13.17

11 miles, 65 degrees, Battery cycles 1

Took the E-bike out to see what it’s all about. First impression are ok. It is a little unstable with the battery pack on the bike rack. Hammering out of the saddle is difficult because of the sway from the weight of the pack. Standing peddling can be done comfortably is weight is kept over the seat. Braking distances are greatly increased due to the extra weight. Motor engagement is smooth and quite.

Performance over a ½ mile run on flat terrain:
flat out with out the motor 24 mph
Flat out with motor 20 mph
Flat out with motor and assist 25 mph.
I forgot to calibrate the computer so these were with the computer calibrated for 700×23 instead of the 28c tires on there so the speed should be a little faster than that.

There is a sweet spot at about ½ power that will achieve about 20 mph where the same effort gave me about 17 mph. I’ll have to see how long the batteries will last at that setting. The trip length today was 11 miles total.

Batteries took less than 1 hours to charge. Voltage after waiting 3 hours once charged.

#1 13.15v #2 13.12v #3 13.12v

I commute a lot on my road bike as I’m trying to escape the dependency on the car. Most commutes fall into the round trip distance of 10-30 miles with the longest being 50 miles. My commute time on the bike is twice as long as drive time. Since I’m not very mechanically inclined I decided to buy a Wilderness conversion kit for the front wheel to see if I could cut into the time. I thought I would keep a log of the adventure.

Amp log Jan 12, 2008

E-Bike kit arrived from Wilderness today. It was an uphill battle the whole way to assemble the kit. Seven hours later the E-bike is ready for action.

The wheel was out of true and the tension were not right when it arrived. I had to go over the whole wheel and set proper tensions and get the rim to turn true.

Had to replace the front tire from a 23c to a 28c due to the width of the rim. Installed slime tubes front and rear. Hopefully I won’t every have a puncture because replacing the tubes will be an ordeal on either tire.

The bike rack was tweaked and would not fit. Had to make an adapter to fit the seat to the seat post.

Throttle is not sized for a road bike bars. Had to make an adapter and zip tie to the side of the left hand hood and ran the wire under the bar tape.

Because of the size of the motor a huge 700c rim was laced to the motor. This made the Shimano 105 front brakes not fit due to the width. Replaced with an old 600 series circa 1990 that I had lying around that provided just enough clearance.

It’s a clean installation but there is a lot of weight with the batteries and motor. I did not get a chance to ride today but will ring it out tomorrow.

Specs
2002 Iron Horse 18 speed standard road bike.
Weight 65 pounds, 36V, 600w brushless motor, 50 amp controller
Standard Shimano 105 groupo
Rear cassett is 13-23
Front Chainring is 39-53
Batteries #1 13.1v #2 12.96v #3 12.98v