10-10-2015, 08:00 PM
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#31 (permalink)
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Cyborg ECU
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Coastal Southern California
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sven7
I may have mentioned it before, but have you considered going tubeless? ...
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A good friend of mine with a lot of biking experience does his own "red neck" tubeless with tire flat fixer spray or something. I have thought of it. But I have too little time these days.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ME_Andy
We want pictures.
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And you shall have pictures... here they are...
Head lamp was "free" because I reused my daughter's rarely used "head lamp" for camping. It is LED, uses ordinary AAA batteries, and can be set to flash. Nice.
Here you see the fender I made from an automotive lining found in the street, the clear-coat and glass-bead reflectance on the battery pack, and the freeway road marker reflector I found on the 91 freeway while performing some emergency aeromod repairs to my civic!  You can also see my mag light tail light, for which I made a red filament using busted car taillight fragments in the road.
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See my car's mod & maintenance thread and my electric bicycle's thread for ongoing projects. I will rebuild Black and Green over decades as parts die, until it becomes a different car of roughly the same shape and color. My minimum fuel economy goal is 55 mpg while averaging posted speed limits. I generally top 60 mpg. See also my Honda manual transmission specs thread.
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10-11-2015, 12:21 AM
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#32 (permalink)
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Growin a stash
Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: Austin TX
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Thanks for more pictures. I'm enjoying this thread and I'm gonna go back and read from the beginning now to see what details I've missed. I think I will copy your headlamp idea.
(btw I recently bought a road-leaning hybrid bike for my commute but decided against electric for now)
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2024 Chevy Bolt
Previous:
2015 Nissan Leaf S, 164 mpge
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10-11-2015, 12:27 AM
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#33 (permalink)
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Growin a stash
Join Date: Jun 2014
Location: Austin TX
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Grant-53
Just like any other vehicle bikes benefit from reducing air drag. Strangely enough the best gains seem to come from starting at the back and working forward. A wheel cover and tail box are inexpensive to make and effective in reducing drag.
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I can easily believe that. When I was rowing, we would cover the cage of the spinning wheel on the rowing machine and the drag would drop to almost nil.
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2024 Chevy Bolt
Previous:
2015 Nissan Leaf S, 164 mpge
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12-10-2015, 12:03 PM
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#34 (permalink)
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Cyborg ECU
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Coastal Southern California
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Update: today marks 6 months since completing the bike. 1578 miles as of today. 1578 miles I would have driven. 1578 miles @ 1,000-3,000 mpge instead of 60 mpg. And lots of exercise. I love this bike. It is cold before shnrise, but not bitter. I have a great jacket.
Also, added some nifty reflectance from one of those roadway lane marker reflectors that had broken loose and was in the gutter. It was still in good shape cleaned it up and mounted it with double-sided trim tape
__________________
See my car's mod & maintenance thread and my electric bicycle's thread for ongoing projects. I will rebuild Black and Green over decades as parts die, until it becomes a different car of roughly the same shape and color. My minimum fuel economy goal is 55 mpg while averaging posted speed limits. I generally top 60 mpg. See also my Honda manual transmission specs thread.
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06-10-2016, 09:15 PM
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#35 (permalink)
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Cyborg ECU
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Coastal Southern California
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One year update
"Black and Red" is 1 year old today. It has 2097 miles on it... all of it "replacement" miles, meaning miles I would have driven: to the store, to work, to social gatherings...
That means that I did 1578 in the first 6 months and 519 in the second 6 months. The reason is my wife got a new job last October and I took on all school drop-off driving... so no more biking to work.
Picture as it looks today:
Battery is still great. It works perfectly. I have had some trouble with loose wire connections due to all the shaking over bumps. i just find and tighten and it goes away for a few weeks again.
__________________
See my car's mod & maintenance thread and my electric bicycle's thread for ongoing projects. I will rebuild Black and Green over decades as parts die, until it becomes a different car of roughly the same shape and color. My minimum fuel economy goal is 55 mpg while averaging posted speed limits. I generally top 60 mpg. See also my Honda manual transmission specs thread.
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The Following User Says Thank You to California98Civic For This Useful Post:
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06-10-2016, 11:15 PM
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#36 (permalink)
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Master EcoModder
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Elmira, NY
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Some blue Loctite or some internal tooth lockwashers may help the connections. Now some aero mods may be in order.
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The Following User Says Thank You to Grant-53 For This Useful Post:
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06-10-2016, 11:23 PM
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#37 (permalink)
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(:
Join Date: Jan 2008
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I heart nyloc nuts.
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06-11-2016, 12:31 AM
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#38 (permalink)
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Cyborg ECU
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Coastal Southern California
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Lee
I heart nyloc nuts.
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__________________
See my car's mod & maintenance thread and my electric bicycle's thread for ongoing projects. I will rebuild Black and Green over decades as parts die, until it becomes a different car of roughly the same shape and color. My minimum fuel economy goal is 55 mpg while averaging posted speed limits. I generally top 60 mpg. See also my Honda manual transmission specs thread.
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06-11-2016, 12:37 AM
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#39 (permalink)
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Cyborg ECU
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Coastal Southern California
Posts: 6,299
Thanks: 2,373
Thanked 2,172 Times in 1,469 Posts
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Grant-53
Some blue Loctite or some internal tooth lockwashers may help the connections. Now some aero mods may be in order.
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I actually did mildly aeromod the build recently. I got rid of the big bulky red panier hanging from the side and replaced it with a triangle bag, a saddle bag, and a handlebar bag. The handlebar bag on the front is meant to help aero a little like a fairing ... a VERY small fairing.
There is a section of bike path that is long atraight and flat where I informally test how many watts I need to keep max speed often. In full tuck I used to need something in the area of the low to middle 300s in watts. Now it dipps into the high 200s, so maybe 350watts reduced to 290.
__________________
See my car's mod & maintenance thread and my electric bicycle's thread for ongoing projects. I will rebuild Black and Green over decades as parts die, until it becomes a different car of roughly the same shape and color. My minimum fuel economy goal is 55 mpg while averaging posted speed limits. I generally top 60 mpg. See also my Honda manual transmission specs thread.
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06-11-2016, 06:05 AM
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#40 (permalink)
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one of thOOOse people
Join Date: Mar 2009
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One simple safety detail I noticed is your quick-release for the rear wheel. In the last two pictures you had it pointing down in one and along the chainstay in the other. both of those positions are likely to catch on obstacles. Align it in the closed position with the seatstay. (the bar from the back axle to the seat post)
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The Following User Says Thank You to hamsterpower For This Useful Post:
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