Here’s a little photo essay about my family’s bicycles. I’m proud to say that we use our bikes a lot. Each bike is tailored to its user: I drive a cargo bike capable of carrying passengers and cargo long distances; my wife drives a slower and lighter but more stylish bike; my 11-year-old daughter Thea and her friend JJ drive bikes tailored to their 2-mile drive to school. (My son Jasper, aged 15, resists having a bike. He pretty much walks wherever he needs to go.) Ithaca is hilly, so it’s important for a utility bike to have an electric motor. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last couple of years experimenting with electric bike motors and other accessories. Maybe you can benefit from my discoveries.
From left to right my bike, my wife’s bike, Thea’s bike, and JJ’s bike in front of our bike stable.
My bike is a Surly Big Dummy Xtracycle with Stokemonkey motor, described in detail elsewhere. I named it “The Spirit of Ithaca”. I’ve changed so many parts it’s hard to give it a value, but you could probably get a comparable electric cargo bike for $3,000. Bicyclists may notice that my bike has an unusually large chainring. Last year I doubled the voltage of the motor from 36 to 72v, making my bike much more powerful—it can carry two adults up the steepest hills in Ithaca. Since by design the Stokemonkey motor moves the pedals, the increased power increased the speed of the pedals and it became necessary to increase the size of the chainrings to slow down the pedals.
My bike is powered by two 36v10ah LiFePo4 batteries in series. They give my bike an enormous range of about 70 miles at 12mph or 35 miles at 20mph. However, each battery weighs 15 pounds and they are expensive at $600 each.
My bike sports a DIY headlight I made out of about $50 in parts available at SparkFun.com. The headlight is powered by Grin Technology’s 12v voltage regulator which can take any ebike battery input from 24 to 72v and output the 12v required by the headlight. I’ve also used the 12v output to recharge my phone on long trips. The advantage of this centralized electrical system over a “regular” bike’s discrete lights is that I just have one switch to turn on all my lights and accessories, and I only have one battery and that battery is rechargeable.
My DIY headlight has a homemade look that you just can’t buy at stores :-). I keep it on both night and day. It’s bright enough that I keep it pointed down and I run it at half power to avoid annoying people.
Turns out my DIY headlight’s big heat sink is not necessary with the lower-power LED driver I’m using. I’m planning an updated version that uses the handlebars as a heat sink.
My wife’s bike is a Sanyo Eneloop we purchased used for $1,500. She named it “Zippy”. The previous owner purchased it for over $2,000 from NYCE Wheels. (At 350 miles away, NYCE Wheels is the closest ebike store that I know of.) Zippy is a highly reliable bike compared to my bikes, which are constantly breaking down and in flux as I experiment with them. Besides the reliability, the most important feature for her is the chain guard which is necessary because she bikes to work in her nice work clothes.
She has a rear rack but rarely uses it in favor of the faux-wicker front basket. The hub motor is in the front wheel and the rear human-powered hub has three speeds.
Sanyo is a battery manufacturer and built the bike around their NiMH battery. The bike is surprisingly powerful and has a range of five to 10 miles. It’s not fast but it is so stately that you don’t feel like going fast when you are riding it.
In practice bicycling can be a hassle because of all the little business you have to do when you get on and off your bike: put on your reflective bike jacket, put on your helmet, tuck in your pants cuffs, turn on the lights, unlock the bike, put up the kickstand, etc. That’s a lot to remember and it creates an unconscious impediment to biking, especially when you know that driving a car just requires opening the door, turning the key, and going. I got my wife this nice AXA wheel lock from Clever Cycles to reduce some of the hassle. Basically you press a lever and take out the key to lock the bike, and insert the key to go. No more fumbling with a cable or u-lock.
Thea (left) and our neighbor JJ (right) used to walk a few blocks to elementary school but this fall they started at a middle school about 2 miles away. They were discouraged to find that the school bus takes 45 hot and stuffy minutes to get to school. The city bus only takes 15 minutes but costs $.75 and requires a 10-minute walk downtown. Biking, on the other hand, only takes 10 minutes! Thea already had an electric bike, and we equipped JJ’s bike with a motor too so she could keep up. I escorted them for the first few months and helped them work out a safe route.
Thea has a nice lightweight mountain bike equipped for utility with a rack, kickstand, fenders, lights, and a front hub motor. It’s a kids bike with 24″ wheels, but I often ride it myself—it’s kinda sporty! The motor is powerful enough that I don’t need to pedal. In retrospect I should have installed a rear hub motor instead of a front hub motor. The front wheel spins out on hills. In general I’ve concluded that front hub motors are not suitable for Ithaca.
I added Marathon Winter studded snows tires to Thea’s bike so that we can ride together safely this winter. I unequivocally insist than anyone who rides in the winter should use these tires.
Thea’s motor is a Nine Continents direct drive hub kit from E-BikeKit.com for about $500. There are a lot of ebike kits out there but E-BikeKit is especially dedicated to excellent service. You’ll notice that I had to file off the “lawyer lips” around the dropouts in order to get the hub motor axle nuts to seat properly. Grin Cyclery’s excellent troubleshooting page tell s how omitting this step may lead to front fork failure.
Originally I built a 15-pound lead-acid battery (described in a previous post) for Thea’s bike. This fall I began experimenting with lithium polymer (“lipo”) batteries, the same type of battery used by Radio Control enthusiasts. Not only are lipo batteries lightweight and inexpensive compared to my LiFePo4 and lead-acid batteries, they have a much higher discharge rate. This makes it possible to have a very small battery that can output enough amps to propel an ebike. So on Thea’s bike I replaced the three heavy 12v 10ah lead-acid batteries in series (a 36v battery) with two lightweight 18.5v 3ah lipos in series (for a 37v battery). Here’s the score: the lead-acid battery is 15 pounds, $100, 360wh, with a 36 mile range. The lipo battery is 2 pounds, $50, 108wh, with a 10 mile range. Which is better? It depends. My bike needs more range and weight is not a problem, so lipos are not a good option for me. But for Thea’s bike the lipo’s low weight is very appealing and their short range is not a problem.
Thea’s controller and battery fit nicely in her trunk with room to spare for lunch.
Thea and JJ’s bikes both use two 18.5v lipo batteries connected in series for a 37v battery pack. The RC charger, however, needs to charge them in parallel at 18.5v. I made special connectors to switch the batteries between serial and parallel, similar to the lead-acid battery connectors described in a previous post. In this photo the parallel connector is on the top connected to the battery and the serial is on the bottom in my hand. In addition to the power output connectors, lipo batteries have “balance” connectors to enable the charger to manage each cell individually. This photo shows a parallel balance connector I made so that I can charge a 37v battery from one charging port.
Lipo batteries can be dangerous. I came across a post on one RC forum listing everyone on the forum who had had a house fire of some kind caused by lipo batteries. There were dozens of people on the list. That said, I haven’t had any problems with them myself. I try to be careful. I always balance charge my lipos. I make sure not to drain them below their limit. I charge them in a fire-proof bag as shown. That’s the charger on the left, capable of charging four batteries at a time.
On a couple of occasions I’ve had the pleasure of driving JJ’s bike a few miles even though the seat barely comes up to my kneecaps. As with Thea’s bike, it’s a perfectly plausible form of transportation for an adult since I don’t have to actually pedal. The small wheels and the hub’s internal gearing give it incredible torque. And the small frame makes it fine for riding unobtrusively on the sidewalk, nobody minds. I once rode it a mile up State St. in Ithaca and it was sort of like going up the hill in an electric wheelchair.
JJ’s battery and controller fit into a tiny seat pack. Can you believe it?
I bought this high-end mountain bike (code-named “Black Beauty”) used for $400 with the intention of building it up as a replacement for my Big Dummy. So far I’ve added a hub motor and perhaps I’ll add an Xtracycle longtail extension in the spring.
Black Beauty has very nice components, including hydraulic disc brakes and fully adjustable shock absorbers. I wasn’t looking for these but both of these features turned about to be important as described next.
A couple of weeks ago I bought a $600 Crystalyte HS 3540 conversion kit from Grin Tech. I paired this state-of-the-art hub motor with a controller capable of handling almost 3kw (72 volts at 40 amps). (For comparison my Big Dummy typically runs at 1kw.) After a few technical difficulties I was able to put Black Beauty to the test. I found a quiet level stretch of road, pulled back the throttle, and let her unwind. She accelerated quickly to 40mph. At first it was frightening. Then it was exhilarating. But in the final analysis it’s embarrassing how fast this bike can go, since elsewhere I’ve blogged about the evils of speed. My main interest in building a high-powered bike is to make it capable of carrying adult passengers. Being able to go fast is an annoying side effect.
Black Beauty sports a Cycle Analyst and an LED headlight, both from Grin Tech.
For now I have Black Beauty’s battery and controller stuffed in a pannier. As you can see I’ve also outfitted Black Beauty for carrying vegetables.
Another secret to Black Beauty’s performance is the 72v battery pack I put together out of four 18.5v 5ah lipo batteries. This battery pack cost me about $200, weighs about six pounds and has 360wh of power. That’s enough power to go about 10 miles at 25mph. I could probably go farther at a lower speed but it’s hard to go slower than that.
The Clarkbergs have two nice his and hers road bikes in the basement. One reason they are in the basement is that they are so light it’s easy to carry them up and down the basement stairs. Another reason they are in the basement is that they are recreation-only vehicles that my wife and I rarely use. I think we only took them out once last summer. I drive my cargo bike so often for utilitarian purposes that the thought of riding my road bike for recreation doesn’t appeal to me. I mean, how often do you drive around your car for recreation?
A couple of years ago I commandeered our garage for housing our bikes. I added a nice sliding door for easy access.
Our car. As a family we’re not so fanatical about bicycling that we’re willing to give up a car altogether. When we recently bought this new car I think some of my friends were surprised we got a Mini instead of a Prius, the environmentalists’ vehicle of choice. As I’ll describe in an upcoming post, I think it’s much more important to our communities and to the environment that a car be small and slow rather than use less gasoline. Large fast cars contribute to a transportation infrastructure that is inhospitable to the rest of us not driving a car. My friends take some pride in their mpg, but their lower mpg doesn’t make me feel any safer biking. Also mpg-pride seems misplaced if someone is using their large four-seat hybrid car for personal transportation. I’m not against technology, but I believe in appropriate use of technology. I only use our car by myself when I have something heavy to carry or when I have to go beyond the range of my bike. Otherwise I drive my bike.
The Aqua-Xtracycle is a do-it-yourself amphibious electric cargo bike. This video shows how it works, and the photo gallery below shows a bit of our development process. In a future post I’ll describe how you can make your own Aqua-Xtracycle.
This pontoon boat cost about $250.
The first prototype used a wooden dowel to support the pontoons.
Rear view of the first prototype.
Thea on the first prototype.
When I got on the first prototype the wooden dowels broke.
The bike got wet.
Testing tent poles.
Second prototype with 6061 aluminum poles.
Second prototype at our Stewart Park testing grounds.
For now just using paddles for propulsion.
Learning to weld and braze.
Clockwise from top: Xtracycle, pontoon frames, trolling motor and battery, front float, and pump.
Failed attempt to attach paddles to the rear wheel.
Seaweed was a problem.
A platform helps shape the front wheel float and keeps the front riding higher.
A Halkey-Roberts valve inflates and deflates more quickly than an inner tube valve.
Four BMX handlebar stems fit into the Xtracycle horizontal-rack tubes.
Two diagonal supports snap on from the pontoon frames to the Xtracycle vertical racks.
A cotter pin secures a $100 electric trolling motor to the rear of the bike frame.
Caution: shop talk blog post intended for do-it-yourselfers. For my recent 240-mile journey I created what I call my “trip batteries”—batteries that I can attach to my bike to augment my regular batteries, but that I don’t intend to carry around on a daily basis. As such, the main design criteria for these batteries is that they be inexpensive. I don’t want to pay the big bucks for a battery that I only use once in a while. The obvious choice is SLA (sealed lead acid) batteries. These are the same kind of batteries used in cars, and the technology is almost 100 years old. E-bikers out there may poo-poo this choice of battery. After all, compared to my lithium batteries, my SLA batteries are heavy (20lbs vs. the lithium’s 15lbs), not quite as powerful (600wh vs. the lithium’s 720wh), don’t last as long (300 charge cycles vs. the lithium’s 1,500) and they are dumb (that is, they don’t have a battery management circuit board in them to prevent human error from damaging them, although most controllers provide the necessary protections). But they are cheap. I can put together a 10ah 36v battery for about $120 versus a 10ah 36v battery for $600.
Furthermore, there are many reasons to have some SLA batteries around. One is that their native voltage is 12v. I’ve created custom connectors for my batteries so that they operate at 36v when they are on my bike, but I charge them at 12v (see the images below). I find that 12v chargers are much more reliable than chargers made to output other voltages. I’ve had several 36v and 48v chargers self-destruct.
I can also power 12v appliances. 12 is a magic number in the appliance world. The boating, camping, and RV industries produce all kinds of 12v appliances. I have some small solar panels and those too output 12v. And I purchased an 800w inverter ($80) to power 110v household appliances. I recently used it to power my electric weed-wacker when I was at too great a distance for a power cord to reach the weeds. I do have a 12v converter for my lithium batteries, but it can only output about 240w.
How did I make the batteries? My bike operates at 72v, so I made two 36v 10ah batteries that I connect in series when they are on my bike, one battery on each side. Each 36v battery is made up of three 12v SLA batteries in series. As I mentioned, I can quickly convert the 36v 10ah battery to a 12v 30ah battery by switching from a series connector to a parallel connector. I used scooter batteries since I figure they are designed for a similar application. I connect the batteries with 10awg wire. Thick wire is essential since these puppies will be outputting plenty of juice. The wire has spade connectors on the battery side and Anderson connectors on the output side—Anderson connectors are an awesome tool for the hobbyist. They are the Lego of the connector world. I should probably put a fuse in my battery pack. I then wrap up my pack with a layer of duct tape.
I considered making a special battery box but I decided that the batteries are waterproof enough, and they are so ugly they are probably theft-proof too. So I simply strap the batteries to the “footsies” on my Xtracycle bike. Footsies are wooden platforms that my daughter rests her feet on when she is riding with me. This spring I did a test drive out to Sheldrake Point on Lake Cayuga, some 25 miles from my house. The trip batteries performed admirably and took me almost the full 25 miles at 20mph, drawing 600wh in the process. (Note that I probably could have gone 50 miles at 12mph.) Then I switched to my lithium batteries for the ride home. Yes to switch batteries I have to actually stop, get off my bike, physically disconnect the spent batteries and connect the fresh ones. Someday maybe I’ll connect my SLA and lithium batteries in parallel, but I understand it’s important to put some electronics between batteries using different chemistries.
Let me know how it goes making your own SLA battery packs!
Also visible: Stokemonkey electric motor.
Trip battery and footsie shelf.
Charging up with the parallelizing connector.
Three 12v batteries to 12v parallelizing connector.
Three 12v batteries to 36v output serializing connector.
Thankfully the news media is keeping quiet about this or I could be in big trouble: I flooded the Mississippi earlier this month. I’m also responsible in some small part for the Arkansas killer tornados last month. I may even be implicated in the Japanese earthquakes earlier this year, though the evidence for that is not so clear. But certainly without a doubt (as I confessed in a previous post) I share with BP responsibility for the gulf oil spill last year. How did I manage to cause such massive death and destruction? Simply by living my life as usual, getting around by car. I feel a little bit guilty about it actually. But what can I do?
I think more and more people will, as I have done, make this important connection: my driving habit (among other things) causes global warming which causes extreme weather which leads to premature death and hardship around the world. I can no longer read about the misery in Mississippi, the anguish in Arkansas, the grief in Japan, and the environmental destruction in the Gulf of Mexico without knowing that I am in a small way responsible. I think more and more people will feel a little bit guilty like I do. And we’ll have to weigh our guilt against our need to use our cars. After all, don’t we have to use our cars to pick up our kids now and then? Don’t we have to go get the groceries, commute to work in the rain, and occasionally drive to our parents’ house in another state? What choice do we have? I mean, these are all errands that we can’t do on our bicycles, right?
Wrong. It depends how you define bicycle. Most people in this country think of a bicycle as a recreational device for children or athletes. Most people don’t think of a bicycle as something they can use to carry passengers or to carry heavy loads. And most people think that it requires great strength to bike up steep hills or to go faster than 10mph or to go long distances. These are all misconceptions stemming from peoples’ limited idea of what a “bicycle” is. I’ve spent the last couple of years rejecting what a bicycle “is” and experimenting with what a bicycle “can be”. And I’ve concluded that my large (cargo) bike with an electric motor can be almost as capable as a car for almost all of my errands.
I still have a lot of work to do to make my bike into a true car-replacement-vehicle. I recently added batteries for long trips that enable me to go 60 miles in 3 hours or 120 miles in 12 hours, depending on how much I lean on the throttle. As a former bicyclist that speed and distance is more than good enough for me. However I imagine others might want to add a few more batteries to make a faster but slightly heavier car-replacement-vehicle. How is a true car-replacement-vehicle different than a motorcycle? For starters, it uses one hundredth the energy of a gasoline-powered motorcycle. And the energy it uses (namely electricity) comes in a form that is easily gotten from renewable sources. I can satisfy all my transportation energy needs by putting a modestly sized solar panel in the sun for a day or two. Secondly, unlike a motorcycle my true car-replacement-vehicle is designed to go slowly. That’s right: slow by design.
My bike as it is now replaces almost all my personal transportation needs and most trips carrying a child; a little more power and a larger frame would enable me to carry adult passengers too. A canopy would make winter riding more comfortable. But these are minor improvements to an existing proven technology. The car companies would have us think that they need a technological breakthrough before they can offer us environmentally responsible vehicles. Not so. You can begin your car-free lifestyle now with an electric cargo bike.
If the car-free revolution doesn’t require new technology, what is stopping us? The revolution only requires a simple collective change in our attitude: the willingness to go slowly. An electric-vehicle-centered lifestyle requires a willingness to go say 15mph rather than 30mph in the city, or 30mph rather than 60mph on the highway. Is that too much to ask? I hope people are willing to make this attitude change. It seems like a small thing: take a little more time to run your errands in order to spare us all from extreme weather events, in order to prevent permanent damage to the earth’s climate.
Aside from preventing planetary destruction, there are plenty of other reasons for people to travel slowly. At 15mph traffic lights and stop signs are no longer necessary; people have enough time to negotiate their way through intersections. Other signage for restricting cars from doing annoying things (such as parking in the wrong place) becomes unnecessary. Pedestrians—even kids and pets—can roam the streets. Because we all have smaller vehicles, more of our cityscape can be green rather than concrete. People driving bikes and other open electric vehicles can greet each other, stop, and talk. No more massive concrete structures dotting our landscape and draining our government budgets. Imagine what our living spaces can look like without cars! It almost seems like paradise, until the next tornado comes rolling in because the climate hasn’t changed back yet.
I confess that I still drive occasionally. I apologize for that. I am confident that by driving an electric cargo bike I can wean myself from causing further environmental destruction. But until then, sorry about the flood y’all.
Could this be our new logo? Have a better idea? Let us know.
I’m planning to start an electric bike club with some friends in Ithaca and we don’t yet have a name. Can you help us think of one? Finding a name is an important first step for any organization. It will force us to think about the goals of our group. This grueling process may release our hidden differences, but the fires of our disagreement will forge in us a new a sense of unity! Right. We invite you to participate.
Ithaca is especially suitable for ebikes. The largest part of our community is students. A very visible part of our community is environmentalists. Both of these groups would benefit from biking: students need an inexpensive mode of transportation and environmentalists want transportation that better fits with their values. But both groups are held back by (among other things) the incredibly hilly terrain here. An ebike erases that impediment. For a variety of reasons the bike stores here are unable to step up to the plate to promote ebikes. That’s where a club comes in. Our club is all ready to go except for one thing: we lack a name. Here’s some thoughts that may guide your club naming.
The goal of the club is to encourage people in Ithaca to drive ebikes. The activities of the club may include ebike conversion workshops (basically how to install a hub motor); Xtracycle conversion workshops (how to convert your bike into a cargo bike); repair clinics, weird vehicle projects; group rides; an online forum for giving advice about ebikes and for buying and selling ebikes; a way to buy parts as a group to get a discount; advocacy of some kind. There are other bike clubs in Ithaca that do some of these activities already (most notably the Finger Lakes Cycling Club) but I think these goals are different enough to require a separate group.
Some of the ways our name will focus us:
Should we focus only on Ithaca or will the club someday have national stature? If we aspire to go national, we can use a name like “Ebike People of Ithaca” for now but it can be shortened to “Ebike People” later.
Should we focus on the environmental side of this venture? The practical side? Or the fun side?
How much should we emphasize the cargo biking aspect?
Should we focus on the advocacy side? Personally I will be disappointed if I don’t leave club meetings with bike grease on my hands.
Should we get into the buying and selling side? Could this group eventually be a store? I think my favorite Canadian bike store ebikes.ca began as a club.
Should we stick with bikes or could we include Electric Vehicles in general?
Another consideration: will people know what the word “ebike” means? I asked a few people that were easy to ask and none of them knew what it meant. However, I think within a year the phrase “electric bike” will sound as quaint as “electronic mail”. Until then we can define ebike in the tag line, such as “Ebike People: Ithaca’s Electric Bike Club”.It’s easy to change the tag line later.
Here’s some names we’ve come up with so far.
The obvious: Ithaca Ebike Club
Names about groups of people: Ebike Alliance, Ebike League, Ebike Fellowship, Ebike Cooperative, Ebike Guild, Ebike Advocates
Place names: Ebike Village, Electrithaca
Wacky names: The Spinners, Responsible Vehicle Alliance, The Sparks
Do you like any of these names? Can you think of a good name? Do you know of similar clubs? Would you join a club like this? Leave a comment!
Thea and I like to go letterboxing (see letterboxing.org) on our ebikes.
I recently increased the power of my Stoked Big Dummy by setting it up to use two 36v batteries in series rather than only the one 36v battery. (“Stoked Big Dummy” means a Surly Big Dummy extra long bike with a Stokemonkey electric motor.) The change required purchasing a more robust motor controller from the fine folks at ebikes.ca. I also had to open up the controller and solder some beefier resistors in there and make some other modifications. But the result has been amazing. My bike is now very responsive and can easily accelerate to 20mph in a few seconds, and go up hills at 15mph without pedaling. Normally in this blog I rail against speed, but I am discovering that this moderate increase in speed increases the utility and safety of my beloved car replacement vehicle. I can now go on single-afternoon 100-mile trips by bike without it being a big deal “tour”. And I can more easily maneuver in traffic and join the flow. True, I’m now using 20 watts/mile rather than my usual 10 watts/mile, but still nowhere near the 1200 watts/mile that a car uses.
I won’t deny it, speed can also be fun. I recently put together an ebike for my daughter. In the photo above you can see that the bike has a big black front hub. That’s the motor. The batteries are in the bag on the bike rack. Her first ride produced in her the legendary “electric vehicle grin”. She said that her bike was “like a car disguised as a kid’s bike”. She instantly recognized that her new ebike would give her a basic freedom that is denied to kids in our society: the ability to use roads for transportation. Kids in our society are taught from the moment they can walk to stay out of the road. No wonder then that kids must rely on parents and school buses for transportation. No wonder we have an obesity epidemic in this country. The ebike, and the EV grin it causes, may change this sad state of affairs.
I thought this recent post to the Endless Sphere ebike forum by icecube 57 captured the “EV grin” phenomena that is currently only shared by hobbyists but may soon be experienced by the general public as ebikes take off. You can read the original post (along with video) here.
“In other news Im very suprised at the power of this motor. My neighor just moved in her bf. I came home to find them socializing with my wife in the garage. The conversation shifted to my bike. He was like ill try it later. I said you are going to try it now. He gave in. I started him off in Grandma mode. (20mph legal restricted) He was excited about that. The controller still dumps 3500-4000w off the line but it tapers off quickly and he proceeded to take my bike up the huge as hill on my street that I will stall on in grandma mode and it took him up the hill without stalling un assisted maintaing about 15mph. Which I cant even do unless I have a running start. He is about 120lbs lighter than me so I can understand it being easier on the motor and controller. He went around the block and came back. He said take this out of grandma mode. He had a grin from ear to ear…Its one thing to ride your own bike but to see someone else riding it with EV grin hauling ass at top speed in traffic like its a motorcycle”
For the record I only have a temporary interest in riding an electric motorcycle, until the grin wears off. My ultimate goal is to build a lightweight (200 lbs.) narrow (42″) slow (20mph) passenger-carrying “car” that falls within the legal definition of an ebike. I couldn’t see myself succeeding with 36v. I can definitely see it happening with a 72v machine.
Yesterday I rode the whole day without electricity: my electric assist battery ran down and I couldn’t recharge it because I was camped out at one of the dozens of hiker/biker campsites that line the canal. And I paid for it: after biking sixty miles unplugged it was excruciating difficult to continue. So last night I swallowed my pride and instead stayed at the overtly commercial Jellystone campground, complete with life size Yogi Bear at the entrance, so that I could charge my batteries there.
This experience has lead me to wonder “How important is physical exertion to the bicycling experience?” If it were possible to bike without getting tired would more people do it? Would it still be fun? I think it would, and this trip I’m on proves it. I think it’s not the exercise aspect that most people are after, but the humaneness that only lightweight slow narrow vehicles can provide.
I am on a bike trip to Washington DC.–I am hoping to do more and more of my long-distance travel by electric cargo bike. I’m getting pretty good at it. Many of you are probably wondering “How can I too make such journeys?”
The hardest part is justifying taking the time. Expect a bike trip to take four times as long as driving. Use whatever rationale works for you: you’re saving the environment, you like to experience nature firsthand, you want to get in shape, whatever. I’m driven to bike out of a sense that it’s the way things should be, a way to make our transportation system humane (see a previous post about my vision).
The next hardest part is responding to the objections and warnings of your family and friends. They will say things like “Why don’t you just drive like a normal person?” They will imagine that biking on a lonely bike trail at 15 mph is somehow more dangerous than driving in dense traffic at highway speeds. Furthermore, there is an insidious bias in our culture that bikes are for recreation and cars are for utilitarian purposes. Therefore, the thinking goes, if you are on a long bike trip you must be on vacation. And you shouldn’t be on vacation if you have to do the serious business of getting to somewhere. This thinking makes it impossible to consider the bike as a valid long-distance transportation tool.
I went on several long bike tours in my college days. Those trips were basically fun ordeals. Long-distance bike trips don’t have to be ordeals any more. What has changed? The two big innovations are smart phones and electric assist for bikes.
When I bike I have my smart phone in one hand to tell me where I am and a printout from Google maps in my other hand to tell me where to go. I would be lost (literally) without them. Here’s how it works. Before I go on my trip I visit Google Maps and enter my starting and ending points. I then click Google Maps’ “bike button” to choose a bike-friendly route. I then print out selected portions of the route. The print outs are good insurance that I can find my way even if I can’t get a mobile phone signal. When I’m actually on my trip I stop periodically and use my phone to make sure that my current location corresponds to a spot on my printout. The phone has another use: finding hotels and campgrounds. I don’t reserve hotels in advance since it’s hard to know where I’ll end up. So when I get near my destination I simply search on hotels or campgrounds within a five mile radius, pick one, and dial. I wish I had had that feature in 1988!
The last step to going on a bike trip is the easiest: physically moving the pedals around. Plan on going 80 to 100 miles a day. I know that sounds like a lot to those of you who are experienced bike tourists. But electric assist changes the bike touring game: you can go a little bit faster and farther, carry a bit more, and work less hard. I remember that when I went bike touring 20 years ago I could expect to go 50 miles a day at 10 miles an hour. I carried about 50 pounds of stuff. Hills just about killed me. Now I plan to go 80 to 100 miles a day at 15 miles an hour. I can carry 100 pounds. And with electric assist, hills don’t require much more effort than flats.
The main drawback to traveling on an electric cargo bike is that you have to find an outlet to plug into at the end of every day. For that reason I mostly stay in motels. Motels are cheaper than hotels with the added advantage that since the rooms are at ground level you can wheel your bike into your room. I also carry camping equipment so I can camp out if necessary.
I am hoping that by next year I will be able to recharge my batteries completely with solar power on long trips. On a previous trip I was able to gather about one eighth to one fourth of my power from the sun using bike-mounted solar panels.
What does the future hold? More bike paths? Better batteries and motors? Really smart smart phones? And a kinder gentler transportation system? Let’s not just wait and see, let’s make it happen.
I was frustrated about having to repair a flat tire every hour or so and I was concerned that I might run out of patches. I needed to get to a bike shop soon. There was a Walmart 12 miles away in Rome. Could I make it? Long story short I made it. I bought three inner tubes, two patch kits, a floor pump, a tire, and a file in case I needed to convert my presta rim to schrader.
Any kook can slap a solar panel on a bicycle and call it a solar bike. How am I any different? Mainly in my lack of ambition. I don’t want to create a ground-breaking product that will rocket me into the halls of fame. I just want to charge my battery however much I can within my budget. I just want to do the experiment to find out if adding a solar panel to my bike is worth the effort and expense. And if it is, I want to post instructions on my blog here so others can follow in my footsteps.
People see my bike and they expect that the solar panels power the bike completely. The reality of course is that the solar panels are an accessory to an accessory. First of all the electric assist is an accessory to you the bicyclist who is pedaling. Secondly the solar panels are an accessory to the electric assist. The solar panels supplement the electric assist’s batteries in those few instances where you can’t get to a power outlet. So despite the panels’ physical prominence on my bike and in our imaginations, currently they have only a minor role in actually making the bike go forward. Not insignificant, but minor.
What would it take to give the panels a major role? At least a four-fold increase in power. Currently the panels produce about 25 Wh per hour. 100 Wh per hour would be very useful for a long trip since it takes me about an hour to use up 100 Wh. That means I could accumulate energy about as fast as I use it. I could go indefinitely (on a sunny day). I think it’s entirely possible to get a four-fold increase with existing technology. Just adding more panels is a start (perhaps as a canopy over the driver). And it may be possible to make the panels more efficient by adding a charge controller with sophisticated electronics (such as Power Point Tracking).
Bicyclists out there may be wondering “If the power you get from the solar panel is so small, why not just take all that crap off your bike and pedal the damn thing?” This is a very good question that has been nagging at me throughout the ordeals of this trip. I have to keep in mind that this is just a beginning. The point is not to just reach my destination here and now. The point is to pioneer a new type of vehicle. It’s not a solar car–it has pedals so that its human can supplement its power if necessary. Is it a bike? Whatever it is, it is a vehicle that is so lightweight, narrow and slow that even the meager power of the sun can power it.
Adirondack Gateway Campgrounds = heaven
catching photons in Hinckley State Forest
The day began overcast. Not a good start for the Solar Xpedition. But by midday Mr. Sun broke through and the watt hours came rolling in. I ran with my solar panel connected to the working battery (rather than the spare). It was exciting to see the power drop as I went up a hill and then gradually be restored by the panel.
My power use went very well the first day. I didn’t even need to get out the spare battery. It’s hard to know how much of the 500 watt hours I used the first day was supplied by the panel since I don’t yet have a way to measure watt-hours output. But I estimate that the battery had 360 to start with, the solar panel added 70 and charging at a restaurant while eating dinner added 70.
Many things didn’t go well, in particular 7 flat tires and swarms of mosquitos at my campsite.
