High Mileage - How do you do it?

[Riversurf]

I've seen some posts (I forget which thread) where riders have reported super high mileage on a single charge. I think one was about 150 miles, with hills included. I'm very impressed, but I know I'd never get anything close, unless maybe I had nothing but flat terrain and never left the lowest setting. The best I've done is about 60 on a charge, which I thought was really good. It's mostly a daily commute with a steep, half-mile hill going home. I'd love to hear how such high mileage is possible, including what batteries and drive trains they're using, or other tips. Thanks.

 

[rich c]

Ride at 10mph, coast a lot, never go above eco setting, ride with no assist, max recommended air pressure in the tires, buy skinnier tires, go on a diet, wear spandex so you reduce wind resistance, wear aerodynamic helmet and keep your head down, just a few hypermiling techniques.

 

[christob]

The highest mileage post I read about here was from (if I recall) very judicious use of assist—only when really needed. The rest of the ride was hugely (up to 100% in many stretches) human powered.
My record is about 75 miles on a charge (still with 2 battery bars remaining at the end —but I had to recharge for a work commute the next day.) I think I could have hit perhaps 100 miles—and as above, it was done with extremely light use of assist, really relying on substantial amounts of gear changing, and probably a total average speed of around 12-13mph across the whole 75 mile outing (which was spread across 3 consecutive days of shorter rides.)

 

[michael mcvey]

I'm one of the guys with the post of high milage (116 on charge), in fact yesterday I posted my trip results "Touring on a Giant Road-E" I believe the major factors are:

1. Yamaha 250 Watt mid drive motor - this setup must be pretty efficient. I can't speak to other manufactures but this is the common factor between myself and the other person reporting high milage (Zoom2Zoom).
2. Battery is 500 Watts
3. Using the lowest level of assist (Eco) 90% of the time, second level (Normal) 10% and highest level (Power) - 0%
4. As Christob stated keep the MPH in a reasonable range 12-16.
5. Listen to the motor - I can hear when the motor is working harder - change gears as necessary to lower the motors effort.
6. Hills and grades - Resist the effort to let the motor do the work or switch the motor to a higher level, gear down like you would on a normal bike and put in the effort yourself - let those legs burn.
7. Riders effort - I'm personally coming off a road bike and for many years have clocked 4,000-6,000 miles annually with many 60-80 mile days, Centuries, and many multi day fully loaded trips, so I tend to put a lot of effort into riding when on the E-Bike.

I don't have skinny tires, (700/38), or did anything to lighten the bike, in fact I carried an additional 30 pounds on my trip and still got reasonable mileage.

One section of this trip is 130 miles, which I do in one day. I have previously ridden this section and got 101 miles before I needed to switch to my second battery. This week I did not do as well, I ran out the first battery in 75 miles. What was different? A) I was tired, as I just completed 4 consecutive 100+ mile days B) Spent more time in the second setting (Normal). I let the motor do more work.

So it might boil down to how much effort the rider puts in vs how much effort the motor puts in. I believe another person could have this exact bike, motor, battery and achieve only 40-60 miles per charge.

 

[AlanDB]

I have a Gazelle Arroyo (Bosch Performance Line with 500W battery). I am not a lightweight ... me and bike together would be close to 300 #. I ride mostly on paved rail trails almost exclusively in Eco mode. I never ride without assist, but will bump up the assist level briefly to Tour or Sport level to get up the occasional steeper incline. I always keep my tires topped off at about 80 #. So I think my conditions are about ideal for maximum range.

I have never run the battery down below 2 (of 5) bars showing on the Intuvia display, but I think I have enough experience with it now to be pretty confident of my maximum range. On 2 different occasions, starting with a full charge, I rode the bike 56 miles. In both cases, the Intuvia showed 2 of 5 bars left on the battery meter. On the first ride, the Intuvia range estimate showed I still had 22 miles left on the battery, on the second ride it showed 36 miles left. Normally when I start with a full battery, the beginning range estimate on the Intuvia is about 90 miles. So extrapolating from this data my maximum range under these ideal conditions seems it would be about 75 to 85 miles.

Is there anything I could do to improve this range? Probably not, short of losing weight or riding some of the time without any assist (or riding on a trail that is all downhill).

 

[Mike TowpathTraveler]

Haibike Full FatSix, Yamaha PW drive system with the 400wh battery. Tires inflated to 30 psi.

From everything I have read, it seems this drive system is the most economical and mileage friendly of them all. To extract the maximum mileage out of this bike, I have found the following works for me: In rides up to 36 miles, STANDARD power setting will get me to and from my destination with battery life left. In rides of 20 miles, I use HIGH power and usually come back home in the driveway having expended an average of 45-60 percent of battery power on the run. Minimal elevation changes as I live in the Delaware River valley of NJ.

I constantly change gears to maintain a cadence between 70 and 80. The most important thing I can relay here is to watch the pedal pressure applied to the motor drive while pedaling; this is where a higher cadence can help keep that pedal pressure down. This is easily monitored by watching the power meter level on the display. Anything 3 bars and over on the power meter and you are draining that battery! Shift gears, pedal with light pressure and watch the difference on the power meter.

A few months back, I completed a 95 mile run on the Full FatSix and at rides end, using a combination of ECO, ECO+ and some STANDARD and HIGH power used here or there, I completed the ride with 18% battery power remaining. Not bad! I cannot be any more pleased with this bike.

A more detailed ride report can be found here, starting at Post #6205: http://forums.mtbr.com/fat-bikes/fat-biking-health-922626-63.html To enlarge the pictures, just click on the photo!

 

[Mr. Coffee]

Hi Michael. Impressive distances. I have a question, never having ridden those distances but planning to one day. On the 75 mile ride, can I assume there was no lunch stop, no opportunity to recharge the battery?

There is always a place to charge. Well, almost always...

I think judicious route selection is also a big piece to getting the most range. A somewhat longer route that avoids a steeper uphill but still has the same elevation gain will often use fewer electrons than attacking that steep hill straight on. Similarly, a longer, gentler downhill where you can just let the bike fly will be more efficient than a shorter, steeper, downhill where you have to brake.

Also: avoid headwinds.

I suspect but do not know that you'd probably get more range out of a European-rules Bosch drive with the 25km/h max speed versus the North American versus with a 20mph max speed. I also suspect (but also do not know for sure) that the "sweet spot" on a North American Bosch is around 18-19 mph, largely because regardless of assist levels the drive system isn't putting out very much power at those speeds.

 

[michael mcvey]

Rincon, answering your question "...no lunch stop, no opportunity to recharge the battery?"

On the Pacific Coast route, there are many opportunities (Starbucks, etc). Its one thing to charge your phone while at coffee houses and cafes but I think its kind of forward to plug in a big ass 500 watt battery. Also, I personally don't stay long enough during breaks to get much of a charge. So my solution is to always carry enough battery for the distance I'm riding. Most rides is 1 500 watt. For tours and multi day treks I carry a spare 500 watt.

 

[PDoz]

My experience is the ( giant) Yamaha can be very efficient if I ride it as a bike, but can chew through power alarmingly if I ride as an ebike.

Ridden in eco mode , cadence kept above 70 , using gears BEFORE the motor starts compensating for cadence dropping , and keeping up speed through corners / over jumps I can get 150 km out of the 500 w battery ( dual suspension set up plush, 2.6 inch tyres set up plush, and a gravity challenged rider) - nb this would be over several rides - I run out of human power within an hour if I ride like that.

If I start using higher levels of assistance , in particular letting the yamahas huge low cadence torque compensate for my jelly legs, then my range is frightening - worst case was 90% power use within 45 km of slow technical mountain bike riding. On that ride, a freind got better economy out of his trek ( bosch) but he's a LOT fitter than me.

 

[ebikemom]

The biggest range extender is pedaling harder.

 

[AlanDB]

The biggest range extender is pedaling harder.

May be true on a hub drive, but not necessarily on a mid drive.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

Rincon, answering your question "...no lunch stop, no opportunity to recharge the battery?"

On the Pacific Coast route, there are many opportunities (Starbucks, etc). Its one thing to charge your phone while at coffee houses and cafes but I think its kind of forward to plug in a big ass 500 watt battery. Also, I personally don't stay long enough during breaks to get much of a charge. So my solution is to always carry enough battery for the distance I'm riding. Most rides is 1 500 watt. For tours and multi day treks I carry a spare 500 watt.

My two big go-tos for charging on journey are picnic shelters in well-developed parks and coin-op laundromats.

In Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia I've found that most state (provincial) parks will have picnic shelters with outlets in their day-use areas. A lot of county and municipal parks will have them as well. My preference is to grab lunch to go and eat and hang out at a park and hopefully get a bit of charge if I need it.

Coin-op laundries are great because if you need to stop for laundry anyway you'll get 90 minutes or so of charging time.

 

[ebikemom]

May be true on a hub drive, but not necessarily on a mid drive.

Ah! I have a hub drive, and see a big difference in how much battery is left at the end of my commute depending on the strategies I use. On my Class 2, hub drive bike, if I want longer battery range, I...

• Use a lower PAS and pedal harder.
• Either coast down hills, or, to get even more range, pedal down hills but in a low PAS so the PAS doesn't kick in.
• Start by pedaling and not by using the throttle.
• Choose less hilly routes if I have a choice.
• Use gear changes, not PAS changes, when encountering grades/hills, as much as possible, increasing PAS only if necessary.

On the last item, with my hub drive pedal-assist bike, one way to handle hills is to keep the bike gear the same and up the PAS to a higher level. If the grade isn't too steep, though, one can stay in the same PAS and do the hill in a lower gear, PAS still helps (because it is keyed to mph, so going slower means it still is there kicking in), but lower PAS has less accelleration power than higher PAS, so it uses less battery energy.

Those are my strategies.

 

[larry-new]

I'm lazy in my old age, so I bought a second battery. With using min. assist, I estimate 45-55 miles per battery conservatively.
Rad City, tires to 80/90#.

 

[AlanDB]

Ah! I have a hub drive, and see a big difference in how much battery is left at the end of my commute depending on the strategies I use. On my Class 2, hub drive bike, if I want longer battery range, I...

• Use a lower PAS and pedal harder.
• Either coast down hills, or, to get even more range, pedal down hills but in a low PAS so the PAS doesn't kick in.
• Start by pedaling and not by using the throttle.
• Choose less hilly routes if I have a choice.
• Use gear changes, not PAS changes, when encountering grades/hills, as much as possible, increasing PAS only if necessary.

On the last item, with my hub drive pedal-assist bike, one way to handle hills is to keep the bike gear the same and up the PAS to a higher level. If the grade isn't too steep, though, one can stay in the same PAS and do the hill in a lower gear, PAS still helps (because it is keyed to mph, so going slower means it still is there kicking in), but lower PAS has less accelleration power than higher PAS, so it uses less battery energy.

Those are my strategies.

Most of those strategies will also work on mid drives. I think most mid drives primarily use torque sensing to determine the power delivered by the motor. So the trick is to reduce the torque on the pedals by changing to a lower gear and compensate by increasing the cadence. The Bosch Intuvia display actually has an alert (a little down arrow) when you are using too much torque and need to downshift. So I guess in response to your other post, I would say "Pedal faster, not harder". I think the hub drive on your Pedego uses both torque and cadence sensing, so I am not sure how those two interact with each other to determine the power draw by the motor.

 

[AHicks]

My butt/wrists/hands are only good for 20 miles, so it's easy for me to say I just don't do long range. Being retired, my mind set is nearly always set to "no hurry" (easier said than done at first, but now firmly entrenched), so that leaves quite an advantage from a battery life perspective as well.

I still enjoy trying to remain efficient on a ride though, for my own longevity, and the battery's. If there's no wind, my PAS level is generally set to 1. If I encounter a small hill of maybe 100 ft' length, I just punch the throttle to clear it. This, to me, seems more efficient than changing the PAS level to 2 or 3 for the length of the hill, then remembering to return it to 1. Other than that, I just try to use the bike's gearing efficiently. Not that I go overboard though. When speeds get down to 5mph or so, there's no hesitation to use a higher PAS level.

 

[michael mcvey]

Accurate and detailed Information displayed to the rider in one form or another is key to helping the rider manage the battery life and achieve higher milage.

I have seen and heard about displays that provide next to nothing. An example is a display that shows 4 bars representing battery remaining. The display goes from 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 as the battery drains.

The Giant Road-E that I ride has a very useful metric that helps me tremendously with managing my effort and battery consumption. It will be difficult to achieve high milage without this metric.

The metric is a percent remaining in the form 100%, 99%, 98%,.......03%, 02%, 01%. This metric is very accurate and moves very smoothly from 100% - 01%.

Disclaimer - Once it hits 12% it starts behaving erratically and moves from 12 to 0 quite rapidly. Giant needs to address this. But none the less the metric is very useful.

Heres how it helps me:

On a training ride I have a goal to achieve ~100 miles per charge. Doing simple math equates to 1 mile for every 1% of the battery. I watch the metric closely as I ride. At 5 miles I want the display to show 95% remaining, at 25 miles 75% remaining.

There are times when I'm doing better then the goal and the display shows (as an example) 70 miles and 50% remaining. This tells me I have a 20% or a 20 mile buffer. I'm always trying to build up the buffer, its kind of a game with me.

When riding grades I will notice the bike is using 2%-3% per mile, and 0% on the downhills. So the average usually evens out over the course of many miles.

When I have a buffer like the 20%, I can be lazy and use more power on the next grade, If I don't have a buffer I work harder on the next grade. Its kind of fun to manage the ride this way and its been very helpful over the last 3,000 miles on this bike.

This metric is perfect for me, and I could not manage to achieve the high miles without it. When I go to replace this bike this is a must have requirement for the next bike.

Manufactures - if your watching, take note - accurate and detailed information displayed to the rider is very important.

 

[AHicks]

Sounds like a nice display. Is it proprietary to Giant?

 

[Mr. Coffee]

My rules of thumb are about 10kwh per mile on the flats (and rolling terrain) and about 50kwh per 500 feet of elevation gain in a low level of pedal assist. Using a high level of pedal assist approximately doubles those figures.

I agree that the hard percentage display makes cranking out a lot of range much easier. Almost as good is an estimated range display like the Bosch systems have. One thing I find funny is that to provide the estimated range you need to have a very accurate battery level but there is no way to display that on the Intuvia. Maybe the Nyon and Cobi provide that feature?

This long steep groaner of a tour uses about seventy percent of my 1000wh batteries.

 

[Nova Haibike]

Sounds like a nice display. Is it proprietary to Giant?

Giant uses a custom display with their Yamaha system, but Yamaha's regular displays have a battery percentage readout as well.