Radwagon Range

[Tom Meara]

I've had the bike all of three days and it has exceeded expectations. Yes, it is heavy and yes, the components are low-end but the bike balances value and function quite well.

I live in far western New York state about 1 hour south of Buffalo. It is a small town where just about everything is reachable in a 10 mile round trip but it is very hilly. I've been riding non-powered bikes since I was a kid and until recently rode about 3000 miles per year, mostly in club rides and long distance touring. Now that I'm retired I should be riding more but have found myself riding less and gaining weight. The purpose of this bike is to use it for all of those short trips where I had to carry things so I was not too concerned about range. It is to be a cargo bike with power assist for the hills. My question was, "How far could I go if I wanted to?"

The route used for the test was about as flat as I can find around here with a total of 600 feet of elevation change over 19.6 miles.

The conditions were stock components (my Schwalbles come today), little wind, a PAS level set to 1 and never use the throttle. My tires were inflated to 55 psi. I had to work but found that under most conditions the level one assist compensated for the extra weight and drag of the motor while providing a little boost. On flat to rolling roads I maintained an average speed of 15-16 which is what I would normally do on my non-powered road bikes. At that level of assist and speed I would draw 70 watts as indicated by the photo.

Notice the battery level is still showing 5 bars after 12.6 miles. This is why the Radwagon has exceeded my expectations. Since I had gone farther on less power than I was expecting I resolved to take a photo at every mile starting at 13 and continuing till the end. For safety reasons I stopped for the mile 13 photo.

At this point I started to do some math wondering if I could do 13 miles on one bar could I really do 65 miles on a single charge? Unfortunately, soon after taking this photo I started to fiddle with the computer to display average speed and held the mode button too long, resetting the trip mileage. I didn't time myself but I estimate the average speed to be 12-14 mph since there is only one stoplight on this route and the only thing that really slowed my down was the hills with PAS 1.

The first bar disappeared at the 14.5 mile mark and the battery meter stayed at 4 bars until just before I got home. The last 1/4 mile is downhill and the regen brought the battery back to 5 bars as I pulled into the yard as you can see in the last photo. Google maps has this route at 19.6 and I think I reset the computer at 13.3 or 13.4 so my wheel circumference setting for mileage, speed, etc. is pretty good.

I think I can safely say that I traveled at 14-16 mph on a flat to slightly rolling route for 20 miles and use only 20% of my battery. I will have to try for 60 miles on a single charge, if I can find a flat 60 miles around here. Stay tuned.

 

[SuperGoop]

The only accurate range test is to ride your bike from full charge until the battery shuts off. The battery indicator is never accurate. One bar does NOT mean 20%. Also, a fresh battery has ~54V, but when the battery is near the end, it is only ~41V (cut off by controller to protect battery). Therefore, the top-half of your battery will feel much more "zippier" than the bottom-half, so the performance is also different.

From my experience, the battery indicator is not linear. My long-term experience with my Yukon 750:

5 bars: 100%
4 bars: 60%
3 bars: 30%
2 bars: 10%
1 bar: 0%

 

[Tom Meara]

That is good input and it is what I plan to do, starting with 40 miles. I'll have to watch the watt meter as I eat into the battery to see what power the assist level 1 is providing at 60-40%.

 

[mrgold35]

The battery indicator on the Rad bikes does double duty. It shows the current charge at rest within 20% AND it show the current load on the battery when pulling power within 20% when riding. I've started out with 5 bars and PAS 4 and the battery indicator will drop down to 4 or even 3 bars showing the load/draw on the battery pack when riding. The battery indicator is back at 5 bars when I park my bike at work 6 miles later.

Pretty much the best way to figure out your true range is ride until the battery indicator starts to blink or even when the bike shuts power off. Between heat/cold, inclines/declines, wind, stop/go traffic, drag from riding position, weight, pedal power you add, tire PSI, etc... it is hard to get an exact range with and electric bike. I've gone a little under 40 miles on my Rover at PAS 2-3 with avg speed of 11-13 mph on mostly level ground with a solid 1 bar after the ride. I usually average 23-27 miles at PAS 3-4 if I need a higher average speed closer to 17-20 mph.

One difference I think from the Yukon bikes compared to the Rad Rovers is the battery/controller delivers full power in the selected PAS until it starts to deplete the battery reserves and it then reduces the peak power; but, still provides the max amount of power available. Example is riding PAS 4 at 550w until you have 2 or 1 bar showing. There will be zero drop off in performance until the controller can't draw the extra power from the battery to maintain 550w. The controller will then step down the watts availble to deliver max power in the slected PAS (PAS 4 with 1 or 2 bar might show 450w -400w-350w-etc.. until the indicator starts to blink or bike shuts off).

 

[OrangeWagon]

Great review! I love mine too, but you are correct: it is heavy and components are low end.

Once thing I noticed, is that the battery bar display accuracy is marginal at best. Also, it will vary (go down when you draw a lot in a climb, and then go up when it's flat). So I wouldn't take it seriously to extrapolate. I'm eager to hear about your full ride until depletion.

On my experience, I use the bike to get to work on a bike as fast as I can. It's a 13mi route (one way), with lots of climb (1500ft):

• I do it on PAS 5
• carry about 12lbs of cargo (removed floorboards)
• I weight 160lbs
• wear cycling shoes/clips
• and haul ass all the way (average 20mph)

After that, I seem to have 25% left charge. So I always need to charge at work for the trip home. My round trip with my 17lbs road bike is about 2hrs, with the RadWagon on PAS 5 and riding hard is about 1:15 hr. It has shaved my commute almost by half!

 

[Tom Meara]

This is all good input. I do understand the variability of metering power while under a load, which is why I chose a flat(ish) route and a regular cadence while monitoring the power draw. One idea I have is to get a power meter (Kill a Watt) for my charger and see how much I'm putting back into the battery. My loaded touring bike (Atlantis) is just shy of 70 pounds. I'm well tuned to going slowly and using gearing so my battery doesn't get depleted. I was not planning to use this for rides in the country but it does look like it may be capable of that if you are willing to work some.

What makes it fun is upon returning from my 20 mile test my wife said I had to deliver 6 campaign yard signs to a friend who runs a restaurant in town then return with 6 of his signs, and pick up some lunch while your're there. I attached my grocery pannier, strapped the 6 Ferguson signs on the rack, and took off. Since I was tired, hungry and in traffic I set the bike to level 3 for the two mile downhill ride to the Lab. I delivered the signs, dropped two Havana Shakedown burritos into the pannier, strapped 6 more Besse signs to the rack and rode home. No sweat and still have 4 bars. Can't do that on my road bikes.

What makes this even sweeter is my garage is off grid. I put an array on the front to feed two 50 AH deep cycle batteries and have a 1000 watt inverter for lights and small power tools. I ride into the garage and plug in the charger to the solar system. I'm riding on sunshine.