Speed Run

[JRA]

Once in awhile you have to blow out the cobwebs.

This was including pushing a 140" gear at about 80 rpm on level pavement. Hovering right around 900 + watts for the most part. Stiff cross wind for most of it with some tail wind which is where the MaxS came about I guess.

Usually my rides look more like this:

And that included a 4 mile hill climb and averaging more like 300w. Really shows how much it takes to push through the air trying to maintain Class III speed.

 

[rudymsmith]

Impressive to be able to record all the stats. I often pull flat bellied road bikers in a peloton at 26 miles / hour for right at 30 miles of riding. I'm on a Trek Super Commuter 8S and have handle bars that let me drop into the crouch. Wind is typically 5-10 miles per hour and I ride in the second level of assist which it the Tour Mode. So if you want to make the flat bellied road bikers happy - just break wind for them - pun intended.

 

[Ebiker01]

Once in awhile you have to blow out the cobwebs.

View attachment 16895
This was including pushing a 140" gear at about 80 rpm on level pavement. Hovering right around 900 + watts for the most part. Stiff cross wind for most of it with some tail wind which is where the MaxS came about I guess.

Usually my rides look more like this:

View attachment 16896

And that included a 4 mile hill climb and averaging more like 300w. Really shows how much it takes to push through the air trying to maintain Class III speed.

31.2wh/mile for a 29mph avg.speed for 33min. ?
Woohoo ?. That is a nice rocket ? ride you’ve had .


What is your weight , battery capacity and what Speed pedelec ? Is it Juiced CCX ?
Was that a 54 or 55T with 11 cog gearing ?

Ty for the post, not many users know about this this usefully stats...

 

[JRA]

Actually that was not my best effort as I did another on the same route which was a round trip from my front door when I lived in PDX. It was a nice flat loop at a little over sea level with little traffic and I tried a few times to average 30mph and finally achieved it and used 30wh/mi.



I have two drop bar bikes with 45c tires @ 35psi with front hub motors.



The black bike at that time of the previous post was set up 48v/25A and the silver bike 52v/20A so performance is pretty close, however I use Schlumpf drives on them and the black one has a Speed Drive which has an equivalent 44.5t/11 and that is the one I used for the stats in the first post. The second was done on the silver bike that has a High Speed Drive that has an equivalent 60t/11 and so better pedal input at speeds above 28mph which is where the first bike starts to hamster.

I weigh 195 and both batteries are about 520wh or close to it and it took all the battery to do the runs. I now use a 52v/780wh 21700 battery but haven't given that a speed test as I don't have a comparable track where I live now and quite frankly I haven't done one since the 30mph run and now go for range/speed which I average around 15wh/mi and am happy enough with and rarely average over 20 due to elevation gain and stop and goes and riding alot on sand/gravel and pavé surfaces.

I don't use PAS but have a quality cruise control feature as well as the ability to set my watt limit at 250/500/750/1000w with the push of a button and pedal in whatever gear I deem appropriate. The Cycle Analyst is a great unit in that it has many ways to configure your system and as you suggest gives you all the relevant info you need and with a little simple math going in your head to pass the time you can be very exact as to your distance traveled rather than having a computer do the job for you and it helps to pass the time as well. I find myself for my style of riding to use mainly the 500w selection and rarely if ever use the 1000w mode.

 

[JRA]

Impressive to be able to record all the stats. I often pull flat bellied road bikers in a peloton at 26 miles / hour for right at 30 miles of riding. I'm on a Trek Super Commuter 8S and have handle bars that let me drop into the crouch. Wind is typically 5-10 miles per hour and I ride in the second level of assist which it the Tour Mode. So if you want to make the flat bellied road bikers happy - just break wind for them - pun intended.View attachment 34094

I've taken a few pulls for sure. Motor pacing has been around for a long time and I am surprised you don't see more clubs using eBikes for training purposes. I look forward to the day when I can get together a mini peloton of eBikes and see how far we can stretch our wh's.

 

[rudymsmith]

I've taken a few pulls for sure. Motor pacing has been around for a long time and I am surprised you don't see more clubs using eBikes for training purposes. I look forward to the day when I can get together a mini peloton of eBikes and see how far we can stretch our wh's.

what a great idea - an ebike peloton!

 

[Ebiker01]

Actually that was not my best effort as I did another on the same route which was a round trip from my front door when I lived in PDX. It was a nice flat loop at a little over sea level with little traffic and I tried a few times to average 30mph and finally achieved it and used 30wh/mi.

View attachment 34123

I have two drop bar bikes with 45c tires @ 35psi with front hub motors.

View attachment 34124

The black bike at that time of the previous post was set up 48v/25A and the silver bike 52v/20A so performance is pretty close, however I use Schlumpf drives on them and the black one has a Speed Drive which has an equivalent 44.5t/11 and that is the one I used for the stats in the first post. The second was done on the silver bike that has a High Speed Drive that has an equivalent 60t/11 and so better pedal input at speeds above 28mph which is where the first bike starts to hamster.

I weigh 195 and both batteries are about 520wh or close to it and it took all the battery to do the runs. I now use a 52v/780wh 21700 battery but haven't given that a speed test as I don't have a comparable track where I live now and quite frankly I haven't done one since the 30mph run and now go for range/speed which I average around 15wh/mi and am happy enough with and rarely average over 20 due to elevation gain and stop and goes and riding alot on sand/gravel and pavé surfaces.

I don't use PAS but have a quality cruise control feature as well as the ability to set my watt limit at 250/500/750/1000w with the push of a button and pedal in whatever gear I deem appropriate. The Cycle Analyst is a great unit in that it has many ways to configure your system and as you suggest gives you all the relevant info you need and with a little simple math going in your head to pass the time you can be very exact as to your distance traveled rather than having a computer do the job for you and it helps to pass the time as well. I find myself for my style of riding to use mainly the 500w selection and rarely if ever use the 1000w mode.

Really nice and quality builds. Is there a previous posts where you went in details about how either bike was set up ? ( not sure how the front hub fitted in the fork with the disc breaks).


I would like to do a build like that on my carbon road bike. The prices that they charge on an e road bike are kind of high and performance is not that great(except the Trek domane e + but that one is 6K and still it has a small battery-500wh).

 

[JRA]

Although I could describe in detail how I set up those bike 2 years ago and maybe have on here in the distant past I think it would be more relevant if I detailed what I would do today knowing what I have learned from them and the current state of tech.

First of all I wouldn't change using a front hub motor. They get a really bad rap due to past issues in regards to how they were installed, mostly due to the fact that they were set up without proper torque arm(s) and were overpowered which I would consider anything beyond 1000w to be. My experience using that size motor in both aluminum and carbon fiber forks properly installed and monitored have provided thousands of miles of riding.

My first hub motor experience was in 2001 and I was attracted to the concept for the front wheel drive potential as well as the ability to swap back into regular mode easily just switching back to the stock wheel and leaving the battery off if I wanted to not have the assist function. Admittedly I have only done this twice over the years but it may be more useful to others and options are always good. The front wheel drive in congress with human pedal input however is a feature I use all the time to my advantage. It really works in soft ground situations as well as climbing the steep gravel logging roads in encounter. I also feel that weight distribution is optimal with the front weighted by the hub, the center weighted by the battery and my weight biased towards the rear when necessary but able to move around and be the pendulum to maintain optimum traction and handling.

That said my build today would use:

Bafang G311: https://www.ebikes.ca/shop/electric-bicycle-kits/bafang-g310-311/front-g311-kit-basic-throttle.html

A weight savings of around 3 3/4lbs over my lighter DD AnyAxle motor and getting the 500w power I find most useful makes me want to go with this. Geared hub motors don't have regen and as much as I use it on my bikes that is mostly because it is there to use and would be the only thing that would change. I would spec the CA3 and thumb throttle as well as the baserunner controller out of the kit format.

The one issue that gripes me about the Bafang and one of the reasons I went with the AnyAxle is that they only come in 36h drilling. This severely limits the rim selection if you want to run tubeless especially. However Velocity does make rims that will work. Also the AnyAxle as it suggests will fit any axle standard from 10QR to 20mm Thruaxle and has a built in torque arm. But the Bafang might be a moot case to someone that wants a higher speed config and the AnyAxle the best option?

Battery: https://ebikemarketplace.com/collec...-sea-viper-21700-cells?variant=16054715908167

This is the battery I am now using mainly because I feel the 2170 cells are worth the extra little investment in that they are able to charge and discharge at a higher rate which means to me that at my usual medium rate will make them more efficient adding wh/mi and also the option of a faster charge and more power on tap via less voltage drop. The standard type case is easy to mount and remove and I know that integrated is the most popular option for "looks and stealth" personally I am more interested in performance and forward ability to upgrade components via open source.

A bit about the cruise control function I prefer. The reason why I choose to not use PAS on my road bikes, although I do prefer TA on my MTB, is that I find having the ability to separate the motor assist from my pedal input to be more natural feeling at the higher cadence I use riding the road and how I like to varying it by gear selection over assist selection. I use a throttle to set my wattage/desired speed and to start off and vary assist output while under way but mostly I run in the set mode whenever possible and concentrate on my desired cadence/physical input. I realize this is counter to what has become the accepted norm but whatever, it works for me.




If someone has to have PAS the above system is able to use a torque sensing bb, as I said options are good.

 

[Ebiker01]

JRA , thank you for this detailed info !

What i know about cruise control is very little, my understanding is that :

A) -once you set it to say 25 mph , you won’t need to pedal or you could ?

B) - then if you keep a certain gear and pedal harder and you go maybe 27 mph , then the motor will stop providing the assistance ? And you would raise the cruise control speed to 27mph i guess ...

I have to reread that paragraph that you wrote again and do some googlinh to learn it better. We could call it CC(Cruise control).

The main e bike Companies should definetly provide the cruise control feature because it’s very helpful , this way you can concentrate like you said on riding, gearing , other things(not the smartphone) and also have better attention on the road and safety.

 

[JRA]

There is a setting in the CA that allows you to set the CC via holding the throttle still for 2/3 or 4 seconds, I keep it set to the lowest 2 sec, and when you let go it will modulate the wattage at whatever it was at when it activated to your desired speed. That means that if you had the watts set at 1000 and you wanted to go 24 mph if you were going downhill with a tail wind and easily going over 24 mph there would be no watts of assist. But if you turned around and went back up against the hill against the headwind it would go to the 1000w and try to get you up there at 24 mph although in reality you may not go that fast but it will go as fast as the system is able to on it's own or with your pedal input. To deactivate I either can blip the throttle or hit the red regen button on the other hood.

On flat ground it is basically the same. Set to the speed you want and the watts will accommodate in making up for what you are not putting in. But you can also set it to the watt output you want and it won't go over that also which sounds a bit confusing but is how it works. Before I got the watt selector feature enabled I would set my watts at 300 when climbing and it would rest there all the way to the top but if I leveled out or went down a bit it would back off as I went faster but I would just shift some gear and not fuss with it if I knew another grade was coming up soon. As I am writing this it sounds complicated in theory but in reality it really is easy to do.

On a ride I did today in a park trail system, mostly old single track in coastal pines with a sand base and lots of roots, I didn't use the CC as much but would pedal and burp the throttle when I felt my momentum start to lag. The FWD came into play quite a bit when going over root step ups in that I could manual the wheel up onto the top and give the throttle a burp and it would drag me and the bike up and over and I didn't have to worry about pedaling until I had cleared the root. But mostly I pedal and riding a rigid drop bar bike with narrow tires on single track is fun but not as efficient/fast as an mtb for sure. I think I averaged about 10 mph for the 3 hrs I was out and about.



We are experiencing the first heat wave of the season here and it was stuffy in the woods and when I got out on the beach and rode up it to the South Jetty it was nice and cool due to a stiff headwind but easy cruising on the hard sand in 250w mode loafing along at 11-12 mph hands off the bars style, no traffic and lot's of birds to gawk at too.



This also illustrates how I have my cockpit setup. The throttle on the right falls easily to hand while in my primary control position on the hoods but when in CC I can move my hand to wherever I want. The red button on the left is a momentary switch that activates the regen and I can easily apply the brake lever at the same time. To the right of it is the button control for the watt selection, also easy to activate from my primary control position. I never liked the standard mount for the CA that precluded that it be mounted above the bars and came up with the idea to make a plate that is nothing more than a headset spacer with enough sticking out to mount the display to with some double sided tape. There is enough room between it and the bar to still be able to wrap my hand on the bar above it so I pretty much maintain all available hand positions. It is easy to read and keep track of and also to use the buttons if I want to say check my wh/mi while underway. A rearview mirror is pretty much a must have I feel and also I usually have a bell but I had it where the watt selector is and have to make a longer mount for the right side so it is outside the throttle here one of these days.....

 

[Ebiker01]

Yes i understood the whole post very well. I really appreciate your time going into details and writing it perfectly.


It looks like it is a better enjoyment and a higher degree of safety riding an ebike the way you have it set up !

Ps- I use a Spurcycle ? . It is unbreakable , very high quality, made in Us, and has a really unique people friendly sound too, it can be loud or not soo loud depending on how hard the lever is pushed.


The scenery in your outdoor pic is worthy of a National Geographic photoshoot. That is the best riding-in nature, on trails, etc.

 

[tomjasz]

Thank goodness someone extols the virtues of front hubs. I have the range of Bafang mid drives and find myself getting on my Trek Pure flat foot with a 1000W front DD Mxus. Reliable, quick if I want to be and such an easy conversion.

My only concern with the Bafang gear drives is parts access. Bafang is a nightmare for parts access. BUT buying from Grin, ebikes.ca solves that issue. AND Grin's custom touches and controllers with a CA2.4 or CA3 just can't be beaten. Often criticized for not having a pretty color display. I find no advantages to any of my color displays and they have none of the features of the Cycle Analysts.

 

[JRA]

Thank goodness someone extols the virtues of front hubs. I have the range of Bafang mid drives and find myself getting on my Trek Pure flat foot with a 1000W front DD Mxus. Reliable, quick if I want to be and such an easy conversion.

My only concern with the Bafang gear drives is parts access. Bafang is a nightmare for parts access. BUT buying from Grin, ebikes.ca solves that issue. AND Grin's custom touches and controllers with a CA2.4 or CA3 just can't be beaten. Often criticized for not having a pretty color display. I find no advantages to any of my color displays and they have none of the features of the Cycle Analysts.

Front hub motors for sure get a bad rap. However very few have actually even ridden a bike with one to give it a chance but to those that have them properly setup I think you'll find they are very happy with them. As I have said before I like both mid drive and front hub systems but for different reasons and how I use them. I don't go around dissing folks for their choices as a rule but others don't seem to mind getting in their .02 regarding front hub motors for sure.

Yeah Bafang is off the back with their aftermarket support but as you say Grin is at least a reliable source with great customer support. I am not even sure if I would like the GA over my AA but at some point I will have to see for myself as that is really my barometer. I would only have to have the wheel and plug it into one of my bikes so it won't cost much to try.

What do you mean the CA isn't a color display it's green and blue . I think mine is much prettier now that it is tucked away but will they never win any beauty contests. I am a function over form type anyway.

 

[tomjasz]

I think mine is much prettier now that it is tucked away but will they never win any beauty contests. I am a function over form type anyway.

I hadn’t considered tucking the display away, but I’m gonna look hard at my new build. I went for a Baserunner, CA3, MAC rear, and the Crystalyte (sp?) ignition key wired, rear rack pack. Thanks for the inspiration. Another front MAC in the wings to take the place of the drive I despise. TSDZ2 will be sold off with spare controller and display. A great motor for the ambitious fellas good with electronics and programming stuff.

 

[JRA]

Thomas, tried to send you a PM? Try from your end?

 

[tomjasz]

Thomas, tried to send you a PM? Try from your end?

Sent PM