Totally absurd possibilities for touring

[K PierreR]

I have been setting up my bike for long distance remote off road touring and just could not fit everything onto my fat e bike so I ordered a fat wheel trailer from QuietKat. The advertised trailer bed was 14" X 24" and a rear pannier and top rack on the wheel. What I got was a trailer with a bed at 17"X27" and higher weight capacity. This thing uses a Bob Axle.

Get a load of this. Here is the trailer with my Honda EU100ie Generator with 10 gallons of gas. My battery size is 52 Volts 49 amp hours (2,540 watt hours). My Charger size is 15 amps and pulls a max of 900 watts, right at the max duty rating of the Honda 1000. As pictured, the trailer is at 80% capacity with the bike racks and the trailer racks totally empty. That is charging capacity for 65,000 watt hours. I could easily act as the charge sag wagon for a remote group self contained e bike ride. The Honda is quiet

The whole possibility is absolutely shocking to me.

 

[Spicy Legato]

I'd rather carry about 200 watts of flexible solar panels, and a power station. Such a setup would only weigh 25 lbs. I'd charge from 10am until 4pm.

 

[rich c]

No gas stations where you are going? That's a lot of gas for that tiny Honda.

 

[K PierreR]

I'd rather carry about 200 watts of flexible solar panels, and a power station. Such a setup would only weigh 25 lbs. I'd charge from 10am until 4pm.

The Honda weighs less than the panel setup. Gas is only 6lb per gallon. The Honda holds 1.2. I would not think anyone would carry 10 gallons. I put that much gas in for illustration, but who knows, you might have 3-4 riders on the Canning Stock Route. With a heavy solar panel it would take a long time to charge up for 6-7 riders and practically nothing on cloudy days. With a solar panel, you have to value your time pretty low.
I did mention, the idea was absurd but very doable.

 

[Dallant]

So how long does it actually take you to charge one of your batteries with that Honda? I’ve been pondering a new, quiet generator for our long camping trips and it would mostly live in our pickup.

 

[K PierreR]

So how long does it actually take you to charge one of your batteries with that Honda? I’ve been pondering a new, quiet generator for our long camping trips and it would mostly live in our pickup.

I do not believe the generator idea works without properly sizing batteries, charger and generator. In my case the duty rating of the generator is 900 watts. The charger is 15 amps at 25 volts so the charger will pull between 700 and 900 watts charging. My battery size is 2,540 watt hours. After a long day ride of about 90 miles at 13-16 mph on dirt the battery will be down by about 1,800 watts. 85% down to about 30% would take about 2 and a half hours to charge and be sized perfectly to get the max out of the gas burned and run time.
It would not make much sense if you run a 650 watt hour battery down 70% after 24 miles and use a 2 amp charger putting out 120 watts to charge it for 4 hours. You would only get about 48 miles a day and charge 8 hours on gas. In contrast, I would go 90 miles and charge 2 and a half hours.
It makes sense if you load the generator to a good capacity. Something like 3-4 bikes at 4 amp charging.
Also in my case, I have enough battery capacity to generally reach a charging point on my planned travels so I would not really need the generator.

 

[Spicy Legato]

The Honda weighs less than the panel setup. Gas is only 6lb per gallon. The Honda holds 1.2. I would not think anyone would carry 10 gallons. I put that much gas in for illustration, but who knows, you might have 3-4 riders on the Canning Stock Route. With a heavy solar panel it would take a long time to charge up for 6-7 riders and practically nothing on cloudy days. With a solar panel, you have to value your time pretty low.
I did mention, the idea was absurd but very doable.

Solar panels aren't heavy. A 100 watt panel is 4 lbs.

If you're gonna use gas, you might as well ride an ICE bike. If multiple people need to use you as a charging station, use an electric car, or electric motorcycle, and charge off that.

It is incredibly inefficient to charge an ebike with an ICE generator. Just ride an ICE motorcycle. How many kWh of battery can you fill up burning a gallon of gas? I'm guessing 3 or 4 kWh, in a real world situation.

 

[Dallant]

Solar panels aren't heavy. A 100 watt panel is 4 lbs.

If you're gonna use gas, you might as well ride an ICE bike. If multiple people need to use you as a charging station, use an electric car, or electric motorcycle, and charge off that.

It incredibly inefficient to charge an ebike with an ICE generator. Just ride an ICE motorcycle.

Except (in my case anyway) I’m gonna be using the generator for other things while truck-camping. If I was just bike-camping, solar would make more sense.

 

[K PierreR]

Solar panels aren't heavy. A 100 watt panel is 4 lbs.

Solar panels do not put out their name plate power except at high noon in the tropics and less than 35%RH. Solar panels are also not a reliable source of dispatchable power. Reliable and dispatchable meaning I can count on this much power during this chosen time slot. For me that is 2,100 watt hours of power to my batteries so they will charge up 1,800 watts in under 3 hours, any time of the day, every day, rain or shine.
With 200 watts of solar panel, on sunny days, I would be doing a damned good job to stick 400 watt hours a day in the batteries. That is 20 miles. It would take me 135 sunny days to do the ride I am contemplating doing in 35 days. It always costs more on the road than it does at home. For me, solar is a total non starter.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

My $0.02.

At least for bicycle travel in most of the lower 48 in the United States, and for that matter much of Canada and Alaska where there are roads, I think it would take a pretty contrived travel itinerary to not bring you within range of an outlet every other day, assuming travel distances of 50-75 miles per day. So I suspect that it would be simpler and more fun to just bring two chargers and around 2kWH or so of battery.

Yes, you can find lots of places where there might be quite a bit more road miles between outlets, but again it would on the average be a rather contrived itinerary and in most cases you could easily work around it.

There are a few bucket list rides where my current kit (with three 500wh batteries) probably doesn't have the legs. I'd prefer solving that problem with either more batteries or more appropriate technology.

 

[Mulezen]

Solar panels aren't heavy. A 100 watt panel is 4 lbs.

If you're gonna use gas, you might as well ride an ICE bike. If multiple people need to use you as a charging station, use an electric car, or electric motorcycle, and charge off that.

It is incredibly inefficient to charge an ebike with an ICE generator. Just ride an ICE motorcycle. How many kWh of battery can you fill up burning a gallon of gas? I'm guessing 3 or 4 kWh, in a real world situation.

It does seem a little like picking yourself up by your own bootstraps

 

[Comfortably Numb]

My $0.02.

Canada?

Hell, don't you know that as soon as you cross the border into Canada all we have is frozen tundra, igloos and no power at all? And that's in the summer. You don't want to come here in our winters. CN

 

[Mr. Coffee]

Hell, don't you know that as soon as you cross the border into Canada all we have is frozen tundra, igloos and no power at all? And that's in the summer. You don't want to come here in our winters. CN

In normal times, I'd be heading north for another month of Skiing about now...

 

[Luto]

Not to be a downer, but seems like a bit of a rabbit hole. We used to ride and figure how many bananas we needed to eat every hour. I wonder how many hamburgers one would need to eat and pedal the equivalent amount of "power" of that generator and gas? That being said, I am actually selling my e-bike and going back to a regular gravel bike this spring. The e-bike got me back in shape and now I just ride it without power assist. Back to hamburger and banana power!

 

[Stoneyrun]

I have been setting up my bike for long distance remote off road touring and just could not fit everything onto my fat e bike so I ordered a fat wheel trailer from QuietKat. The advertised trailer bed was 14" X 24" and a rear pannier and top rack on the wheel. What I got was a trailer with a bed at 17"X27" and higher weight capacity. This thing uses a Bob Axle.

Get a load of this. Here is the trailer with my Honda EU100ie Generator with 10 gallons of gas. My battery size is 52 Volts 49 amp hours (2,540 watt hours). My Charger size is 15 amps and pulls a max of 900 watts, right at the max duty rating of the Honda 1000. As pictured, the trailer is at 80% capacity with the bike racks and the trailer racks totally empty. That is charging capacity for 65,000 watt hours. I could easily act as the charge sag wagon for a remote group self contained e bike ride. The Honda is quiet
View attachment 82248View attachment 82249
The whole possibility is absolutely shocking to me.

LCD Display MPPT Solar Regulator Charge Controller 24-72V Boost MPT-7210A and at least a couple hundred watt solar panel is supposedly all you need on your trailer. Use the panel as a trailer cover and carry your camping gear in the trailer cargo area. Liquid is too heavy. It should work fine with your current set up. But, you are pulling a bunch of weight and heating up the motor would be my main concern. Make sure you can pedal without assist in case of motor problem is my suggestion. I'm setting up an aosom trailer for touring on a fat tire also. My bike isn't here yet though. But my plan is to limit daily use, monitor motor heat, solar recharge battery while using 2nd battery. Make use of any power option along the way. Best of luck, safe travels, and please share your journeys here.

 

[webcurl]

LCD Display MPPT Solar Regulator Charge Controller 24-72V Boost MPT-7210A and

Better off with one of these: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000282022570.html or better yet a Genasun.
The MPT-7210A has issues!

 

[K PierreR]

LCD Display MPPT Solar Regulator Charge Controller 24-72V Boost MPT-7210A and at least a couple hundred watt solar panel is supposedly all you need on your trailer. Use the panel as a trailer cover and carry your camping gear in the trailer cargo area. Liquid is too heavy. It should work fine with your current set up. But, you are pulling a bunch of weight and heating up the motor would be my main concern. Make sure you can pedal without assist in case of motor problem is my suggestion. I'm setting up an aosom trailer for touring on a fat tire also. My bike isn't here yet though. But my plan is to limit daily use, monitor motor heat, solar recharge battery while using 2nd battery. Make use of any power option along the way. Best of luck, safe travels, and please share your journeys her

A 200 watt solar panel is more than a square meter and pretty much a sail and a pain to handle. At best it will realistically net you about 250 watt hours in the battery per day. That is about 10 miles It might work for a paved road setup in southern latitudes but not for trails with a canopy of trees overhead and brush.
I often exceed 3,000 watt hours per day on rides.

 

[Stoneyrun]

A 200 watt solar panel is more than a square meter and pretty much a sail and a pain to handle. At best it will realistically net you about 250 watt hours in the battery per day. That is about 10 miles It might work for a paved road setup in southern latitudes but not for trails with a canopy of trees overhead and brush.
I often exceed 3,000 watt hours per day on rides.

This guy has some useful info and has a 175 watt flexible panel deployed when stationary(apparently). No fat tire and a lighter frame I think.

 

[K PierreR]

This guy has some useful info and has a 175 watt flexible panel deployed when stationary(apparently). No fat tire and a lighter frame I think.

That is a lot of windage in that trailer. A 10 mph headwind would kill you. The problem is I want dispatch (speed X distance known). So far I have not needed to carry a generator and doubt that I will. I simply have to work towards better mileage for longer jaunts. So far my max one day ride was 150 miles. I used 4,112 watt hours and charged twice. My charger puts out 800 watts. I started with a full battery and ended needing to charge. The two charges totaled about 2 1/2 hours My speed was 17-22 mph. It was all day. I do better at 80-100 miles per day on mixed paved and gravel and 40-70 off road.

 

[john peck]

If one were to use gas, why not directly use it to power the bike? I can carry up to 4 liters
on my belt-drive gas bike with a range of 65 miles to a liter, 40cc engine mushing at 3300 rpm, 15 mph PAS
top spd 33 mph. pedaling like mad. (that´s without a trailer.)