Touring on a Stromer: long distance riding

[JoeBurbidge]

Hi everyone,

Anyone out there done a long ride over several days on a Stromer?

I have been looking around for blogs or forum posts but haven't had any luck...

A friend and I are going to ride 900 miles (1,500km) by Stromer ST2 from Belgium to Spain. We have done a few long rides but nothing more than one day. There are a few things we have been thinking about and would love to hear from someone who has done something similar, for example:

- We were hoping to do 130 miles each day, taking 9 days in total. Is that realistic or too ambitious?
- We have a Radical Design trailer but we'd prefer to try and fit everything into pannier bags to avoid being slowed down by the trailer. Any thoughts on that?
- This would mean no camping gear and we would hopefully be able to find hosts on Warm Showers to find a place to sleep each night.
- ...and many more things to think about but those are the main points!

Thanks!
Joe

 

[JoePah]

Hi everyone,

Anyone out there done a long ride over several days on a Stromer?

I have been looking around for blogs or forum posts but haven't had any luck...

A friend and I are going to ride 900 miles (1,500km) by Stromer ST2 from Belgium to Spain. We have done a few long rides but nothing more than one day. There are a few things we have been thinking about and would love to hear from someone who has done something similar, for example:

- We were hoping to do 130 miles each day, taking 9 days in total. Is that realistic or too ambitious?
- We have a Radical Design trailer but we'd prefer to try and fit everything into pannier bags to avoid being slowed down by the trailer. Any thoughts on that?
- This would mean no camping gear and we would hopefully be able to find hosts on Warm Showers to find a place to sleep each night.
- ...and many more things to think about but those are the main points!

Thanks!
Joe

Sounds like a lot of fun Joe!

I will say that 130 miles a day on any bicycle is very fatiguing and I'm not sure how much enjoyment you will get.. It will feel like a marathon that just doesn't end! You may want to cut the average down to 100 miles a day.

I've ridden my Stromer 45 miles a day for a week. Can tell you this: If there are a lot of hills, your range will suffer immensely, so 130 miles may not be feasible on a hilly rout. You should be carrying at least one spare battery with your charger.

If you don't mind taking a long lunch say 2 hours, you could charge your primary battery and the two batteries should be able to take you 130 miles a day on flat terrain no problem.

 

[Douglas Ruby]

You really need to take a look at the 24 hr - 310 mi ride done by @Ravi Kempaiah in the Great Smokies a couple of years ago (

) on his ST2. I believe he used 2 batteries with meal breaks to charge for the 24 hour ride.

He did a 5000 mi ride last summer from Wisconsin to So. California ((Link Removed - No Longer Exists)) on an ST2-S. I believe he rotated three 980 Wh batteries for his 500 mile ride (typical 200+ mile days) and charging was done on a support vehicle.

You definitely will need 2 batteries to make 130 miles per day if you want to make good time. I know that on my Specialized Turbo with 691Wh battery and 200W motor, I can only make around 60-70 mi. on a charge at an average speed of around 18 mph.

 

[JoeBurbidge]

Thanks to both of you for the feedback!

Before going into more details, this is the rough plan we had in mind:

- We have 3 batteries and 2 chargers between the two of us.
- The idea would be that each day:
- we do a long morning ride, rotating all 3 batteries until they are all almost empty
- we stop for a long 4 hour lunchbreak and charge 2 of the batteries fully for the afternoon ride

I was thinking of buying a third charger so that we can charge all 3 batteries at the same time but not sure about it because of the extra weight and volume.

Any more comments are very welcome!

And yes, @Ravi Kempaiah's rides look like a great source of inspiration! Although we won't have the option of a support vehicle...
And @JoePah yes, maybe 100 miles a day is more realistic and enjoyable than 130...

Joe

 

[Steve Plattner]

Hi everyone,

Anyone out there done a long ride over several days on a Stromer?

I have been looking around for blogs or forum posts but haven't had any luck...

A friend and I are going to ride 900 miles (1,500km) by Stromer ST2 from Belgium to Spain. We have done a few long rides but nothing more than one day. There are a few things we have been thinking about and would love to hear from someone who has done something similar, for example:

- We were hoping to do 130 miles each day, taking 9 days in total. Is that realistic or too ambitious?
- We have a Radical Design trailer but we'd prefer to try and fit everything into pannier bags to avoid being slowed down by the trailer. Any thoughts on that?
- This would mean no camping gear and we would hopefully be able to find hosts on Warm Showers to find a place to sleep each night.
- ...and many more things to think about but those are the main points!

Thanks!
Joe

Joe, sounds like great fun. But ambitious in my opinion.

I haven't done anything that long--but last year did the C+O Towpath/GAP Trail from DC to Pittsburgh on my ST1 Platinum. Some of those trails go through some pretty remote areas and some of the C+O Trail can be rough going in the rain--muddy, puddles, etc. But I did all 350 miles in 6 days--4 days up around 70 miles, and two around 40. It's fairly flat except for one stretch north of Cumberland, MD. I pulled a BOB trailer (and one pannier lightly loaded) with all my belongings. The trailer really worked well.

There is one big question to consider: recharging batteries. I am 6'2", 210 lbs. My total load was right at 300 lbs. I have two gold and one purple battery. The golds would give me a conservative range of 30 miles each, and the purple about 25. Remember, you shouldn't ever discharge more than 90% of the battery so that reduces your range. I would have camped, but most campsites have no power. So I stayed in motels, B+B's, and a great hostel, which was nice but expensive compared to camping. I would finish riding around 5-6 PM, and immediately go to my room and plug in the charger with the first battery. It takes 3 hours or so to charge the first one, same for the second, and I'd stay up (or set my iPhone alarm) until I could plug in the last battery to be sure everything was topped off by AM.

To do 130 miles each day, with the highest capacity battery available, and depending on terrain, wind, your cadence and speed, weight of your trailer and your body weight, I would think you'd be hard pressed to get 130 miles on two batteries every day. It would be dicey. So I think you'd need a third one. To do 130 miles, again without knowing more details, averaging let's say--17.5 mph, you'll be riding about 7.5 hours. Your seat will be a major factor as well, and if the pavement is rough, I would highly recommend a Body Float or Thudbuster LT (I have the latter and it's great).

I hope you can do it but I would encourage you to think through the battery issues and make sure you have 3 of them, or, maybe reduce your mileage per day to a range that works with 2 batteries.

You should also get Ravi Kempahlah's input as he rode cross-country last summer--all the way to San Diego--5000 miles I believe.

Good luck,

SP

 

[Mr. Coffee]

If you search on youtube for "Bicycle Touring Pro" there is a lot of great material about how to put together a trip like you are describing.

Unless you routinely, comfortably ride 130 miles on a day tour you are unlikely to be able to maintain that for nine days, particularly if you aren't used to carrying all of the gear you seem to want to take on this tour.

My own experience on bike tours (without e-bikes) has been that the first couple of days of a tour you usually only ride 20-30 miles, because you are dialing in all of the gear. An experienced friend who bike tours frequently all over the world often starts his tours with a big bag of tools and spare parts, and spends much his time on the first two or three days fixing and adjusting various things on the bike. Then he ships most of the tools and spare parts home.

Things that are only minor issues on a bike if you are in the saddle only 2-3 hours a day can become a trip-killer when you are riding 8 hours or more a day. That is a big reason why those first few days you might not make very many miles.

I'd strongly suggest a few test runs carrying all of your gear for a single overnight or even a long day tour. That will give you a strong sense of the feasibility of what you are proposing to do.

For long bike tours I've found that 40-50 miles per day is pretty reasonable. There might be two or three days bursts of much greater miles when road conditions, weather, and how I feel all come together, but I'd still plan on 50 miles per day or so.

France has an amazing number of campgrounds. At many of them you can rent a tent (so you wouldn't need to carry one) and nearly all of them have power so charging all of your batteries won't be an issue.

I've never ridden a Stromer, but keep in mind that most bikes in general, much less most e-bikes, aren't at all designed for making a trip like the one you are describing. Like I said, minor ergonomic issues that aren't much of a problem on a commuter bike can be trip-killers on a long tour.

 

[JoeBurbidge]

OK, thanks for the advice everyone!

So, 130 miles a day is clearly too ambitious. For now I am considering 90 to 100 miles per day.

Our battery capacity for two people is the following:

- Bikes: One ST2 S and one ST2
- 2 blue batteries (2 x 19.2 Ah) and 1 gold battery (17 Ah)

With a long 4 hour lunchbreak and 2 chargers, I think it is reasonable enough to hope for 100 miles per day. The issue is more about whether we can physically be on the bikes for such a long period and for so many days. We're going to do a long ride this weekend to see how we fare...

@Mr. Coffee, I certainly wouldn't consider an average of 100 miles per day on a normal bike...far from it! ...but the Stromer is so powerful that I feel this is realistic. You should give the Stromer a try!
And as for tweaking the bike on the first two days of riding, we're hoping to have the bikes fully ready and tweaked beforehand by doing long weekend rides.

As for the seatpost, I have a Body Float, it's great and makes a big difference! And I'm encouraging my friend to get something similar, such as the Thudbuster.

Having heard that the charger can be a problem, I am now considering getting a third one given that if one breaks, that could essentially put an end to the whole adventure.

Any more comments are very welcome!
Joe

 

[devhead]

Note about panniers. I put these on my ST2.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ESLVDIU/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

They are inexpensive, soft sided. The stiffener in them is fairly flexible to the point where these bags have gotten into the spokes while riding (not good). If you go with soft side panniers, be sure to load them equally and consider adding structure to either the ST2 or the panniers.

 

[Ravi Kempaiah]

OK, thanks for the advice everyone!

So, 130 miles a day is clearly too ambitious. For now I am considering 90 to 100 miles per day.

Our battery capacity for two people is the following:

- Bikes: One ST2 S and one ST2
- 2 blue batteries (2 x 19.2 Ah) and 1 gold battery (17 Ah)

With a long 4 hour lunchbreak and 2 chargers, I think it is reasonable enough to hope for 100 miles per day. The issue is more about whether we can physically be on the bikes for such a long period and for so many days. We're going to do a long ride this weekend to see how we fare...

@Mr. Coffee, I certainly wouldn't consider an average of 100 miles per day on a normal bike...far from it! ...but the Stromer is so powerful that I feel this is realistic. You should give the Stromer a try!
And as for tweaking the bike on the first two days of riding, we're hoping to have the bikes fully ready and tweaked beforehand by doing long weekend rides.

As for the seatpost, I have a Body Float, it's great and makes a big difference! And I'm encouraging my friend to get something similar, such as the Thudbuster.

Having heard that the charger can be a problem, I am now considering getting a third one given that if one breaks, that could essentially put an end to the whole adventure.

Any more comments are very welcome!
Joe

Thanks @Douglas Ruby and @Steve Plattner .
Actually, Steve has done touring on ST1 and Stromer will be publishing his article in July. I have done touring and have tried different configurations myself.

The rear rack on the Stromer is quite weak compared to some of the touring bikes out there. Also, fully loaded pannier on an ST2 is not the best way to carry stuff. I would recommend going with Tout Terrain or Burley Nomad trailer. So much more easier.
130 miles a day carrying all the stuff is going to be tough. That's close to 10 hrs a day on the bike. 100 miles doable and should give you time to explore the places nearby.
Practice replacing the rear tube, comes in handy.
As @JayVee mentioned, you may have to deal with local regulations in Belgium.

One piece of advice I can give. Pace yourself. Start by doing 100 mile rides and 200 miles over a weekend and within a month, you will be lot more confident in doing 1000+ mile rides.

 

[JoeBurbidge]

Thanks @Ravi Kempaiah!! Great to have the input of such an experienced Stromer rider!

I look forward to @Steve Plattner's article!

 

[Mr. Coffee]

True story of my very first long distance bike tour.

I went with a friend who was a very experienced cyclist who had never been on a long bike tour. Our plan was to go from San Francisco to LA on the coast. We had a RIDICULOUS amount of gear. I remarked that this was much more gear than I would take on a backpacking trip and almost as much as I would take on a winter trip in Alaska. For the California coast in July.

My friend had an arsenal of bikes and was roughly my height so I just used one of his. It was an excellent road/racing bike which was an awesome bike but was geared far too high and flexed disturbingly under the crushing load. On our first day we barely made it two dozen miles to Half Moon Bay. Without any discussion we rode to the post office and offloaded half of the stuff we were carrying. By the time we had gotten to Monterey had halved the amount of stuff we were carrying again.

South of Monterey it was an awesome ride, but those first two dozen miles out of San Francisco are still an ugly memory. Except for an entertaining afternoon in San Luis Opisbo repacking a rear wheel bearing it was a relatively uneventful trip.

 

[JoeBurbidge]

Just to update you if anyone is interested...

...we're heading off next Wednesday!

We have now planned the stops along the route, mainly staying in AirBnB places overnight. We aim to do the 1,500km (932 miles) ride in 10 days, with a goal of averaging 160km (100 miles) each day. Some days we'll do 120km and others 180km...

We haven't planned the exact roads and paths we'll take as that would be a momentous task to do all in one go. We'll take it day by day on that...

It's still hard to know exactly what to pack (e.g. bike tools, sleeping gear, etc) but we're going to keep it to a real minimum...

Thanks for all the advice!

 

[Steve Plattner]

Just to update you if anyone is interested...

...we're heading off next Wednesday!

We have now planned the stops along the route, mainly staying in AirBnB places overnight. We aim to do the 1,500km (932 miles) ride in 10 days, with a goal of averaging 160km (100 miles) each day. Some days we'll do 120km and others 180km...

We haven't planned the exact roads and paths we'll take as that would be a momentous task to do all in one go. We'll take it day by day on that...

It's still hard to know exactly what to pack (e.g. bike tools, sleeping gear, etc) but we're going to keep it to a real minimum...

Thanks for all the advice!

Sounds great Joe. Will be anxious to read about your experiences and see any pix you take along the way. Have a great time!

 

[Mr. Coffee]

Best of luck. Enjoy your adventure.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

Any updates? I'd love to see photos from the trip!

 

[JoeBurbidge]

Hi all!

To bring you up to date on the trip: WE MADE IT!! The two of us had a great time! In general, the bikes held up well and we met our target of 160km on average per day! But not without difficulties, as you might expect...

So...a little summary:

- Distances
We ended up covering a total distance of 2,038km (1,266 miles), over 13 days of cycling in total. It was 1,700km over 10 days from Brussels to Santander and then for the return trip, we combined cycling and trains and did 300km of cycling over 3 days.
There were some days when, for one reason or another, we had to put in 200km and others when we were able to take it easy and do only 120km per day.
Looking back on the experience, I would say that it's better to aim for a shorter distance each day so as to have more time to stop off for photos, to take in the landscapes and to get to know the places along the way. However, we had a very tight schedule because the ultimate aim of the trip was to get to a friend's wedding in Santander and we were not able to take more days off work to spread the distance over a longer time period.

- The bikes
We were quite scared of some kind of technical problem along the way and were dreading the thought of being stuck in the middle of nowhere in the French countryside with a puncture or an electrical fault. Thankfully, we only had 2 technical problems and neither of them held us up too much...
FIRST TECHNICAL ISSUE
On the third day, I replaced my bike's battery and was met with a number of error messages on the screen. I tried everything I could think of: removing the battery, turning the bike on and off, charging the battery, etc. Nothing seemed to work, so we called Frank, our Stromer mechanic back in Brussels. After connecting to my bike remotely and looking at the error messages, he told me that the largest two pins in the battery were connecting fine, meaning that the bike had power but that the two smaller pins which transfer data were not connecting. So, he suggested carefully cleaning the battery connectors within the bike frame and also carefully cleaning the pins on the battery. We were thrilled to see that this worked! This same problem then occurred a number of other times on the trip but luckily, a quick clean with a cloth sorted it each time. It must have been because the pins on the spare battery got a little dirty being stored in the rear pannier bags while cycling.
SECOND TECHNICAL ISSUE
If this problem had occurred earlier on the trip, it would have probably put an end to the whole adventure...
For the 300km return trip, I had to carry much more weight on the rear panniers than when heading out to Santander. With only 100km to go to reach our final destination, the bolt attaching the rear mudguard to the pannier rack snapped under the weight, meaning that the pannier rack could no longer hold any weight whatsoever. Fortunately, this happened in a city where we could easily catch a train back to Brussels instead of cycling the last 100km as planned. I now have to replace both the rear pannier rack and the rear mudguard! But we got home fine, which is the most important thing.
I was always aware that the rack can't hold much weight but I thought I was under the 17kg indicated...

Another minor technical issue was that it seemed the bikes would overheat after very long, hilly sections without a break. But this was solved by taking a short break of a few minutes. And this only happened two or three times.

- Battery charging
We had 3 batteries shared between 2 Stromers. This meant that each morning, we would set out and cycle until we had used up 50% battery charge, at which point one of us would swap out the battery and cycle on the spare fully-charged battery. Then, we would aim to do another long cycling session before stopping for a long lunch in a restaurant where we would recharge the batteries for the afternoon.
I had originally planned to take a very long 4-hour lunchbreak each day so as to have a lot of charge for the afternoon. But in actual fact, our lunchbreaks were never quite so long, maybe a couple of hours...and then we would normally stop off for a second charging break in the evening.
We rode on power setting 2 or 3 most of the time in order to cover the long distances.
We only had 2 chargers for 3 batteries. If I were to repeat the trip, I might seriously consider buying a third charger despite the high price, as the battery charge was a hugely limiting factor that we had to bear in mind very carefully for the whole journey. On one or two occasions, we didn't calculate our distances and battery charge well and ended up having to ride with no motor power at all late at night in the middle of nowhere in order to get to our place to sleep that night.
On a separate note, we tried to make use of the regen function on long descents as much as possible but even on the very longest descents in the Basque Country, we found that we would get back only 2% battery charge at most.

- Weather conditions
On the whole, the weather was quite nice. However, we did have one day of incredibly strong headwinds and another day or two of heavy rain. It was surprising to see how strong headwinds can really drain the battery! We were almost left stranded as a result of unrelentingly fierce headwinds which meant that we were going at only 25km/h with the motor power gauge on 'max' the whole time.

- In general
We'll remember the trip as a great chance to get to know three different countries in an original way! Each and every time we would stop off somewhere to eat and recharge our batteries, the bikes would generate a great deal of interest and questions among the locals! Two Stromers with luggage can really be a head-turner and answering curious questions about the bikes was a great conversation starter everywhere we went!
We saw wonderful landscapes, met many generous and interesting people and had a great time on the whole! Highly recommended!