Watt hours per mile - road ebikes

[Jaxx]

Jaxx, you have raced since the 1960's???? So about 50+ years of racing? Wow!

They do state over 80% efficiency from 60 to 110 rpm, while the competition peak efficiency is only 60% in a much narrower cadence range. That is quite a difference. I'm going to test ride a Creo once they have the aluminum models available.

1966 first race - 10 mile TT. 26.42 secs. Obviously to race you need to ride much bigger gears. When racing I use a top gear of 53x11 with training and general riding over the years, I can only really ride largish gears, a typical social ride will see me use around 50x15 even on steep climbs I go lower then 30x28. It's what the muscles remember. Do wish I could use a lower cadence comfortably.

 

[iskjone]

I'm not the 'physically efficient' person I once was. Big reason I purchased an eBike was the ability to cover more space, in the same time, while keeping perspective to a human scale. I enjoy eBiking but angst over the percentage of efficiency while riding is not very high on my list. My mantra is ride more, talk less.

 

[Net+Positive]

I'm quite interested in a number of the road ebikes hitting the market. Ones like the Specialized Creo, Orbea Gain, etc ….. these bikes come with smaller batteries. I know they're lighter and generally should be more efficient, but I wonder about the range claims of these bikes. Obviously if you don't use the motor you can ride an unlimited range and the bikes are light enough and promise no drag when the motor is off. But then why have an ebike?

I'm curious if those who have a road ebike can tell us how many watt hours per km or mile are you using? Information such as total weight of bike and rider, terrain i.e. how much elevation gain, and other relevant factors would be appreciated.

The only real way to test this is to ride it without peddling at all and then record how many Watt hours it takes to recharge the battery. My fat tire bike uses 26 watt hours per mile on a given stretch of path.
My Pedego used 40 Wh and the Watt wagon used 36. This was on a 6.4 mile stretch of hilly path at 15 mph. In all tests I had the kid trailer attached. Obviously consumption will vary with weight of rider and speed and wind etc. but this gives you a relationship between the three. Both the Watt Wagons and fat tire are at least 1000 W motor and therefore didn’t have to work as hard as the 500 W Pedigo motor. The more powerful motor running at a lower percentage is more efficient The mid drive in the Watt wagon has gearing inside of it and then the belt and then gearing in the rolloff hub. My video review of these three discusses weight etc.

I also posted the Watt wagon review to this forum.
I repeated the same test while pedaling comfortably and used about half of the energy