MB-1-E Part Twenty: Nice Twenty Mile Ride

Today I took a pleasure ride.
I've gained enough confidence in my new creation to go for it and just take a nice ride up to one of our favorite camping spots. Going by car (or pickup, in my case) it's a little over 8 miles from home.
I took some side roads to get there so it was slightly farther than by car.

The bike was fully charged yesterday so I had a fairly fresh charge.
To start out, I kept my speed down to around 12-16 mph to conserve my fuel a little. It was about 85 deg. out so the breeze was nice and much of the trip was through treed areas so mostly shady.
Every once and a while I'd open it up and cruise at 24 mph for a bit then slow down some and even pedal assist to help conserve some juice for the trip home.

There's not a great elevation change between home and the camp site but I would guess at least a couple of hundred feet in the 8-9 mile trip. There are some dips and inclines and gentle hill climbs, nothing that would be extraordinary for a standard bike ride.

The bike performed great! I'd pedal assist on some of the inclines, but didn't even break a sweat, so I wasn't working too hard, just let the motor do most of the work while I got a little exercise.

I don't have my volt meter on the bike yet, so I was hoping that I wasn't going too far but also knew that I had helped some so I didn't worry about it much. Got to our favorite camp spot along the creek and rode rocky dirt road in to the area and rode right down to the creek. Enjoyed the scenery for a bit then headed back out to the pavement and went a bit farther up the road until I hit 10 miles on the odometer and turned around.

The trip back was about the same, but I used the motor a bit more than on the way up there and coasted down some of the inclines that I had assended on the way up. Got up to 30 mph a few times just coasting so I guess some were steeper than I thought they were.

The route home was nearly the same as on the way up, and the bike seemed to have plenty of pep, so I increased the speed a bit as I got closer to home. When I arrived at my house the odometer said 19.6 miles so I went around the block a time or two until it hit 20.

I brought the bike in and checked the voltage and it was right at 12.3 volts.
I'd guess I still had about a 62% charge in the batteries ... just right.
I was glad to see that I had not drawn them down too far again.

Ok, my goals in building this bike were to have a 20 mile range and a top speed of 20 mph.
On the speed, I got lucky and can cruise at 24, the range is right where I had hoped.
The bike is running good but I've still got some work to do.
Things left to do:
Add a mirror
Add a beltguard
Head and Tail lights
Remount my kickstand
Get all needed tools into my toolbag
Add a tire pump
I need to work on the aesthetics of the bike and paint a few parts
Replace some of the battery wiring with buss bars.
Perhaps add an onboard charger

Now that I see that no one was at our camping spot, I want to go camping ...
... got some work to finish up first but perhaps next month.

What a fun ride! It was a good one. :)
Bike's on the charger.

Dave

MB-1-E
Bridgestone Electric Mountain Bike