Yesterday I took my electric bicycle to a nearby park that has trails which allow bicycling. The entrance to the trail said "No motor vehicles" but I went on the trails anyway, and I wonder what their definitions are. I can't imagine that my electric bicycle would violate any expectations.. it isn't noisy, it doesn't emit sparks (which could set fires), it isn't powerful enough to tear up the landscape, etc.
Anyway.. the bike is a Electra Townie 21 w/ Wilderness Energy 36BD hub motor in front. The battery pack is a pingping 36v10ah. I've been using this bike for commuting (sometimes) and wanted to see how well it would do with riding rough terrain.
The trails were unpaved single lane roads. The trail I chose wasn't very demanding but the hills were more severe than where I commute.
How'd it do? It handled most of the ride pretty easily however on a couple of the uphills the motor didn't have enough oomph to make it up the hill. I did find it helpful to dismount and then use the throttle to help me walk the bicycle uphill. Other than that it was a good ride but, riding required paying attention to the trail to look ahead for potholes etc (unpaved road) which detracted from enjoying the scenery.
There was one failure.. I've been keeping the battery pack in a bag slung in the middle triangle. The bag has a couple straps which have flimsy anchors, and the anchoring broke making the bag flop to one side and one of the straps fell into the front chainrings. This was 2 miles from the car.
I took a walk for awhile ... and by the the time I got back I had an idea how to mount the battery bag for the ride back.
Must be some steep hills on those trails! I experience the same thing if I go offroad in my neighborhood. It's now too heavy to peadle up really steep hills, and the motor doesn't like anything it can't go up at 15 mph. Once you try to go up some crazy steep driveway, or hiking trail it just bogs down and goes uggh. But my BD36 sure flies up a long grade on my way home every day that used to make me walk when I was 16. Now I breeze up it at 15mph. I'd like to set up a bike with a chain drive someday, lots of good power line roads through the desert right in my neighborhood.
Be the pack leader.
36 volt sla schwinn beach cruiser
36 volt lifepo4 mongoose mtb
24 volt sla + nicad EV Global