Cross-Canada by Ebike

[Mathurin]

awesome.JPG (96.94 KiB) Viewed 2315 times

[CoffeeLuke]

under search options at google maps user-created. vancouver plugs

[dnmun]

CL, i was able to see your google map of the free charging hubs. i would still like for people to label them 'justin junctions' so that the google search doesn't turn up the other stuff.

i also believe that google maps is too much overhead to maintain eventually. it seems as though the best place to organize it is in a list file based on gps coordinates or local zip codes.

the biggest issue i can see for an open network of charging spots is the need to maintain security, by the owner of the electric service and property. they need to know who is on their property, and i would even say they deserve to be reimbursed for the juice. even charging a huge 48V60Ah mega pack from 70% discharged back to 0% discharge, which would take almost 15 hours would consume about 2kWh of power, around 20 cents. a small 500Wh charge would be about 5 cents cost to the owner. you should be capable of explaining this to the property owner in simple terms.

it would help for everyone who follows to show respect for personal property rights, and if confronted i would suggest that the person using the plug immediately offer to pay for the juice and explain how much they consume and how much it costs. just the explanation and offer of a nickle or dime may mollify the situation, and reduce the resentment inherent when there is such a nominal trespass of the owners property. they will not see it as trivial, but it will present that bike owner with the opportunity to evangelize the value of electric assist bikes to society and the inherent need of charging locations to support them.

i would appreciate it though if you go back into your user created file and relabel the 'plugs' with a new designation, "Justin junctions" and enable "JJ" as an identical search object too.

it would help if the query would read something like 97202 JJ? to search for a charging plug here in my neighborhood, using the local zip code. the structure needs to be able to handle what eventually will become a huge file which can be reached through cell phones and blackberry devices too.

there is a guy who did a similar map for EV's in copenhagen. he actually has the info barb in the bubble on the map, i lost the link, but i saw it in my evchargernews.com mailbot. they are much further along this track than anyone here, you should get on their mailbot, even though it is just southern california, a lot of people outside of SoCal who are interested in universal charging hubs have posted up stuff there too.

[mikereidis]

CL, i was able to see your google map of the free charging hubs. i would still like for people to label them 'justin junctions' so that the google search doesn't turn up the other stuff.

Yes, maps of charging locations would be very nice, especially when visiting unfamiliar areas.

I'm imagining an era of "e-bike wanderers" who travel from place to place depending on whims, needs and season.

In theory, we could feel better by leaving 10, 20 or 25 cents in an envelope or something, but the coins would likely disappear, and envelopes become garbage.

As an alternative, I think restricting usage to known friendly, or government locations might be better. We all pay for government, so I'm OK with the idea of using my portion of services 10-20 cents at a time in an eco-friendly manner.

So IMO, libraries, city hall, various provincial and federal funded buildings/institutions are all fair game. I've seen several places where pains have been taken to ensure power cannot be taken, so the open places must be fair game. At least unless and until signs go up saying "Do not plug in".

Some local gov'ts may be friendly to legitimizing plug in bikes; but they may also say no, due to liability concerns.

[dnmun]

i think it best to just be discrete. if someone is upset, i really think they will calm down pretty fast once they realize how little current is being used. and i would expect they would be happy to just get a tour of the technology. so the person charging their bike should be able to explain what a watt hour is and how much a battery takes,and how much it costs. in that context, i would expect anyone to be more amazed than aggravated.
justin has such a smile, he disarms anyone, i don't always have such luck, but i think just learning to be non threatening in such a confrontation is the best course of action. only leave money if it is appropriate, if the owner is present maybe just go up directly and give them a nickle to encourage a quiet conversation. this is gonna be a long time developing. i plan on having a public charging station in my driveway, and hope to have 48V for charging too, not just 120V.
i think the social networking structure behind the charging hub network will be the core of security and ability to properly assess costs of charging in the public domain, using private sources of power at individual residences or locations.

[retread]

Justin... This is to say a big "Thanks!"

Thanks for the education, the motivation, the entertainment, but most of all, for showing-off how our humble bicycles have the potential to radically change the planet! I know that I speak on behalf of everyone here when I say that you truly walk (..ride) the talk, and in the coming decades people will look back to your voyage with the same reverence held for so many of the great pioneers of our world.

On a personal note, I'd like to thank Alison, Zev and Dale for all their hard work in helping organize and execute this little "surprise" for our good friend Justin. They have proven to me just how sneaky they really are!

To all of you who contributed your very hard earned money to buy Justin his new Surly Big Dummy, with more than $500 left over for the parts of his choice, let me tell you: it was well worth it! Justin was blown away - even mentioning that this would be his first new bike.

Please allow me a little time to finalize my tally, and generate a thank you list. In the meantime, I wanted to show you how it all went down.

-Mick

DSC_0307 (Small).JPG (47.45 KiB) Viewed 1651 times

DSC_0309 (Small).JPG (51.58 KiB) Viewed 1642 times

DSC_0313 (Small).JPG (28.16 KiB) Viewed 1641 times

DSC_0316 (Small).JPG (29.16 KiB) Viewed 1645 times

DSC_0325 (Small).JPG (30.14 KiB) Viewed 1640 times

DSC_0326 (Small).JPG (42.61 KiB) Viewed 1641 times

DSC_0331 (Small).JPG (29.23 KiB) Viewed 1642 times

[beef_wellington]

Surprise!
It's great that the moment was captured for everyone to see. A well-deserved gift for all he has done for this community.

[justin_le]

Wow, so I was not expecting THAT today! You guys are just unbelievable. Apparently a whole slew of ES members have been pitching in and orchestrating this surprise behind the scenes and I had absolutely no idea. And the gift of a Big Dummy is perfect beyond belief. Here I was lamenting that I'd have to take the trans-canadian ebike apart again in order to have my Xtracycle to use for cargo hauling around town. Now it can stay together for history just as I rode it, item number 1 in our eventual ebike museum collection, and I've got a much more gorgeous and sturdy Big Dummy machine to take care of all my around town and beyond biking needs.

As someone who's ridden scrap bike all my life, this really is the first time that I've had a well-made brand new bicycle to own, and I love it.

To everyone who helped make this happen, to the whole friggen ebike community here, I am really touched. Thank you immensely, Justin

[voicecoils]

That's an awesome gift! I was just looking at the big dummy today on surlybikes.com actually

cro-mo is the way to go

Well done on your successful continent crossing Justin, I mentioned your trip as a demonstration of the viability of ebiking in my undergrad engineering Thesis A presentation just a few days ago. My topic considers government policy measures for reducing petroleum consumption.

[edit] just noticed you had your welcome back party at the Foundation. My girlfriend and I ate there a bit less then a year ago as part of a trip exploring the west coast of North America. Our friendly waiter neglected to tell us when we ordered that we'd chosen enough food for 6 people. The portion/price ratio was ridiculous, we made it 1/3 of the way through and nearly died, but we were two very happy stuffed vegos. I certainly regret having not knocked on your shop door now. Hopefully one day

[philf]

As I think I mentioned in an earlier post (and had PM'd to Justin) - the first time I saw a bike built around that frame was the very day after Justin left here. It was at a place called "Boomer Bicycles" in Oakville. I just had to smile when I saw it.

On a different connective note, though, there just seems to be something ironic about a guy with Justin's brain running about town on something with "Big Dummy" emblazoned on the side of it. Now THAT's just funny...

[mikereidis]

On a different connective note, though, there just seems to be something ironic about a guy with Justin's brain running about town on something with "Big Dummy" emblazoned on the side of it. Now THAT's just funny...

That was my first thought; after I got over the shock of seeing Justin reading the instruction sheet.

Once the intelligence gets added to bike (human and multiple controllers, CAs, etc.) perhaps some "Lil Smarty" text should be added.

[Zoot Katz]

Thank You everyone for keeping the secret a secret. Justin's surprise and delight was clearly visible in the pix Mick posted.
Thanks too for all the supportive PMs you sent me. I was expecting more flames.
Thank You Alison, Mick and Zev for conceiving, hatching and executing this plan.
And thank you for the honour of being given a role in bringing it to fruition.
--
Dale

[biohazardman]

Thank you for having the guts and taking the time to go the extra mile and do such a great thing for him and others I would expect. Nice to see what can happen when the right people are around at the right time. These things are happening all the time we just need to slow down now and then and take the time to look.

[Bill Best]

Justin, that smile on your face was priceless!

I think it's the least the ebike community could do for you, after all you've done for us.

Enjoy your new ride! I can't wait to see how you load it up with gear.

[justin_le]

I think it's the least the ebike community could do for you, after all you've done for us.

Enjoy your new ride! I can't wait to see how you load it up with gear.

Hey Bill and everyone, well I still can't believe you guys got together and pulled this off, it's really amazing. And I'm still waiting for the complete list of contributors so that I can send you all thank-you packages with free CycleAnalysts and bike lights inside

I've unfortunately got my work cut out for me for the next couple weeks. But, come November or so I'm going to start a build thread for this frame and hopefully try to make something that is clean, original, and slick. I'm not sure if I can measure up to some of the very well done builds that members of this forum have produced, they've set the bar pretty high, but I'm gonna try.

Justin

[justin_le]

A bunch of the Vancouver gang met up with Justin last night at the Foundation restaurant here in Vancouver, Justin has a lot of stories - We were there till around 11 and got through about 1/4 of the trip across Canada!

Yeah, we owe Alison a big "Thank You" for arranging and coordinating it. That was a good evening.
Sixteen people showed up. There were nine ebikes parked in front. None of them were stock bikes.
I'm looking forward to a good turn out on Friday's Kilowatt Hour Ride.

OK, so to all those who missed out on the Kilowatt Hour ride last Friday, I've produced this little time lapse video so you can experience the whole thing from the vantage point of my 2nd handlebar (thanks CBC for the soundtrack):



The resolution above is pretty crumby. To see it in youtube higher quality format, click here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjoInrHf3U0&fmt=18
or download the attached wmv file.

[beef_wellington]

thank-you packages with free CycleAnalysts and bike lights inside

Hmm... I don't like that little wink at the end.

[rgody]

Endless-sphere members who gave the gift to Justin:

You are a real ebike family!


Justin :

It seems you have encouraged to other guy to ride his ebike around the world :

http://www.electricbicycleworldtour.com/

Unfortunately he will not come to my country

Regards and continue teaching your ebike love to the world!

Rodrigo
Viña del Mar
Chile
(PD: sorry for bad english! We speak spanish here)

[philf]

Well, the trip is over, and the activity in this thread has reached a logical conclusion... It's sad to watch it slowly fall off the screen. Owing to its unusual content and historical value, we should ask fechter to move this thing somewhere and put a sticky on it.

Wot think?

[Ypedal]

I've been wanting to move it to the ebike general and stickie it but i'm afraid to mess up all the other links to this thread from other sites etc... ?! anyone know if the url will follow if the thread is moved to another section ?

[TylerDurden]

Copy the thread to general, lock this version...

Leave a note on the front-door of this one that says the party has moved.

[fechter]

Copy the thread to general, lock this version...

Leave a note on the front-door of this one that says the party has moved.

OK, party has moved here: http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7134&p=107793#p107793