10th Dec: Melbourne Australia ride and social chat

[Kepler]

I am ready to roll. Stand back, 500W of vicious friction drive power ready to roll. Got 360 W/hrs onboard and a raincoat.

[ElectricEd]

A big thanks to Sam for organising a great ride! A fantastic itinery which included an early lunch at a former convent which had really good ale. There were a few detours due to works so we had to not let the thread between us get too stretched out. What is it about bike tracks? They seem to be designed to confuse. Soon we were past the zoo and before we knew it we were going along the tollway and almost back to the start. eBiking on the flats is a breeze.
The range of ebike designs were extraordinary. Adrian and Kepler's minimalist RC friction drives that really packed a punch , brushed dc motors with chain drive, Bafang geared motors done in the most discrete way and my old 408 with an in-your-face humungous battery box.
It brought it home to me that I should really get out more. The inspiration to be gained from seeing other designs is invaluable.

The ride finished at Fed square followed by another ale. Wonders, will this ebike socialising thing be bad for the liver?
Thank you all for a great day. We must do something like this again.

[adrian_sm]

Yeah. Great day. The rain managed to stay away, which was nice. In fact I got a bit sunburnt, must remember to slap on the sunscreen next time.

It was great to put faces to names, and see all the different types of motors:
- direct drive hub
- geared hub
- geared through the cranks brushed
- friction drives

And different batteries:
- SLA
- LiFePo4
- LiPo's

It was a very leisurely pace, to keep everyone together, which made for pretty efficient economy stats. I ended up only using 240wh including ride to and from the meet up point. I had the video camera rolling as did full-throttle, so we should be able to splice together something that doesn't bore everyone to death.

Thanks again Sam for making the effort to get our lazy arses out on the track together.

Let's do it again in the new year.

Adrian

[adrian_sm]

Oh and dirtying didn't get a chance to say goodbye AussieRider.

[Kepler]

Very enjoyable social ride around the perimeter of the Melbourne CBD. Great to meet some new faces and catch up with ES friends previously made.

I really liked the diversity of equipment and a chance to compare the various bike's characteristics in a group situation.

The Aprilia and Wheel chair drive setup were very interesting to see as I had only read about these previously. Ed's 408 equipped bike was nice a solid build and simply got the job done without fuss.

Full-throttle and Ben were both running light weight geared hub motors on around 48V. Both these bikes were quite minimalistic in the way they were setup which I really like. These geared hub motors are really hard to beat when it comes to the type of riding we were doing. Great range of speed, excellent efficiency, and together with their free wheel ability, still easy to pedal as a normal bike.

And finally the two friction drives. We might have had the most stealthy setups but there was no hiding when under power . Very pleased with how the friction drives stacked up against the other bikes in the group. I found I was a bit slower in getting away off the mark. Also negotiating some of the bridges and switchbacks meant that pedal power only could be used. However, on the open flowing paths, the little friction drives really came into their own with plenty of speed and efficiency on tap.

My economy wasn't quite as good as Adrian with me using 360 w/hrs for a total of 55km. I think I did a bit less pedalling though.

Thanks Sam for organising the day. Had a great time and look forward to doing it again in the near future.

[full-throttle]

Thanks Sam for organising and everyone for turning up despite the forecast for thunderstorms!

Very impressed with how quiet the Aprilia is and how well executed every bike was.

Here are some pics

live band.jpg (237.36 KiB) Viewed 699 times

2nd stop.jpg (219.93 KiB) Viewed 699 times

videos to follow (give it some time - I'm away all week)

[AussieRider]

Yeah, I gotta say it was a fantastic day & a great choice of venue for lunch.Excellent food with quality beer & cider only. No commercial crap that should be left in the horse.
Sorry I couldn't catch up with everyone to say goodbye. Batteries & body gave out & I couldnt cath up. SLAs really have nothing on Lipo for capacity! I was at "0" after 16Km.'I think my bike's "reliability" was amusing for everyone, throwing a chain about every 5 Km & the kickstand's musical tinkling as it disintegrated & fell off in pieces along the trail. Thanks to FullTrottle for the push assist up that hill. Almost as unreliable as Melbourne's famous weather, right guys? The build cost me $400 so far so I'm happy with the performance for the money. Adrian's throttle arrangement with criuse control mode is fascinating.
Be proud of the day SamD.

AussieRider

[Samd]

Hey gents, had a great time too. The different power systems were great - I was amazed by the lack of noise from the wheelchair drive!

My 30kph sedate 15km cruises to work are a bit laid back compared to you folks! Love the agile simplicity of the little freewheeling 3 phase friction drives..
Plenty to talk about including a common appreciation of craft brewing it'd seem. Great to meet fellow people who like the better things in life.
Hope we can do it all again in a month or two. Will throw some dates about....

[gtadmin]

Hey guys, sounds like everyone had a blast. Could I be a pain and ask that someone puts names to faces for those that couldn't get there?

Cheers,
GT

[ElectricEd]

Hi GT,
I hope the other guys don't mind.
In the "2nd stop.jpg (219.93 KiB)" picture above it's from left to right Samd, Kepler and ElectricEd.
I'll let the others own up to the their faces in the other pictures.

[adrian_sm]

From Left to Right
AussieRider , Kepler, BenMoore, adrian_sm

[Samd]

Not my best photo, look like I am about about to murder someone. Dont bother dobbing me in to the auhorities GT, the sticker on my aprilia clearly says 200 watts!

I guess my wife is right when she says I have a great face for radio...

Kepler looks.like he has green spiky hair!

We should have dressed as santas for the ride.

[gtadmin]

Thanks guys, it's always nice to put a face to someone whom you've been communicating with

Not my best photo, look like I am about about to murder someone. Dont bother dobbing me in to the auhorities GT, the sticker on my aprilia clearly says 200 watts!
I guess my wife is right when she says I have a great face for radio...

x2 (I couldn't even SEE the Aprilia, let alone the sticker on it!)

Kepler looks.like he has green spiky hair!

Ok, a better day than I thought

[adrian_sm]

Yeah. The second shot of me was pretty average. Thanks full_throttle for selecting that one for the post.
That's generally more what I look like after a few more beers.

My economy wasn't quite as good as Adrian with me using 360 w/hrs for a total of 55km. I think I did a bit less pedalling though.

Yeah. I felt like I was struggling to use the motor a lot of the time, as we were keeping a fairly leisurely pace. In fact I just had a look at the stats from my data logger, and was surprised at what I saw. I turned it on an off a few times so the entire trip was broken up into 5 sections. The first (#8) being the ~12.5km ride in and the first leg to the Convent. The last two legs (#11&12) being the ride from fed square home with Kepler. With the middle two (#9&10) being from Beer Stop 1 (Convent) to Beer Stop 2 (Fed Square)

Trip Summary Stats.PNG (9.11 KiB) Viewed 630 times

I pulled out what percentage of the distance I was using the motor. Only 7-20% when on the group cruise. But up around 60% when I was riding with Kepler getting there and back.

When chatting with full_throttle about the Bombers and getting maximum range out of them, he mentioned that John @ Stealth recommended more of a pulse of power and glide than always trickling along with the power on, for better economy. This got me thinking about economy difference between Kepler and my bikes. They should have been more similar, even with me pedalling a bit more. Maybe the fact Kepler had a normal twist throttle meant he trickled along with the motor more often than me, and just burned up more watt-hours simply having the motor turning over. Since it takes upto ~80w (depending on speed and load) just to turn the little motor over and engage the tire, when you look at this over a leisurely 2 hour plus ride, it starts to add up. I only had my drive assisting me for about a quarter of the time. If Kepler had his running for a more typical 50-60% of the time, that could easily explain the extra 90wh used.

Or I just pedalled more.... which would explain why my face usually looks more like this when I go for a ride.

[Kepler]

Kepler looks.like he has green spiky hair!

By the pained look on my face, it looks like the greenery had just sprouted.

[Kepler]

Yeah. I felt like I was struggling to use the motor a lot of the time, as we were keeping a fairly leisurely pace. In fact I just had a look at the stats from my data logger, and was surprised at what I saw. I turned it on an off a few times so the entire trip was broken up into 5 sections. The first (#8) being the ~12.5km ride in and the first leg to the Convent. The last two legs (#11&12) being the ride from fed square home with Kepler. With the middle two (#9&10) being from Beer Stop 1 (Convent) to Beer Stop 2 (Fed Square)

Trip Summary Stats.PNG

I pulled out what percentage of the distance I was using the motor. Only 7-20% when on the group cruise. But up around 60% when I was riding with Kepler getting there and back.

I only had my drive assisting me for about a quarter of the time. If Kepler had his running for a more typical 50-60% of the time, that could easily explain the extra 90wh used.

Or I just pedalled more.... which would explain why my face usually looks more like this when I go for a ride.

I was definitely using the drive 50-60% of the time. With the thumb throttle setup on this bike, I was running 200-300W much of the time which suited the speeds we were doing on the bike paths. Out on the open road when riding home with Adrian, I was running 600-700W. Plenty of speed at this power level although Adrian must have had more in Turbo mode as he had no problems pulling away from me up the hills.(And perhaps because he is 20 years younger then me )

[adrian_sm]

I realised I hadn't calibrated my BrainBox thing when I compared watthours used with what I put back in to the battery. So my 500w was actually ~700w (turbo wasn't 1000w but 1400w). All the above stats were based on the corrected numbers. Ooops.

Looked at the log files I cheated with the turbo mode a couple of times on the hills. Looks like when we just crossed the Yarra, and was battling with the tram, and closer to the end of Barkers Rd up that longer hill.

Anyway back on topic... We should definitely do the group ride thing again. I say we aim for early in the new year.

[AussieJester]

@Kepler..should of taken your stealth bomber old boi OR
Maybe design a friction drive with dual motors
(yeah I noticed your avatar)

KiM

[Samd]

Tempted...

6392638717_ce6b3b93ab.jpg (147.55 KiB) Viewed 1008 times

http://www.fyxomatosis.com/index.php/bl ... up-my-ride

[Samd]

Guys I have put up a new topic with some draft dates for Feb, go for broke on ideas please:
viewtopic.php?f=25&t=34626

[adrian_sm]

Finally found a bit of time to shift through what I captured on the GoPro, and chop it down to size.

It's uploading now (30mins to go) .... Thanks again SamD for organising this leisurely little ride.

[Samd]

Awesome! Love that music.
Ha - folks thought it was the beer talking when I said we passed Cathy Freeman on the yarra - you get a glimpse at 42 secs...
Looking forward to riding to work now!

[Evoforce]

Alright! Looks like fun!

[full-throttle]

Here's another video:



Enjoy!


And Happy New Year!

[Hyena]

Cool meet and videos guys, and a very high standard of bikes by the look of it too.
It looks like Ben Moore has significantly lifted his game in ebike aesthetics since I last met up with him
Your bike actually looks to accelerate fairly briskly Adrian - I thought those friction drives were more for pedal assist ? Or maybe it's just the sound of it that makes it sound like it's shooting into orbit I'm keen to test ride one next time I'm in Melbourne.

Thanks for the shout out full throttle I think you'll need a few more kw under your bum to ruffle their feathers though

The bike culture isn't as big in Sydney as Melbourne but we there's still a good few ES members here and I'm going to organise a ride here shortly too