Looking for a race

So are we having this race with the snow in the road?

Racing in traffic isn't worth driving across the country for, or the bad press it would give ebikes in general. But an organized race might be. I think we are way past renting a cart track. The normal bike on ES can't even get up to speed on a cart track these days. my little 10,000 watt peak bike wouldn't be much fun on a tiny track. You need a track like Laguna Seca, only somewhere more centrally located in north America.

There will be a race in SoCal coming up shortly. Check out the thread in the "Coming Events" section here.

I race the mountain tracks here, and never lost in the last 4 years. Not bad for a 67 yr old rider :wink:

In town, I loose sometimes. We are many here with fast ebikes, and some of the kids are more crazy than I in the trafic.

Offroader said:

I agree that there needs to be some kind of organized racing and classes.

Especially a class for hub motored off-road type of races.

This would help people figure out what kind of bikes perform the best. It may also help progress ebikes.

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Exactly.

They used to let ebikes compete at Pikes Peak, but banned them. Let's bring that back. It's an easy start. It's already set up and organized, they just need to recognize there is also a demand to race ebikes.

Snelheid Cycles said:

That's great that this has been discussed in the past, but I'm more concerned about the future. I want to participate, not just read and talk about it...

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Sure, sorry to bother you by trying to help you see the existing discussion so you'd know what people had already spent so much time working on.

I'll leave you to it.

I don't know if this has been discussed in the past already but without having read any past discussion here are my thoughts on organized races.

There needs to be obvious classes.

Like hubmotored ebikes with a certain max watt limit. I think the max watts need to be limited or it would be unfair, but this would probably depend on the course.
A more difficult off-road course then max power wouldn't matter all that much. It would be more skill and bike setup.

Obvious drag racing type of races then power can't be limited, but maybe motor size or something.

We beat the watt limit thing to death years ago. Impossible to prevent fudging it. Wattage could be changed after the inspection, right there on the start line. Only way it would work is a one design type class. Trot out 5 identical 400w ezips, and hop on for a race, what fun.

Got a faster track in my area, Near Deming NM. Arroyo seco track. But again, not near anybody at all, nor will I be organizing a race. http://arroyosecoraceway.com/


I just liked the Kart track because the corners meant crashing would happen closer to 30 mph. I'm not ready for any more 60 mph laydowns. Too old for that now.

I really think the only interesting races will be with offroad riding. As this tests many aspects of an ebike.

Riding on a track like that is just pointless the way I see it. What would win would be a very basic light bike pushing lots of watts through the motor. Think Live for physics "death bike". I guess it would be a good test of cooling solutions, but pointless elsewhere.

I don't mean to offend, I just don't see the point of racing on a track like that with an ebike. You're just basically testing someone to build the lightest weight, with the highest volts possible. Not really a practical bike for every day use.

Now having an off-road race really tests everything.

I wonder if there's more of these around the USA?

http://www.odditycentral.com/travel/louisville-mega-caves-americas-first-underground-mountain-bike-course.html

'Seems like a perfect place for eBikes to ride year 'round.

I've been to those caverns. Pretty cool.

Maybe to even the odds amongst bike styles, we need a "triathlon" type race. Maybe a shorter sprint race, a hill climb, and a longer race. Each would test different aspects of the same bike, exposing weaknesses.

Offroader said:

I don't know if this has been discussed in the past already but without having read any past discussion here are my thoughts on organized races.

There needs to be obvious classes.

Like hubmotored ebikes with a certain max watt limit. I think the max watts need to be limited or it would be unfair, but this would probably depend on the course.
A more difficult off-road course then max power wouldn't matter all that much. It would be more skill and bike setup.

Obvious drag racing type of races then power can't be limited, but maybe motor size or something.

Click to expand...

An easy way to make classes would be by weight, like boxing. Since the key to ebike performance is basically a big battery, a big motor, a big controller, and big wires. These all weigh a considerable amount. If you have weight classes such as <50lbs, <75lbs, <100lbs etc you could have different variations of ebikes racing against each other within their weight class. This would also place emphasis on other areas of performance other than just "Power". In the entrance to a corner under braking, it doesn't matter how much power you have, and battery weight lowers your amount of available grip in the corner. So the more curvy the course is, things like tire width, suspension and brakes come more into play. These also increase the safety factor, as opposed to just raising the power, which arguably decreases safety, and increases the potential for an electrical mishap.

That was the basic conclusion back in 2009. Weight classes rather than watt classes.

But at the Death Races, unlimited sure was fun! You should have seen Thuds bike go! As Luke pointed out though, too much battery for more power does lead to poor handling. I was not crashing till I put another 10 pounds of battery on the bike. I definitely overbuilt my skill level.

The kart track was definitely more of a rider skill test for the fast guys.

Again, if you are really interested, we have everything here to test your e bike to the limit. It may not be a race, but we have seriously long steep paved mountain hills, more or less private dirt singletrack, and faster riding dirt roads all within a few miles of my driveway. The dirt tracks start at my driveway.

So if you want to do some testing to destruction, I'm your guy. Send shit, or come out and ride from my house. Whatever you bring, I'll build something to try to race you on it. I don't know about other tracks, but the guy in Tucson will let an ebike on the track any time he's having an open track day.