El Escalador de Montaña Rojo - Season 3

[pwbset]

Finally getting underway with my 3rd season of mountain climbing. Powered by DeWalt this time.



Yes I drilled through my bike frame and no I don't care about the bike enough to worry about it and frankly the mounts are perfect.

Below are some video links. I'm riding very conservatively in these as it was my first time with the new batts and I didn't want to get stranded near the top with a ~65lb bike and only a single speed gear. That sucks believe me. Only averaging about 16mph. Usually I average around 20mph. Anyway... used 8.8ah so about 2.2ah per pack. Not bad for packs from 2007 costing $40/ea. Hoping to get 4 more packs though so I don't worry so much about it and can really boost the speed. Still.. 8 packs currently.. Grr. 1st season only 6 Milwaukee V28s were used really making me miss the higher watt/hr of LiMn over LiFe. I don't even hit the throttle until 6:40 and the climb doesn't start until 9:50, but if you're incredibly bored you can see a very long and very boring commute up 1,600ft vertical. I'm pedaling moderately the whole time up contributing about 125-150 watts. I like the exercise, but sometimes am lazy and barely pedal at all. You'd be amazed on a climb like this how ineffective pedaling really is at these power levels. If I stop pedaling all together and just blip the throttle another 125 watts nothing changes. Etc. Averaged around 1.8-2kw up the steep stuff.. a little lower than my usual ~2.2kw. Rear 504 is barely warm at the top whereas my old 4011 you could fry and egg on after the same climb. Convinced that 5 series is the only way to fly hub-wise for this kind of climbing if you want any sort of motor longevity. Would love to see the current hub darling 9Cs do the same climb and see how hot they got. Going down isn't any more exciting I'm afraid. Once the snow melts a little more in the woods I'll film the other route up, which is more exciting since I run into wildlife'n stuff.

Up - MP4, 27:56

Down - MP4, 18:27

EDIT: Oh.. and sorry about the video links and mpeg4... vids were too long for YouTube and you can't embed Vimeo here so...

[dogman]

Beautiful ride to work route. I bet you wish it was longer some days. Funny how flat it all looks in video of course, but you could tell when it was steep.

I'm getting some impressive results out of my 9c 6x10 motor climbing shorter hills, but at slower speeds. 48v gives you 20 mph, but of course make it a 15% grade and you slow down to 10 mph fast, and maybe stall out if you don't pedal.

But the kind of riding that melted two motors and just plain worked poorly with others at 1000 watts or less is going well with this wind. It's not flying down the trails, more like riding 10-15 mph most of the time, seldom pedaling. But it powers through deep sand and gravel nice with a fat enough tire, grunts up short hills, just riding all the time at speeds that would stall and melt most motors and yet it never gets very hot, even on a 95F day! I rode like a devil for 19 miles the other day, and never got above 140F.

But there is no question though, if you really are going to abuse a hub motor badly everyday, get a 5304.

I haven't had time yet to really test it on a long sustained climb, but soon the wind will stop, and the try to melt some motors fest will begin. Not a good test with too much tailwind. Gotta be at least 100F too

It's gonna be real interesting this year, with a 6x10, A 9x7, and a 48v Fusin planetary geared to try to melt. And a second gearmotor could be coming.