»»»»» Honkin 5000 MILE CLUB «««««

[TylerDurden]

TUZ established the H5K Club: His club, his rules, loozer.

 

[safe]

I was indeed shocked to learn of his accomplishment. My hope was to be the first... but he did start a year earlier than I did and so he got there first.

My hope was to have been the one to first get to 5,000 miles.

Too late... ...like being second to the South Pole.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Amundsen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Scott

These days they have a station at the South Pole and people live there...

 

[Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh]

Hold on a 2nd there sparky, you don't even have 2nd place sewn up just yet.
Shudda spent more tyme ridin' & less tyme typin' curious quizzical thoughts.
get on yer bikes n ride!
no time for loozers
cuz wee are the cham-pyuns....
of the whirrled.

As I suggested in my opening post, indeed there are others that have even surpassed this distance.
I was simply the first to plant the flag on this sphere.
Ordinarily I wouldn't have even considered mentioning it, when you view the feat from the perspective as JoeP put it then it does seem rather meager. (& that's comparing to the currently expensive gas yet, geez.)
I only established the club cuz Little Rascals treehouse type competitions like this seem to matter to safe, so I thought I'd use the opportunity to also include some (hopefully) insightful data.

The other thing as pointed out by Y is that the only critical component that need go the distance is the pilot's a55 & not any particular bike or motor or battery, so severed limbs is ok.
Having been legal the whole time subject to a computer imposed 19.5 mph max speed restriction (that's the turbo-all-the-way jk), I'm looking to make some changes to increase the speed so I can brake into that exclusive 20 mph club as well add some battery capacity which will make it almost a different bike.
It's quite unrealistic to expect that nothing can fail or allowed to be upgraded, that's a virtual impossibility, & I think any particular component milestones could be highlighted as a footnote within whatever respective club.
However, that being said, my battery pack did in fact make it the whole 5k miles b4 replacing anything.
I simply limped along for the final 200 miles with my range cut down by half.

 

[safe]

However, that being said, my battery pack did in fact make it the whole 5k miles b4 replacing anything.
I simply limped along for the final 200 miles with my range cut down by half.

TylerDurden jumped on me for saying that the real test for this is to be able to pull off the 5,000 miles with the same battery. (no replacements allowed) Despite his criticisms I think it's a good metric.

Anyone can simply log a lot of miles... it just takes time...

The real eye opener is to be able to go many miles while not spending any additional money for pack replacements. (especially these days when gas is so expensive)

The real winner (we hope) will someday be a LiFePO4 pack because everyone seems so excited about their potential, but you did your record with NiMh. Unfortunately we seem to have almost as many threads dedicated to LiFePO4 and Li ion packs failing in dramatic fashion as we see success.

It would be great to really see LiFePO4 prove itself.

Would you agree that for NiMh that 5,000 miles is probably about the limit? That you would never expect more?

 

[mvadventure]

Read and learn and get confused by even more opinions. That's me. Probably Safe is right re same setup, motor & battery & bike for the 5K. I know I have more than 5K on my currernt bike but it's on it second motor, third battery system and second set of tires.

I did find out why my odometer was reading 99.9 though. While it's true I never touch it I frequently park in the cart barn at one of our Club's golf courses, especially if it looks like rain. Up close the bike is "different" than a regular bike and has lots of stuff on the handlebars including a speedo/odomert, radio w/speedo/odometer, bell, horn, watts up meter, shifter and brake levers. Add the front basket and the PVC frame I built around it that holds a drink holder and two to three headlights and the big waterproof bag in the basket and the front end alone garners attention from the uninitiated. Then there are the wires and there are lots of wires and even though they are in harnessess there are lots of them leading back to the batteries and controller.

So I figure one of the bag rats (cart attendents for the politically correct) in a spare moment was simply looking and touching and pressed the bottom of the odometer changing if from total distance to trip distance. I say this because yesterday I was going to see if I could get it working properly and as soon as I touched it the right numbers came up.

According to it, I still have more than 2K to go on this motor and if we go with having to have the same batteries and motor I'm close to 4K behind. Oh well, it's a pretty day I may just go for a ride.

Mike

 

[safe]

I'm already out of the contest because I had to replace a bad cell at around 3,000 miles. This kind of record is something that you more or less are going to stumble upon or you start with such a high reliability system to begin with so as to make getting there a near certainty.

At the stage of battery pack development right now it just seems that there are a lot of "partial successes" and not a lot of really clean long mileage runs.

But that's what these threads are for... to let people post how well they have done.

Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh seems to be the record holder for this forum.

 

[Eric G]

I read what Toorbough meant for this club by what Ypedal asked and what Toorbough replied...

Ydedal asked... "Does this require to be on the same bike ? motor ? battery pack?"

Toorbough replied..."Y, none too particular how you does it as long as you does it."

Eric

 

[safe]

"Does this require to be on the same bike ? motor ? battery pack?"

Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh did something unique.

Not only did he make it to 5,000 miles (which anyone can do if they put enough time into it) he also did it on the same bike and the same battery.

Maybe that's what makes it the "Honkin" 5000 Mile Club and not just the "5000 Mile Club"? (or maybe not?)

Seems to me there needs to be a thread that showcases long distances on the same battery... hmmmm... a thread creation idea is emerging...

 

[Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh]

Sorry for the delay in responding to your question.
Been busy racking up another 50 miles.

Anyone can simply log a lot of miles... it just takes time...

That one's a keeper, I think you just shot yourself in the foot.
Honestly, would you have felt the same way if you had been 'THE ONE' or would you be turkey-trottin in the end-zone, dropping casual references to the feat in numerous unrelated threads?
I didn't realize I had so cut you to the quick.
Coming from you, your sour-grapes is the highest praise indeed.
*snif*, excuse me while I wipe a tear from my eye. :lol:

Would you agree that for NiMh that 5,000 miles is probably about the limit? That you would never expect more?

I certainly expect more, like 50% more at a minimum.
The manufacturer held out it should be good for double.
How realistic is that expectation however, I cannot say since this is my first experience with NiMH chemistry.
Prior to this I hadn't even so much as tried AA NiMH, having preferred using NiCds for everything.
My Cateye halogen headlight still has the original 4 AA NiCds, still going strong coming up on 10 years now in Oct.

When I originally learned that my ebike operated on just 2½ dozen D cells I thought 'no freakin way!'
I simply couldn't wrap my head around the fact that essentially flashlight size batteries were capable of haulin my a55 around for very long without melting down in short order.
Then I read about the Honda Insight & that other hybrids also ran the same type & size cells so my doubts alleviated somewhat & took a chance putting my money down.
Later found out that larger format cells are prohibited from being made is the reason for the screwy situation of being limited to using D cells for everything.

So I'm pleasantly surprised & pleased to say that the system does indeed work very well.
I would not have believed it in the beginning, but ebikes are definitely for real & can provide honest, reliable, & cheap(er{ish}) transportation.
The fact that anyone can reach 5000 miles is the whole point of the club, to be inclusive.
If you set the bar so high that you can never replace anything then no one will even bother to try.
I've been wanting to add more battery for some time but since I was close to the mark & didn't have much time to tinker with it anyways I pressed on.
I'm now rather relieved to be free from keeping everything unaltered.
Like Mathurin said, it's hard to resist the urge for long to change things up on your bike.

I hope that people will either be inspired or challenged by the club, if they see that some schmuck canuck can do it then it must not be that hard & need not worry about keeping everything static.
This isn't about some strict guinness record kind of thing, it's real life.
It won't be long b4 this kind of mileage will be ho-hum, the club is simply here to get the snowball rolling.
An ebike may start off as a toy for mostly fun or the odd trip to the slurpee shack.
But as the limits of what an ebike can do is explored & confidence builds in it's capabilites then it gets put to more frequent uses & longer distances & the mileage simply grows by osmosis.

 

[safe]

Well, I complement you again Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh in being there first.

I (sniff, sniff) was hoping to be the one on the lead, but such is life.