I come out of the building, maneuvering through the door and making an immediate 90 degree right turn to avoid the railing that prevents the kids from the training center exiting right into the narrow street just outside, called "Sally's Alley". The story is that "Sally" used to work in the building decades ago, one of the oldest on the site, and she would yell at drivers she felt were going too fast for this narrow street between the building and the ten foot tall cement retaining wall holding the hill back. This corner is tight, I have to pick up the hundred pound bike and hold the sprung door simultaneously to make the turn. Once outside I turn on the extra two rear Radbot 1000 tail light's, flip the kill switch to Run, clear the Cycle Analyst, reset the left handlebar mirror, start the GoPro, and mount up. I glide South through Sally's Alley, behind the Advanced Light Source and its outdoor 60,000 volt 20 amp RF Power Supply, turn left toward the "Big Hill" and go by the onsite Fire Station. Another left turn and we begin the climb, still on the site, roll on the power gently, 2,3,4 KW, sliding steeply up between the 115 KV power station and behind the medical building. No point in building speed here, there's another intersection and right turn at the motor pool but the uphill traffic doesn't stop, so we swing right and head uphill toward the back gate. I watch for traffic heading for the automatic gate, it won't reliably open for my ebike, I may do a small loop in the parking lot by the gate to fall in behind a car or several, if there's no traffic I'll have to stop and open the bicycle exit door next to the roadway, pushing the spring door open with one hand and pushing the battery heavy ebike through it uphill at the same time. The gradient is already steep, and it gets steeper up the driveway toward Centennial. This is the place where my 24 FET Controller failed a couple of times, while getting started after pushing through the bike gate. Starting up on a steep hill, with nearly full battery, the low impedance CroMotor, a heavy motor load from the steep gradient, and the uncontrolled current surge during the block time of the Infineon controller's firmware.
But the Sabvoton monitors the current, and always keeps the FETs safe, and we crank on 2-3 KW just to move the bike at all on this gradient, and perhaps pedaling also. At the top of the driveway is the turn onto Centennial, right in the steepest pitch of about 15%, which is about the same gradient as the drive was just past the gate. So we stop again, wait for traffic which can be considerable for this steep street, watching especially for bikes and the occasional crazy skateboarder (!) coming down as they reach considerable speeds and this corner has been the site of some fatal downhill bike crashes. We turn up the hill onto Centennial and accelerate, pedaling as we come out of the lean, careful to avoid striking the pedal on the pavement as the frame was designed for 26" tires but the 24" tires have reduced the clearance too much for pedaling while turning sharply. Rolling on the power we glide uphill at 2-3 KW, continuing to accelerate to get up to speed we roll it up to 5-6 KW and pedal hard, the CA indicates about 25 up the steepest parts, then the road flattens and turns slightly right in front of the Hall of Science and we roll off the power to 1 KW or less which is adequate for the level. We may have to stop at the pedestrian triggered stoplight in front of the Hall, which has a very long cycle time, then continuing past the parking lots the climb resumes at a lesser gradient of about 6 percent, and we pass the Space Sciences building and finally arrive at the top, at the crossing with the road going up the ridge, a 4 way stop that is frequently run by cars going uphill and bikes coming downhill, and where I took my spill a year and a half ago when watching the cars too intently and not my riding. At this point I've come about a mile from my office and consumed 2 amp hours in just a very few minutes, it will take about 5 more amp hours and another half hour to traverse the 12 remaining miles, with lots of moderate downhill and twisty curves along the golf course and through Tilden Park down Wildcat road, along the gently rolling hills by San Pablo Reservoir, down another good descent past the lake's earth fill dam on the aptly named "Dam road", and through the neighborhoods to our home, hopefully high up enough on the hillside to be above the flood plain should the dam ever break.
I like to enjoy the ride, but yesterday with the impending threat of rain I rushed, not enough to sacrifice safety, but enough to chop off a few minutes, and it started raining just about a mile from my destination, not enough to get anything wet, big drops but few of them, and then I escaped out of the weather and into the garage.
Someday I'll post a few of the many hundreds of GoPro videos I have of my commute, boring views of the front tire spinning and suspension working, and the wide angle view from the front fork down tube. From this low height it makes even slow ebike speeds look fast, and the world rotates for every lean and turn. My friend Eric tried to compress some of these videos and it didn't work well, every pixel in the frame is in motion, like the stars in space travel viewed out the front window, and compression algorithms can't find much to get traction on compressing.
It is four something in the morning, and I'm writing this on the laptop in bed, and I've annoyed the wife enough, so I better quit and try to get a little more sleep before the day begins. Hope I've answered your question, it was fun to write a bit, probably more than you wanted to read.
