Pot-Hole nightmares! Tell me yours...

The roads where I live are terrible, at the sides there's plenty of grids, bumps & potholes caused by excessive traffic volumes and I HATE THEM!
Every time I ride over one of these things in the dark or by accident I get an almighty bump on my ass from the seat. Most of the weight is at the back of the bike; the battery, hub motor and me so its hardly surprising im getting bumped about. Im just glad ive got triple thick rims on both my front and back wheels or else im sure one of the wheels would be buckled by now!

Just out of curiosity, how many pot holes and other "wheel demons" are there where you live? and do you have issues with buckled wheels etc...?

http://electricle.blogspot.com/2009/09/phoenix-sinkhole-roads-bent-rim-26-test_05.html

http://electricle.blogspot.com/2009/09/whiny-wheels.html

I lived in this town once that the Canadian Broadcasting Company ran a documentary on the size of the potholes we had in town. Frost heaves, potholes and such are just "normal" to most Canadians, at least those that live outside the major centers.

Calgary isn't so bad really, roads here are in pretty good condition. It's the drivers you have to watch out for...

As a daily commuter on ebike myself, you need to be trained and memorized where the potholes are so you can avoid them in high speed. Getting a full suspension bike with motor may also helps. The other thing you can do is to make your ebike as light like as regular bike as possible so your rims & spokes will have enough tensions to eat the bumps.

Lyen said:

As a daily commuter on ebike myself, you need to be trained and memorized where the potholes are so you can avoid them in high speed.

Click to expand...

My town wasn't too bad until this winter from hell. It has caused a ten fold increase in potholes. New ones pop up all the time, so memorizing no longer works here. I really hope they fix 'em this spring. First we'd need the snow to melt of course, and that hasn't happened in 74 days and counting.

I spent the first year of commuting dialing in my route to find the least potholed, and safest streets. In spots, memorizing the potholes is useless and sometimes routes can't be changed much.

My first bike was a trike, loaded with 4 sla's on the rear basket. Since swerving around an obstacle gets impossible above 15 mph on adult trikes, I soon bent the rear wheels into tacos.

The next bike was full suspension. A really cheap mongoose model with about an inch of usable travel in the shocks, it still really did wonders for the wheels. I could swerve around a pothole now too, and had gotten lifepo4 and shed 15 pounds of battery. All together, I now had a bike that could take quite a beating on normal potholes 3" or less deep. Curb hops and bigger holes could still bend a rim though with all the extra weight on the bike. But the normal stuff, cement and asphalt that are 2" different at driveways, typical speed bumps, big heat cracks, etc seemed to be ok once I had even the worst suspension. I rode up to a year without even touching the spoke wrench once I got the wheels dialed in at the beginning.

I just upgraded to a real FS bike, with 5" rear travel and 4" front travel. Wow what a difference, particularly the lack of frame flexing now. I suspect that I'm still heavy enough to make curb hopping a bad idea at speed, but now I don't fear dropping off a curb slowly at all, or a pothole up to 4" deep at 25 mph, or deeper if the sides slope some. Whenever I do screw up, the suspension sucks it up with no possibility of bottoming out on street riding. Cost a pile of money, but I save so much by keeping the car parked that a year of riding will pay for it.

All this cost is worth it to me since I do high mileage daily. If the ride was under 5 miles one way, I'd still be on the trike I bet.

joeworrall said:

Pot-Hole nightmares! Tell me yours...

Click to expand...

Its a Dark and stormy night on a deserted country road. I ride alone through the fog as lead acid batteries slowly lose power. Denim wearing Penguins with pitch forks glare at me from porches of the occasional delapidated shack beside the road. A sudden flash of lightning reveals for a brief second something moving in the road ahead. I strain to see through the rain and darkness, but I just can't see it. Moments later, another flash of lightning reveals the gaping maw of a fangourious pothole directly in my path. I throw my self to the side but its too late. I bearly scramble away as the pothole devoures my bike. The Penguins are starting to silently line the side of the road. One of them has an old hunting dog, that looks strangly like my 3rd grade teacher. The Penguins won't let me off the road. I turn to walk down the road, but the pothole rushes at me. as soon as I turn around, it freezes in place, roaring at me in frustration. I blink and it rushes at me again, but stops as my eyes open. I walk backwards down the road, not letting the pothole out of my sight, but a noise behind me makes me turn. its another pothole! its snuck up behind me, and I'm falling in! Down I fall into its rock, fang filled mouth, into an Abyss of rock and heat and penguins dancing with pitchforks to 80's Rock Ballads.

Ah damn after the first sentence I knew I should have stopped. Now I won't get any sleep tonight.

Sounds like Timothy Leary supplied the acid for your batteries .

I haven't hit one, but they are fairly common around here, and that's missing manhole covers, which would be a real nightmare on a bike.

My closest actual incident was 12 years ago when I was still commuting by motorcycle. I knew every pothole on the route. They decided to fix an area that had several potholes. That day all they managed to accomplish was to cut large rectangles out of the road. I come through that night at maybe 40mph and with no warning signs or markers of any kind, instead of a few known and easy to dodge potholes, there are 2 unavoidable rectangular holes 12-15cm deep with sharp square sides. I just managed to get up on my legs a bit instead of just sitting (the roads were a bit wet, so 0 opportunity to brake other than just let off the gas. The front hit the other side with enough ferocity that I bent the handlebar, and when the back tire hit it, I went up on one wheel. Back in '98 riding a motorcycle on only the front wheel wasn't cool yet. My feet had come off the pegs at some point knocking my brake side shoe off in the process, so I just kind of coasted to a stop.

I still don't really understand how I didn't bite it. I'm no accomplished motorcycle rider. It's absolutely incredible the amount of adrenalin you body can pump into your system in such a short time. I was so wound up after I stopped and realized I was fine that I could barely turn the thing off. I guess my brain prepared me for serious injury or something, so when all was fine it didn't know what to do with all those chemicals it released, leaving me literally shaking.

John

Mah tyres iz 1.4" slicks and inflated to 70 psi, working on it...

Perhaps time to post this vid again:
[youtube]6Pi6GIAMIxk[/youtube]

:lol:

That vid reminds me of an incident back in the late 80's, maybe early 90's, when I used to take the bus (before I gave up on our transit system) to work at Honeywell CFSG. It was in winter when it was still totally dark outside in the early morning, like 6am or something ugly like that. They'd been tearing down this old landmark girl's school on 19th Ave & Northern, so they could turn it into a shopping center (styled vaguely like the school it replaced, but ugly instead) headed by Albertson's.

In the process, they had to dig up the whole area at the corner, presumably for utility access and a sewage main line or something, as it was very deep and large. They put metal plates over the thing, but apparently not over *all* of it, and on that day as we waited a ways down the street for the bus, some sleepy driver ignored the construction signs and tape and warning lights, and drove right into the hole. The car didn't exactly disappear like that bike did, but it was nose-down in there pretty far. Musta sucked for the driver.

Police were already there for a totally different accident that had happened before I arrived, so they took over and I don't know what happened after that, as the bus came soon after.

Potholes are a good reason to keep the bike voltage to 36 or under. In chicago we dont just have potholes...we have sinkholes!

I tried 48 volts, and you hit one pothole and you really feel it where it hurts.

lester12483 said:

Potholes are a good reason to keep the bike voltage to 36 or under. In chicago we dont just have potholes...we have sinkholes!

I tried 48 volts, and you hit one pothole and you really feel it where it hurts.

Click to expand...

Maybe I just haven't had enough coffee yet, but how is it you're linking potholes and voltage?

I'm pretty sure it has to do with higher voltage resulting in higher top speed = greater potential pot hole impact. A higher voltage, in his case, might also result in greater battery weight.

swbluto said:

I'm pretty sure it has to do with higher voltage resulting in higher top speed = greater potential pot hole impact. A higher voltage, in his case, might also result in greater battery weight.

Click to expand...

Then go to 1kv and just fly right over them.