Ezip & Izip fire road ride

davespicer

100 W
Joined
Mar 28, 2008
Messages
109
Location
Asheville NC
(This is pretty long and not very technical; thought other newcomers might find it useful. Those with more experience and better gear, thanks for your patience...)

My wife and I brought our ebikes to a local recreation area (Lake Powhatan - info at http://www.hikewnc.info/trailheads/pisgah/pisgah/bentcreek.html) to try them on the crushed-stone roads there. Hers is an Izip Trailz Enlightened (NiMH batteries and hub motor), mine is an Ezip Mountain Trailz (Lead-acid batts and chain-drive Currie: Wal-Mart low-end special).

I let my wife set the pace, which was maybe 10 mph on the level and downhills and pretty slow uphill. Found that I needed some throttle on the level parts, but only a little. Uphill I went slower than I would have by myself - not using much throttle and in the lowest gear.

The total distance might've been 5 miles. By the time we got back to the parking area my batteries were starting to get pretty tired (think I had a 2-mile ride a previous day and had forgotten to recharge 'em). The motor was quite hot - I could touch it for a second but not leave my hand on it. From discussions here I knew that low-speed operation wasn't what the motor wanted, but I thought that light throttle would offset that. Looks like it didn't.

Meanwhile, the Izip was down to two LEDs on the battery display when under load, but that was the only indication it had been working hard. Didn't think to feel the rear hub for maybe half an hour; it wasn't warm at all then.

Put both bikes on their chargers. The Izip was done first. Next time we do something like this I'll do them one at a time through the Kill-A-Watt to see how much power it takes to recharge each of 'em.

Neither bike was ideal for this kind of riding. The Izip flies along pavement and gentler hills, but handled the crushed stone and lower speeds without complaint, just slowing down a lot on steeper hills. The Ezip had much more power than I needed, but running at low speeds used most of the battery's charge in just heating up the motor.

Next time we'll try paved bike trails and see how things go.

- Dave
 
davespicer said:
Next time we do something like this I'll do them one at a time through the Kill-A-Watt to see how much power it takes to recharge each of 'em.
FYI: Charge the SLA first... let the Ni cool before charging.

Nice report, look forward to the next.

:D
 
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