rowbiker said:Hey Warren -- nice travelogue! It looks like using more regen braking during your fog ride significantly improved your watt hours per mile. This matches nicely with my experience, but your 'sampling rate' of 100+ miles makes for better data. Nice top end speeds, btw -- that's the nice road hugging stability of a LWB recumbent (and I imagine decent road surfaces).
It actually shows that it is mostly uphill from my house to the cabin. Notice my slowest average speed, and worst Wh/mile, were on the way there, and just the opposite on the way back. The second day's round trip is a better indication of performance, and falls right between the other two days for speed and Wh/mile. During the three days, I was seeing regen running between 5%, and 8% most of the time.
Regen gives a bit back, but the biggest advantage is braking performance. My cargo bike is 130 pounds without the charger, and other camping stuff. At 22,784 miles, I am still on the original Kool Stop orange pads up front, and the original Avid disc pads in the rear. Regen does 98% of my braking.
And yeah, this thing feels like a crouch rocket on good asphalt. Back EMF limits me to 37 mph down a cliff...just as I planned, as I am an idiot.