1 month off-road trip in Chile : which ebike ?

[Jil]

Morocco would be a lot more doable by e bike. See the more recent Ewan Macgregor tv series, Long Way Up. They rode Patagonia to California on electric motorcycles. They had some good charging places set up ahead of time, but for some sections with big climbs, a bit far apart. Patagonia was the worst, but the big desert was pretty uninhabited.

Yes I have seen Long Way Up, and their travel in Patagonia is a joke... Using a huge generator to feed their batteries They would have been better travellingl with gas bikes !

I still think if your battery is small enough to fly with, its not going to do for tours in huge mountains, and uninhabitable deserts.

You're probably right. In such place, it seems better to have 3-400 km and 5000 m D+ of autonomy at least, i.e. ~2 kWh of batteries even with a very wise consumption. So, a lot of weight, and not transportable with you by plane even as Ligo batteries.
For now, let's keep ebike travel for places where you can plug every 200 km or so :wink:

 

[Bigwheel]

Would want regen on a ride like that.

Sure. But the problem is that if you empty your batteries, you have the drag of your motor to haul...

Just an FYI but my Grin All Axle with statorade displays no drag whatsoever, it's light as a geared hub and has regen. But I prefer front hub motors so consider that in the equation......

 

[ZeroEm]

You get more out of regen than any drag. I could see it on flat ground and would agree with you then. Not on hills or mountains.
A person will fly down letting the wind hold them back and that is a total waste.

 

[donn]

You get more out of regen than any drag. I could see it on flat ground and would agree with you then. Not on hills or mountains.

? I would expect regen to exceed core loss only if there are significant hills involved. On flat ground, it would take an awful lot of starting and stopping.

I believe there was some anecdotal evidence that with hills (specifically on Vancouver Island if I remember right?) regen more than recovers the cost specifically of the Phaserunner's "freewheeling" drag compensation. I haven't noticed that feature mentioned here - their controllers have an option to power the hub just enough to overcome the drag, just a few watts. That might sound like something you could sort of do manually, but it doesn't really work for me, because my controller implements the common voltage type throttle. Anyway, it's something to think about if you want regen but want to be able to comfortably ride at 100% human power.

 

[Chalo]

Would want regen on a ride like that.

Sure. But the problem is that if you empty your batteries, you have the drag of your motor to haul...

Just an FYI but my Grin All Axle with statorade displays no drag whatsoever, it's light as a geared hub and has regen. But I prefer front hub motors so consider that in the equation......

I have had All Axle and GMAC hubs in my truing stands, and they drag a lot more than direct drive hubs. Direct drive hubs drag more than dynamo hubs. Dynamo hubs drag more than clutched geared hubs, which drag more than regular bike hubs. So I suspect if you think an All Axle hub displays no drag at all, maybe you would change your mind if you rode a regular bike for comparison.

It doesn't have to be a whole lot of measured watts of drag to be kind of a bummer.

 

[ChanW]

Re DD motor drag: You might check out Grin's All Axle motors.

I don't have anything other than my wife's RadCity to compare to (which feels like rolling through deep mud with the assist off) but I've been surprised at how little drag (if any) I feel with the 'All Axle'.

I will often ride easily with no assist, even uphill, on my bike, whereas with the Rad I'd be getting an altogether different workout!

Grin made reducing motor drag one of its criteria in designing the motor.

 

[donn]

Grin made reducing motor drag one of its criteria in designing the motor.

Is yours V1, pre-2019? Curious about this design, I looked it up on ebikes.ca. They say V2 has stronger magnets, and hence 10% more drag. It's also 3 or 4 oz. heavier, still significantly less than e.g. Crystalite.

It would be interesting to get numbers on the drag from different direct drive hubs. I bet there's a wide range, though for convenience of expression we tend to speak about it as if it's an invariant phenomenon.

 

[ZeroEm]

Grin's newest version has a bit more drag than the last version. That was the trade off for more torque. Don't think you could feel the difference.

 

[Hillhater]

...... for convenience of expression we tend to speak about it as if it's an invariant phenomenon.

?? Who is. “We” ?
And why is that any more convenient than just saying “drag” ?

 

[Bigwheel]

I have an early All Axle that I used on one frame, aluminum, for a few years and then was gifted a new steel frame by a friend that has a different wheel diameter so I deconstructed the old 700c wheel and built up the All Axle into a new rim, so I also had it in my truing stand.....

My other bike setup up pretty much the same has a 9c and it is louder although still pretty quiet actually and does exhibit noticeable drag although I have ridden it a bit without the battery on board and I feel the weight of it more than drag.

In the couple thousand miles I had it on the Alu bike I felt it was very quiet, when Justin had warned me that it might not be. I also was pleased that is was noticeably lighter than the 9c and the overall build was about 10lbs less with some other mods/lighter components as well. In that config I also didn't feel any drag especially in comparison to the 9c bike but frankly I never rode it without the battery on board for any length of time.


(weight taken with 12ah battery on bike btw)

When I installed it on the new bike I didn't have the base runner I wanted to use for the new build so I rode it quite a bit with just the wheel aboard and that was when I really felt that it had minimal drag that I couldn't feel at all when underway and based my statement above on. So maybe the version 2 models do have some but I would imagine not alot.

 

[Jil]

[Anyway, it's something to think about if you want regen but want to be able to comfortably ride at 100% human power.

And I think that’s the key for such trip : you have to be able to pedal comfortably even with empty batteries.

 

[dogman dan]

Funny how we got to talking about DD hub motors on this thread. ( We meaning the ES folks in general)

To get up those mountains in Chile slow enough to hit his wh/km goals it almost has to be a mid drive. It could be a very geared down belt drive on the left side, allowing an easy belt removal to eliminate drag, yet allow regen on a downhill.

Morocco he can do on the bikes he has, and he, or just the battery, can take a boat there so he can carry a bigger battery.

Yeah, I was laughing my ass off when Ewan had to call in the generator in long way up, but not surprised that in such cold temperatures their battery range was half what they expected. The bikes and trucks did better as soon as it got a bit warmer. An even bigger joke was when they took that bus to get through Chiuhuahua to Juarez. That route was relatively safe then, but riding through Sinaloa would have been crazy. BTW, I live 40 miles from Juarez, and would not go there. But Juarez is no more dangerous than Mexico City in the last 5 years or so. You can blame Ewan for the BMW in my garage. I got the more comfortable road version RT though.

 

[ChanW]

Mine's the latest version of the All Axle.

Before I ordered my kit, I saw Justin's mention of the slight compromise with additional drag on the V2 All-Axle, and so thought I'd have to commit to a later upgrade to the PhaseRunner or BaseRunner to take advantage of their 'pseudo-freewheel' function, but I'm liking the Grinfineon system just fine so far. As I said, I don't have much to compare to, other than my memory of what my bike felt like last month before its "change" to OMG (when I installed the kit).

But then "10% more" than 'barely noticeable' might be pretty minor!

It sure seems to be as fast and responsive as before.

And then again, there are a few other nice features that the PhaseRunner/BaseRunner adds that I might not be able to resist...

Baby steps.

Grin made reducing motor drag one of its criteria in designing the motor.

Is yours V1, pre-2019? Curious about this design, I looked it up on ebikes.ca. They say V2 has stronger magnets, and hence 10% more drag. It's also 3 or 4 oz. heavier, still significantly less than e.g. Crystalite.

It would be interesting to get numbers on the drag from different direct drive hubs. I bet there's a wide range, though for convenience of expression we tend to speak about it as if it's an invariant phenomenon.

 

[Jil]

Quick update : my girlfriend and I have both done a test with a loaded bike (my Surly with GMAC and 14s6p battery).
2 days, 100-110 kms, with all gear to camp. Few wind, flat/smooth cycling path.
She has tried to limit the consumption as much as possible, and ended up with 3.5 Wh/km, still enjoying the ride. Assistance at 60% of pedaling power, i.e. probably around 70-80 watts for her. On my side, I was more at 6-7 Wh/km, with more assistance and higher speed.
Mountain is another matter : on a very steep loop (29 km, 1040 m D+), with max assistance around 300 watts, I have used 13 Wh/km.

--> I think that 5Wh/km is realistic with a loaded bike on flat land in good conditions, provided that you don't go over 100 watts of assistance. In moutainous area, going below 10 Wh/km seems challenging.

 

[dogman dan]

Sounds about right. Flat is easy to make a lot of km/wh. Especially if you aren't old and sick like I was when I was bike touring. But I believe you climb to 12,000 feet elevation before Chile gets anywhere near flat.

The problem will be making it from charging point to charging point on the relentless climb to the plateau. Once on top, you are clearly strong enough to run out of juice and keep going to the next charging place.

Where I have ridden is much different. Most climbs only about 10 miles long, 3 or 4 thou vertical to 9000 feet or less, then the nice coast down the other side. The valley in the Rocky mts is 4-5000 feet up. Charging points about 70 miles apart at most. That downhill bit lets your wh/km average get real good over the whole ride. You will face days of climbing without any long downhills I think.

 

[Jil]

Sounds about right. Flat is easy to make a lot of km/wh. Especially if you aren't old and sick like I was when I was bike touring. But I believe you climb to 12,000 feet elevation before Chile gets anywhere near flat.

Patagonia is indeed back on the table, and the trip would be mainly the "Carretera Austral" from Puerto Montt to Villa O'Higgins :
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Puerto+Montt,+Les+Lacs,+Chili/Villa+O'higgins,+O'higgins,+Chili/@-44.4725528,-76.112572,6z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x96183a4d6920f407:0x86a3f15a79a5c9df!2m2!1d-72.9411364!2d-41.468917!1m5!1m1!1s0xbd9611d305abaf25:0xc68561fbe0c40bf8!2m2!1d-72.5879721!2d-48.4821494!3e1

The total elevation of this road on 1200 km is 10000 meters, not that much.
The challenge will probably be more winds than hills.

 

[999zip999]

Google says is 2 days and 20 minutes away ? What time of the year do you plan on making this trip ?

 

[Jil]

Google says is 2 days and 20 minutes away ?

yep Google is really sporty and optimistic :lol:

What time of the year do you plan on making this trip ?

It would be on February/March.

 

[dogman dan]

I was looking at Chile on google earth yesterday, and more of it than I thought was low elevation. Particularly the south end. Patagonia of course has some big mountains, but the roads there are not like the Atacama desert. I've been thinking of that part of Chile.

Looks like a great adventure! And a good time for it, after the thaw.