100+ Miles of Fun per Charge: 5.1kWh batt, 20kw capable

[gman1971]

"No, your stance or different opinions are not an attack; however, the way you crafted your responses selectively targeting things like what my aero trike can't do just to prove a point "

Again.. thats how you see it. But if you go back and read, I just pointed out the mods that have been successful on your trike don't work in rugged off road conditions. There's been no anti trike sentiment, even though you kept tediously circling the conversation back to that. Two others of us that own and ride electric trikes voiced support for them except the special case of rugged off road conditions.
It seemed to me more about your refusal to accept that there is one particular area, namely rugged off road riding that aero treatments are of low benefit, given the lower average speed, the effect on handling, the crash worthiness, the drag of the heavy moto wheels being more of the total drag, the buildup of mud ect. I just don't see minor tweeks producing large gains.

If it was so easy to achieve, with just a few dollars of flat plastic panels, surely someone in the last 50 years could have actually done it?

And where, if I may ask, where do you get that its easy to do? Its NOT easy to do, but that's what you'd hope. Extracting every bit of Wh/mile out of my trike was a 2 years process of trial/error, learning how to thermoform panels, then building gradually more complex panels, plates, damns, vortex generators... and then the tedious datalogging of each one of them to see the gains, if any. It wasn't easy to do, but it was done, and while remaining open cockpit which was my goal.

So what are r u trying to prove now? I will reiterate this for you: what I did for my trike is NOT the same thing I would do on an MTB that needs to go offroad and potentially crash, but aero concepts remain the same for everything. Also, short of maybe using square wheels, the air drag will always grow to be magnitudes of order larger than the rolling resistance... If you don't want, or can't see how minor tweaks can offer large gains then you really have nothing further to add here, you stated what its already obvious and known, and I'll be talking to the OP directly off the thread.

G.

 

[Voltron]

"So, with a few dollars worth of plastic you achieved the same effect as a 3000 dollar battery pack"

Maybe thats where I got the idea you were making it sound easy... you left out the years of testing and datalogging on the way to getting some benefits.

 

[gman1971]

"So, with a few dollars worth of plastic you achieved the same effect as a 3000 dollar battery pack"

Maybe thats where I got the idea you were making it sound easy... you left out the years of testing and datalogging on the way to getting some benefits.

I never omitted the years of testing on purpose, you assumed that. The same way the OP never had imply that he has spent some time building large battery packs prior to the 5.1kWh pack; building packs correctly takes skill too; and one just don't wake up one day and know how to assemble 5.1 kWh packs or knowing how to aero-optimize shapes.

Took me to 2 years for many reasons, learning (and relearning) being one of them, but it could be done in far less time, especially if you don't need to cover large areas like on a MTB... the fact is tho, I knew how the trike was going to look more or less long before I ever put a single bolt down on it; a prototype CAD design was my guide during the early stages. But when the time came to build it, I found out that some of these complex panels I had in the CAD were nearly impossible to mold, or simply didn't work for ergonomic reasons, so had to go back and rethink a lot of it; then it took me a long time to learn and have any hope at thermoforming some of the panels in my garage. Then waiting for weeks or months to have an available long break from work to do anything with a trike that was my daily ride/commuter, you can't have your car taken apart for days at a time and go to work at the same time, that added to the long wait, but at least, while I was riding, I was datalogging everything during this time.

G.

 

[The Toecutter]

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/eric-barone-breaks-the-new-world-speed-record-by-bike-2015.html

Look at Eric Barone's downhill bike as well as the bike frame.

Pieces of that shape could be modified to work for this electric mountain bike without compromising its purpose or safety. Obviously, the rear will have to take on a form that can accommodate standing while pumping the pedals as well as sitting. Where full wheel disc covers won't work, use partial ones. Were partial disc covers won't work, use aero spokes. An optimized version of these record DH bike mods for a mountain bike application may end up looking radically different from the example above, all this being said, but an exact copy of the rear piece of this bike alone placed to the seat of OP's electric mountain bike is probably going to show a small but noticeable improvement in drag over using absolutely nothing.

 

[Voltron]

I think a tail box like that might get a little in the way on descents..



But maybe a detachable one for road sessions as long as you're not sitting upright at all. Anything other than fully laying forward is going to keep the flow from reattaching back there even with a tail box.

And this guy did 168 kph (104 mph) on an unfaired bike. With all the wind tunnel testing and full fairing, the other guy did 138.7 mph. How much of the speed difference due to slope and terrain is anybodies guess, but assuming they're equal thats a 32% increase, after massive testing and development costs. Scale that back down to 30 -35 ish mph average speeds, and again, hard to see minor tweeks that don't impede rider motion having giant gains. Not doubling your range on a small battery gains anyway.



Those carbon aero fairings and testing equipment look pretty expensive... not exactly a few bucks of plastic and some weekend datalogging.




Edit.. now that I looked at the slopes, the aero gains seem even less... One did it on an unprepared rocky volcano side, and the other on a snow track groomed with a bulldozer.

 

[Voltron]

But I def want to get a pair of those big aero boots to ride in, just for fun

 

[Powervelocity.com]

I'd take the spacesuit helmet.

But I def want to get a pair of those big aero boots to ride in, just for fun

 

[Voltron]

It does look handy for chilly days.. a little windshield wiper on it would be perfect for rainy mornings too

 

[Powervelocity.com]

Can't go with wipers. That will add drag.

It does look handy for chilly days.. a little windshield wiper on it would be perfect for rainy mornings too

 

[Voltron]

Good point.. RainX it is!

 

[Voltron]

And before anybody gets the wrong idea.. I think the bike looks great, and I wish I had it as my street bike!

 

[Suspekt1]

Jeez leave for a little bit and conversations drift all over the place it seems?... Powervelocity sorry for adding to the Hi-jack of your thread but had to say something...
After reading the conversation about Aero/Brute Force / Magic unicorns etc. I have the same thought throughout it all..
The Aero handle bars and the "Aero" Bikes etc.. That are main stay in the type of shops that wont even look at my bike because its "electric" Are so uncomfortable and Joy draining that I would rather accept the Brute forced Anti Aero option and Enjoy my ride knowing it will handle the Terrain and distance because much like your Trike there was a Gap in the world and being able to make a Large capacity battery himself like your fairings they are a solution to the problem you directly face.. so its not realistic to comment about the bikes Aero.. I have the same frame btw. anything you do to try "Aero" that thing will either downgrade its ability to handle its intended use or have no appreciable effect whatsoever and as the old saying goes.. If it aint broke don't fix it

 

[Infinite Range]

Hello,
New to the Forum,1 Post, saw Andy Kirbys Enduro Ebike Build on Youtube, and decided to join the awesome community, very cool topics and informations!
Amazing topic and Amazing build, something I plan in the future but I have one big question after all thats been stated:
So the Topic Starter basically put as much of battery as possible in the given frame and still gets barely 100 kilometers range.correct?
BUT just a few weeks or months ago a newly developed Bike Company, called Delfast (https://delfastbikes.com/) just set a new Guiness world record with a range of 236 miles which are 379 km.
As far as i know the Speed was set at the start to 25 mph which is 40 km/h.
So it probably was going 25 mph(40 km/h) for some time then the speed continously dropped and at the end the bike stopped after 230+ miles, so it was not going 25mph(40 km/h) all of the 236 miles, which makes sens.
But my question is how did they archieved this, and to the Topic starter my question is:
Do you think you could get that kind of range, if you set up the bike to go just 25 mph with all your batterys?
Or are there also other tweeks and settings to be made different to archieve this goal?
If i would replicate your battery pack, and set the Controler under the frame,like the Delfast bike has it(probably to have more free room in the casing to fit more batteries, which would make sense)and limit the Speed to 25 mp/h(40 km/h) would i also be able to archieve that range of 230+miles (350 km+)?
Cause thats what i was thinking to do, instead of getting a Bike from Delfast themself.. 8)
Because they seem to use the almost same frame and battery size in their Delfast bikes like the ELectric Enduro Bike - EEB Frame that are sold on many different places. :wink:
Here is a youtube video of the recent World Record of 236 miles (379 km) :
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqrRrnFhEd4[/youtube]
another video(more on their utube channel):
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06ykunB-yn8[/youtube]

What do you think?
greetings

 

[Buk___]

would i also be able to archieve that range of 230+miles (350 km+)?

If you rode round and around on a flat track with no wind, no hills, no traffic lights, with the throttle set to the lowest value to maintain the required set speed; and sat very still, resisting the temptation to use the throttle, brakes or pee for 9 hours.

Maybe

 

[Powervelocity.com]

Well, first of all, 100 miles does not equal 100 km. It's at least 160 km.
The estimate was made based on an assumption of 50 watt hours consumed per mile which is doable at the given weight and speeds of 30-40 mph on flat. This is all electric. You will do better than that with some pedaling.

OK, let's see, "236 miles per charge"... Rather than trusting every marketing pitch, how about we run it through a BS filter by taking a look at the specs and applying some, math, physics, and common sense.

From here: https://delfastbikes.com/bikes/prime

- 64Ah battery
This is a classic example of why you should not use Amper Hours as a measure of your battery capacity. Larger numbers look good on paper but it's disservice to a customer at best and false advertisement at worst. The missing part of the equation is the voltage. 64A at 12v is is not the same as 64Ah at 100v.

So, let's see. The website says 48B (I am guessing that was just copied from a Russian site "B" stands for "Вольт", i.e. "Volt")
64Ah x48V = 3072Wh. This is not even close to the 5100Wh of my pack. Yet, the claim is 236 miles per charge... So, if we calculate the consumption 3072/236, we get something close to 13Wh consumed per mile. A 100lbs bike with at least 150lbs rider on it (at least 350lbs gross mass) needs be moving in vacuum in some anti-gravitational field to achieve that kind of efficiency. Alternatively, the rider should be either pedaling non-stop for all 236 mile trip or going downhill 90% of the distance.

I feel for customers that will fall for this non-sense.

Hello,
New to the Forum,1 Post, saw Andy Kirbys Enduro Ebike Build on Youtube, and decided to join the awesome community, very cool topics and informations!
Amazing topic and Amazing build, something I plan in the future but I have one big question after all thats been stated:
So the Topic Starter basically put as much of battery as possible in the given frame and still gets barely 100 kilometers range.correct?
BUT just a few weeks or months ago a newly developed Bike Company, called Delfast (https://delfastbikes.com/) just set a new Guiness world record with a range of 236 miles which are 379 km.
As far as i know the Speed was set at the start to 25 mph which is 40 km/h.
So it probably was going 25 mph(40 km/h) for some time then the speed continously dropped and at the end the bike stopped after 230+ miles, so it was not going 25mph(40 km/h) all of the 236 miles, which makes sens.
But my question is how did they archieved this, and to the Topic starter my question is:
Do you think you could get that kind of range, if you set up the bike to go just 25 mph with all your batterys?
Or are there also other tweeks and settings to be made different to archieve this goal?
If i would replicate your battery pack, and set the Controler under the frame,like the Delfast bike has it(probably to have more free room in the casing to fit more batteries, which would make sense)and limit the Speed to 25 mp/h(40 km/h) would i also be able to archieve that range of 230+miles (350 km+)?
Cause thats what i was thinking to do, instead of getting a Bike from Delfast themself.. 8)
Because they seem to use the almost same frame and battery size in their Delfast bikes like the ELectric Enduro Bike - EEB Frame that are sold on many different places. :wink:
Here is a youtube video of the recent World Record of 236 miles (379 km) :
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqrRrnFhEd4[/youtube]
another video(more on their utube channel):
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06ykunB-yn8[/youtube]

What do you think?
greetings