Denver commuter e-bike

[Toshi]

I wasn't going for lower power but rather lower noise. This aero helmet failed in both, and now has been returned to REI.

 

[Toshi]

I got hit by a car today.

Details here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/115479414905422234350/posts/6q5yQEmrVyz

Cliffs notes are that a woman turned in front of me after being addled by the low sun, I'm ok despite landing on my head (see helmet below), and the bike will need a new front rim and a new XLR connector for the charger.

I think I'll rebuild the wheel myself. It might be a pain in the ass since the hub motor is so giant (and the spokes correspondingly oddly short and highly angulated) but it's something I'd like to learn how to do. I'd rather spend an equivalent amount of money on a nice truing stand than shop labor, and I'm in no real hurry to hop back on the bike. I'll resume commuting on it eventually, but not this week or the next…

 

[The Stig]

Glad your ok... dam cars...
Regardless I urge the use of front blinky lights during the day and night.

 

[Toshi]

Glad your ok... dam cars...
Regardless I urge the use of front blinky lights during the day and night.

I had a claimed "1200 lumen" (probably more like 600 in reality–still damn bright) front flasher going, and was wearing a white helmet and a hi-viz long sleeved jacket. I was in the traffic lanes going the proper direction. I did everything right yet couldn't avoid this.

Today I'm quite a bit more sore than yesterday, but in my personal and medical opinion I still don't have anything worth going to the hospital about.

I did order up all the stuff I'll need to rebuild the front wheel (better than it was before, Bionic Man style):

- Alex DM24 rim
- Sapim 13g spokes and nipples from ebikes.ca
- Nipple driver
- Special spoke wrench for large gauge spokes
- Velox rim tape
- Minoura truing stand (couldn't justify the Park that I wanted as it's $220 alone as compared to the $90 Minoura)
- XLR connectors so that I can rewire the mangled end of my charger, which was in my pannier since the 13.9 trip was only possible with charging both here and there

 

[999zip999]

Best defense is a good offense.Freak that car driver out. No I try to keep off the street and ride the trails. As here I have some choices. The most danger is walking your bike in a crosswalk.

 

[docnjoj]

Hey Toshi
Just my 2 euros but I think it would be wise to report the accident and get checked out by another physician. You remember the old addage " A doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient". You are a valuable member of the medical community and your well being is worth a lot!
otherdoc

 

[Toshi]

Hey Toshi
Just my 2 euros but I think it would be wise to report the accident and get checked out by another physician. You remember the old addage " A doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient". You are a valuable member of the medical community and your well being is worth a lot!
otherdoc

There's a police report (and medic paperwork somewhere). I also have the official police copy of the woman's contact and insurance info. If I should need medical care in the future you can get it'll be billed to her insurance! This is all why I insisted on having the police come out even though I was pretty sure that I was fine once I popped off the ground.

 

[Toshi]

I did order up all the stuff I'll need to rebuild the front wheel (better than it was before, Bionic Man style):

- Alex DM24 rim
- Sapim 13g spokes and nipples from ebikes.ca
- Nipple driver
- Special spoke wrench for large gauge spokes
- Velox rim tape
- Minoura truing stand (couldn't justify the Park that I wanted as it's $220 alone as compared to the $90 Minoura)
- XLR connectors so that I can rewire the mangled end of my charger, which was in my pannier since the 13.9 trip was only possible with charging both here and there

Since the above post I rebuilt the wheel with said Alex rim (beefy!) and 13 ga spokes. I also soldered on a replacement XLR connector on the charger, which is now working just fine. I then returned the nipple driver and truing stand because I'm a cheap bastard and won't have use for the same for another few months if not years.

I also, uh, got myself a car. Well, my mom did. Sorta. (Have I mentioned I'm 31, have a pregnant wife, and have been a physician for 4+ years? I'm an adult by all of those measures, but my mom still takes care of me, heh.)

Anyway, the story is that my parents closed up shop in Wyoming, and have consolidated their lives and various junk at their Oregon coast house. In the proces of moving my mom decided that they had too many cars, so offered up their oldest, most threadbare offering to anyone in the family who wanted it. I jumped at the chance, of course, since life has indeed been a bit of a pain since I sold the motorcycle. She then both offered to give the car to me (and, as a gift from a family member it's tax-exempt! score) and pay for it to be shipped from Oregon to here!

Thanks, mom!

The car in question is hardly a beater, too, and should provide me a few years of reliable service before service costs exceed its value. It's a 2001 Acura 3.2 CL Type S, bought new by my dad in 2000 or 2001 and kept by my parents since then.

The above photo isn't of the actual car in question but it's the right model year and color, at least. I have no idea how many miles the actual car en route to me has on it at this point and the 5-speed automatic is a known weak point... but such quibbling would be looking a gift horse in the mouth. Once it arrives I think I'll revert to being a conventional, boring car commuter, at least until the days grow longer and the temperature solidly above 50 degrees F.

 

[Toshi]

In addition to such near term wheeling and dealing with the car situation, I've been mentally revising my longer-term transportation plans as well. (Of course I have. )

My semi-serious/semi-trolling/all-inflammatory suggestion that I'd rock a 3-ton SUV is now out the window... replaced by a 3.77 ton domestic pickup truck.

Say what? Much more on the rationale behind this choice, with the crucially important note that this vehicle would be a CNG/gas bi-fuel vehicle, can be found at this link: Justifying CNG for crisis-time transportation.

An excerpt below:

After this past week I decided that in the future I should invest in a transportation setup that wouldn't be so fragile, that'd still let me get to the hospital or wherever I needed even if the electricity failed and gas was unavailable. If such a vehicle that met the first criteria, which let's call "survivability", also let me satisfy some other whims (massive vehicle for safety, off road ability for utility and amusement, clean emissions to satisfy my environmental conscience) then all the better.

So, to recap so far, my ideal setup would have:

- ability to drive "normal" daily distances even without grid electricity or available gasoline/diesel, with bi-fuel ability and extended range for "get out of town completely" use a huge plus if present.
- 4wd and at least 4000 lbs of curb weight, for good measure. Oh, and a rear seat + doors, too, for carrying the kid (+/- future siblings) + car seat in a pinch.
- clean smog-forming emissions, with carbonfund.org credits wiping my GHG slate clean.

The base assumption allowing any of this to be feasible is that I'll be in a house with a natural gas line (for cooking or heating or what have you), and will plumb in a natural gas grid-fueled electrical generator that'd kick in automatically during power outages. Add in a home compressor setup (FMQ-2-36? Coltri MCH-5?) and a suitable CNG-capable vehicle and my goals would seem to be in reach. The NG generator + presumably unaffected NG supply would together allow for home CNG refueling even when the electrical grid were down, with gasoline not even entering into the equation at all.

The vehicle itself seems to be more of a sticking point than the underlying home fuel support structure, as it were, but I think the Ram 2500 CNG might just be the ticket.

 

[dnmun]

seems like all your ideas involve such enormous volumes of money. i saw a ford 1/2 ton with CNG on the street the other day.

you could just buy a honda civic CNG and skip the bifuel. just add a compressor at your house and provide pumping for others too.

 

[Toshi]

seems like all your ideas involve such enormous volumes of money. i saw a ford 1/2 ton with CNG on the street the other day.

you could just buy a honda civic CNG and skip the bifuel. just add a compressor at your house and provide pumping for others too.

The Civic Natural gas would be tethered to one's home and the public CNG fueling stations, which are even sparser than public charging points for EVs. A non-bi-fuel vehicle just doesn't interest me: If I'm going to have something limited range and tethered to home base I'd rather have an EV. (As for older OEM CNG vehicles like that F-150 you saw, I don't want an old vehicle with all its associated problems and safety issues--especially for F-150s of that era! There's also the minor but non-trivial issue of CNG tanks having fixed 15 year expiration dates.)

Besides, in situations like those depicted below in the current Oregon coast storm I'd much rather be fording water in a high-clearance 4WD vehicle with low range than a FWD, low-clearance Leaf or Civic NG... There are no EVs that fit that bill, and probably there won't be any in the near future, either, as battery technology is really unsuited to large, heavy, block-like, high-drivetrain-loss vehicles.

I think it'd be redneck-crossed-with-hippie-awesome I could swing a Ram 2500 CNG, accept its initial cost as the price of doing business, and then proceed to drive it for 8.6 cents/mile, with the peace of mind that smog-forming emissions and CO2 emissions are reasonable and the fuel is domestically sourced.

That's Tillamook yesterday morning. My parents live in Coos Bay/North Bend, which is considerably further down the coast but equally if not more exposed to the sea and its weather.

Portland, as you are no doubt aware.

 

[Toshi]

Another idea involving an even larger pile of money to burn: Running roughshod over zombies with a Ford. In particular BAF Technologies will gladly perform a bi-fuel conversion on, say, a long bed 4x4 F-350 DRW crew cab as above. (Their bi-fuel conversion is not CARB certified but GVWR > 8,500 garners an exemption in WA state so it'd fly. Their dedicated conversion is CARB certified, as an aside.)

Outfit said dualie with the gas-convertible-to-bi-fuel engine and 4.30 gears and you'd get a GCWR of 22,000 and a GVWR of 14,000, as opposed to the analogous figures of 15,000 and 8,800 from the Ram 2500 CNG. These numbers for the Ford in turn yield a max payload just shy of 6,000 lbs, and 5th wheel or conventional towing capacity of 15,000 lbs, as compared to the Ram CNG's figures of 1,300 and 7,500 lbs...

Not bad, even after accounting for a few hundred lbs of CNG conversion baggage. Said payload or towing ability would be useful in a pinch, too, and I suppose would be useful even on peaceful vacations: It'd be much more comfortable for the family to camp in a slide-in camper or a trailer while waiting out the zombie hordes rather than roughing it, no?



The BAF setup is pretty slick, too. Per personal correspondence with them they've confirmed that they can set up a bi-fuel DRW F-350 with 10 GGE under the bed and 20 GGE in the bed. The in-bed tank also appears to be below the level of the bed rail (see schematic on last page here), which would mean no fifth wheel trailer clearance issues.

30 GGE of CNG plus 35 gallons more of regular unleaded could be just the ticket. Disadvantages: It'd be even bulkier than the already ginormous Ram 2500 CNG. It'd be so wide as to never see a true off-road trail. The closest shop that could service it would be in Portland, which would be inconvenient but doable (assuming I'll be around Seattle). That's a minor pain compared to the dealer and service location situation: The closest dealer is in Denver and the closest installer is in SLC. I guess at least the latter would be a one-time problem: Order it, have it built, take delivery, drive across the Rockies, and then forget the experience.

I like the prospect. Each iteration of this idea seems to get crazier and crazier yet, yet there's something innately sane about a giant Tonka truck-looking dualie...

 

[oatnet]

A non-bi-fuel vehicle just doesn't interest me

That is something I love about EVs - they are energy omnivores. No matter what the root energy will will be tomorrow, we will can convert it to electricity easily and efficiently. Gasoline, Kerosence, Nuclear, CNG, solar, wind, steam, wood, trash, geothermal, you name it, electricity is the common denominator. No matter what battery chemistry you use today, you can swap in better batteries tomorrow and run the same EV.

If you want ground clearance, this EV had tons of it:

j/k

 

[Toshi]

A non-bi-fuel vehicle just doesn't interest me

That is something I love about EVs - they are energy omnivores. No matter what the root energy will will be tomorrow, we will can convert it to electricity easily and efficiently. Gasoline, Kerosence, Nuclear, CNG, solar, wind, steam, wood, trash, geothermal, you name it, electricity is the common denominator. No matter what battery chemistry you use today, you can swap in better batteries tomorrow and run the same EV.

I think an EV will be part of my future garage, too, but such a vehicle would probably be on the smaller end of the size spectrum, a Leaf or its equivalent. CNG (with gasoline backup) seems a good way to attack the larger side of the market, and there clearly are things that only said, large vehicles can do.

Of course, one could argue that no one really needs to pull a fifth wheel camper or the like… but it could be fun, and I'd be down with doing so while polluting a bit less and spending a whole lot less per mile than its similarly sized, normal powertrain brethren.

8)

 

[Toshi]

I think an EV will be part of my future garage, too, but such a vehicle would probably be on the smaller end of the size spectrum, a Leaf or its equivalent.

After driving the Tesla Model S I have to revise the above. I think I will get an EV or two (one for me, one for the wife) in the future, and, barring future solvency crises with Tesla in the next year or two, at least one of said EVs will be a Tesla.

Both my wife and I came away from the test drive more impressed with the Model S than we thought we'd be, and that's no faint praise as we we came into it well informed. She wants to wait for the Model X for herself, in hopes that it would address her concerns (low back seat cushion height, "3rd row" jumper seats only good for pre-teens, outward visibility) but thinks that a Model S would be a great car for me: Rewarding on the daily commute, big enough to ferry the imminent kid/future additional kids in a pinch, and unique enough to tickle my funny bone.

A Model S with the small battery pack would be twice the price of, say, a Nissan Leaf--a car that I have test driven and like in its own right. The long and short of this review is that the Model S indeed feels like twice the car.

Here's my complete review: http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=46021

 

[Toshi]

So I've figured out how to write the Tonka truck out of my ever-changing storyline. (This was part of more general middle of night hypomanic mental cogitation, the complete and sordid details of which you can read here if morbidly curious or insomniac yourself.)

The long and short of it is that:

- after driving the Tesla I feel pretty confident that we'll have at least one BEV in the household, if not two
- ability to tow such a BEV to get it serviced isn't needed with plans like Tesla's service-at-one's-home Ranger service
- BEV + EVSE in the garage + NG standby generator == ability to get around when the grid is down and gasoline is not readily available, assuming the roads are clear
- if the roads aren't clear then the below would be my much-cheaper-than-a-F-350-dually backup plan:

+

+

 

[oatnet]

:lol: :lol: :lol: That was the exact model bike I was supplied by MSF (Motorcycle Safety Foundation) when I took their BRC (Basic Rider's course) to get my license. It was beat to crap, and a rattley stinky reminder of why I went EV, but fun nontheless.

I like your 2wd plan - it will fit through places that the monster truck couldn't, uses a fraction of the fuel, and you can move it under your own power if you have to. That was something I did not like about the VW Camper as an EV - it was so big and heavy that if it died the only thing I could do was call AAA for a tow.

-JD

 

[Toshi]

I like your 2wd plan - it will fit through places that the monster truck couldn't, uses a fraction of the fuel, and you can move it under your own power if you have to. That was something I did not like about the VW Camper as an EV - it was so big and heavy that if it died the only thing I could do was call AAA for a tow.

-JD

It uses gas, though, whereas that monster truck would have been running on CNG unless on long trips. Realistically the motorcycle as a backup-to-end-all-backups is a better idea than the CNG truck, I admit, or rather, less of a bad idea.

I'll waste some money on paranoia (see: standby generator big enough to power house + EVSE as well as motorcycle), but avoiding wasting monster truck money would be preferable if I wouldn't be driving it all the time... and if I had a Model S, I certainly wouldn't be driving the F-350 instead.

:lol:

 

[Toshi]

if I had a Model S, I certainly wouldn't be driving the F-350 instead.

Thinking about it a bit more, I don't think I can justify a Model S of any flavor for myself in the near term, but that doesn't mean we won't have an EV or two, as per the above.

I still do want at least one alt-fuel vehicle in the household, on the other hand, and our seat time in both the Tesla and the Leaf confirm that we like EVs. (CNG made for a great thought experiment but the reality of the Civic or 3/4 ton-on-up pickup choice is harsh.)

A more sane sequence of vehicles I could justify and afford alike might be more like this:

1) Buy or lease a Leaf in 1Q 2014.

Said Leaf would be a 2013 or 2014 model, so would have leather as per the photo below, the 6.6 kW charger, and the heat pump (all but the 6.6 kW charger confirmed new features for 2013 in Japan so hopefully on the 2013 and almost certainly on a 2014 US market Leaf).

We'd keep the Prius and would trade in the Acura as part of the Leaf transaction, although I suspect the Prius would largely remain parked in the driveway except for driving to distant biking trailheads and ski mountains.

2) Re-evaluate our vehicle needs later on.

Once I'm feeling financially settled as an attending (so at least late 2014) we would reevaluate our situation in terms of number of kids in the picture, financial stability, etc.

By that point Jessica might want a standard gasoline minivan, Toyota could have announced a PHEV Sienna, Mitsubishi may have started selling their fabled PHEV Outlander, Tesla could have gone tits up, we could have already sunk all available capital into building a McMansion^H, er, an "energy efficient modern abode," or any other number of things could have happened.

Starting with a Leaf in just over a year seems like a good first step, though.

 

[veloman]

Dude, just build a big electric cargo bike. Carry the family and easily solar charge.

 

[Toshi]

Dude, just build a big electric cargo bike. Carry the family and easily solar charge.

Like this, eh?

http://www.gizmag.com/urban-arrow-electric-cargo-bicycle/23867/

250W would be pretty anemic with something that size...

 

[dnmun]

maybe once you are making the oodles of money as a physician you will buy a house and find out what reality is all about.

i paid less for my house in 1980 than you gonna pay for the fat truck. but a money sink ever since.

 

[Toshi]

maybe once you are making the oodles of money as a physician you will buy a house and find out what reality is all about.

i paid less for my house in 1980 than you gonna pay for the fat truck. but a money sink ever since.

I talked myself down from the truck precipice, as detailed a few posts up. I decided that an EV plus a dual sport makes more sense than the CNG conversion plus home refueling route, especially since there are no tax subsidies for bi-fuel conversions or refueling equipment.

I do plan to build a house, but not for a few years, and fully anticipate it to be a money pit. Interest rates are going to stay low per Bernanke's statement yesterday and I want to make sure I'm happy with the practice I end up at (and vice versa) before tying myself to a region. We'll handle the EVSE issue by only renting houses in the interim for which we have permission to install (and then remove) EVSE. For next year, at my mother in law's house, she's given us the green light to have The EV Project install EVSE.

 

[Toshi]

An update:

I'm no longer interested in CNG at all. This development came after finding out that a) CNG has only a marginal net GHG benefit (far less than the variation between vehicle types), and b) I don't enjoy driving really large vehicles (learned this by test driving a Nissan NV passenger van).

I've ceased bicycle (electric assisted or not) commuting for the duration of my tenure in New York. Drivers here just make me too nervous. Not worth it. I may or may not hop back on the e-bike for commuting purposes once back in Seattle--coming up in June! So near! The other alternative for my Seattle commute will be to take two buses over the course of an hour or so, which wouldn't be bad in that I could get some work or play-time done on the iPad, what with Kindle format textbooks and all.

The Prius, and by extension Prius sized vehicles like the LEAF, is marginally too small for our kid's crap. Strollers, car seats, and pack and plays (packs and play? heh) are huge! We could make it work with a LEAF, but given the $10k discounts (!) currently and hopefully continually offered on the RAV4 EV I think it may well be worth it to risk out of California service issues, after all. There are at least a handful of RAV4 EVs up in Washington, detailed on myrav4ev.com's forum.

The final development was mentioned as an aside, above: My wife gave birth to our first daughter, Mariko, on January 27.

8)

 

[oatnet]

Congratulations on your spawning!

-JD