I rarely post much but I thought my recent experience might be of some use to someone, sometime. Last week I rode from Montreal to Lowell, MA, covering somewhere in the ballpark of 330 miles over three days southeast through Quebec, Vermont and New Hampshire. My bike is a homebrew mid-drive concoction based on some unknown model of Cannondale frame that I bought used on ebay roughly 15 years ago, sporting parts ranging from old-fancy (Shimano XTR, etc.) to some more recent AliExpress bits and pieces.
I should emphasize that this was a completely stupid venture, brought on only because I had a "free" place to stay in Montreal ("free" since I have to pay my daughter's university housing over the summer when she doesn't have school) and as it happened the family was going to be in Lowell for that weekend for other reasons. So, like an idiot, I figured "why not bike down from Montreal and meet them there? Which I did, but I wouldn't recommend it--or at least not the way I did it.
Info on me:
52 years old, not terrible shape but not great either. Used to bike a lot, but then I got old. I'm not terribly fat but neither am I terribly fit.
Info on my bike:
Cannondale 29'er aluminum frame, all finish sanded off (because I used it to commute to NY city some years ago before I made it into an eBike)
Bafang BBS-HD motor, stock firmware but with custom settings. 850 or 860 display, not sure which.
1x 52V ~17Ah Hailong battery
1x 52V ~17Ah EM3Ev battery
Battery joining module from eBay or AliExpress: basically takes 2 batteries and feeds higher or sum to output. Actually works pretty well.
Luggage carrying system jerry-rigged by me to take Milwaukee "Packout" modules on rear cargo rack
~2.5" Schwalbe almotion something-or-other tires
The trip:
Quebec is beautiful. Montreal is full of bike lanes, and dedicated bike paths extend from the city in practically every direction. The farmland outside Montreal toward to US border smells horribly of cow manure, but it is very pretty and even the regular roads are so empty of traffic that it makes for a pleasant ride. And It is all dead flat. It was some 65 miles or so from Montreal to the crossing I took at "Morses Line".
The border crossing was cute. The Canadian side wouldn't open until I brought my bike up to trigger some kind of sensor, then the gate let me out and suddenly I was in Vermont! A little ways into the US side there was a shack with a CBP officer who thought I was nuts, but my US passport was legit so he had to let me past. Things here close early, so do NOT arrive at the border after 4pm or bad things may happen--such as you having to sneak across the border in some dude's field a mile or so away. Fortunately I was on time so I am not currently an illegal resident of my own country.
Once into the US, instantly the hills began. I was headed for the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail and I picked it up a few miles into Vermont. TBH the trail was quite a let-down; I'd been riding nice paved roads in Quebec and Vermont with zero cars for 40+ miles and now I was on a boring gravel trail. Of course there still weren't any cars, which was nice, but the drag from the gravel was immediately noticeable and what I didn't notice (at first) was that it began a slow and steady up-slope that eventually reached nearly 2000 feet (on day 2). The trail eventually got more interesting (though also steeper) as I got toward St Johnsbury the next day, but the 20 miles or so nearest Lake Champlain was rather dull and had a coarse red gravel that kind of sucked. The gravel further east on this trail is a finer, lest battery-sucking stuff.
Ended up day 1 in Morrisville, VT after about 110 miles traveled. I was very glad I hadn't booked a hotel further along the trail because the last 20 miles or so was a real slog and my batteries were down to 47V or so. I had started at 100% (~58.8V) but I had been pretty careful to pedal as much as possible and not rely on the battery more than necessary.
Day 2 began at 6am with 100% charge and me feeling good. Except my ass hurt--badly. I had gotten saddle sores on day1 and that would prove a big problem that day and the next. This day I had to get off the Lamoille rail trail and onto regular roads and I learned how important it is to find good route planning software. Do NOT rely on Google Maps! I had done a shit-ton of research in the weeks before the trip so I knew the basic route options in my head, but never did I expect that my mapper would just stop working as soon as it lost internet connection. Well, Google Maps does that: it will forget a route if you once are careless and swipe the app the wrong way or something while off internet. Then it says it can't calculate the route (the same route it knew a moment before) and you are totally screwed. Also it picks routes that are totally impassible (this happened twice to me, the second time adding a couple of miles of backtracking) and sometimes it ignores much nicer parallel routes I discovered later that would have kept me from riding along the edge of horrible 55 mph New Hampshire highways. In short Google Maps is garbage for bike route planning as of May, 2024. I did try some alternatives as I was stewing in my hotel that 2nd night, but I was dead tired and not in a state to properly research that kind of thing.
I ended Day 2 in Tilton NH after about 130 miles of riding. The very last part was horrible because I had been way too easy with the throttle toward the end, slightly misjudging the remaining distance as I tried to spare my aching butt. I reached Franklin NH with batteries completely drained, only to find out that there was another 5 miles to go on an uphill rail trail in the gathering dark and rain. That was when I realized what a total slug my bike was without motor support: this part would have been a cinch if I'd just had even 1 more volt in the battery packs. What should have been a nice ride along the river instead completely sucked and I was hating life.
Another night's sleep, another day, some coffee and 100% batteries. This day I only had to go 80 miles but my ass was so raw I could barely pedal so I decided to see what would happen if I literally did nothing and let the motor do all the work. I motored from Tilton to Franklin and down through Boscawen NH, visited some ancestors graves there and then continued through Concord, Manchester and down to the MA line. Much to my surprise, the batteries got me close to 80 miles that day with almost no pedalling at all! I hit 0% battery (and 0% human battery) just a short ways from Lowell MA, where I was picked up by my wife who was in town for a rowing regatta along with the rest of the family.
That last day was actually kind of embarassing because it made me wonder how much I had even contributed to the whole ride. All along I thought I was pedalling at least as much as the battery was contributing, but then on Day 3 when I did nothing I could still go nearly as far (80 miles vs.110 and 130 miles on the days I pedalled myself to exhaustion.) But to be totally fair, those pedalling days were also significantly net uphill, while the last day was almost entirely down a river valley. So it isn't quite as bad as that and certainly I did a lot of work, though the batteries probably did somewhat more.
I'll try and post some pictures from the trip sometime soon if I get a chance.
Krusty
I should emphasize that this was a completely stupid venture, brought on only because I had a "free" place to stay in Montreal ("free" since I have to pay my daughter's university housing over the summer when she doesn't have school) and as it happened the family was going to be in Lowell for that weekend for other reasons. So, like an idiot, I figured "why not bike down from Montreal and meet them there? Which I did, but I wouldn't recommend it--or at least not the way I did it.
Info on me:
52 years old, not terrible shape but not great either. Used to bike a lot, but then I got old. I'm not terribly fat but neither am I terribly fit.
Info on my bike:
Cannondale 29'er aluminum frame, all finish sanded off (because I used it to commute to NY city some years ago before I made it into an eBike)
Bafang BBS-HD motor, stock firmware but with custom settings. 850 or 860 display, not sure which.
1x 52V ~17Ah Hailong battery
1x 52V ~17Ah EM3Ev battery
Battery joining module from eBay or AliExpress: basically takes 2 batteries and feeds higher or sum to output. Actually works pretty well.
Luggage carrying system jerry-rigged by me to take Milwaukee "Packout" modules on rear cargo rack
~2.5" Schwalbe almotion something-or-other tires
The trip:
Quebec is beautiful. Montreal is full of bike lanes, and dedicated bike paths extend from the city in practically every direction. The farmland outside Montreal toward to US border smells horribly of cow manure, but it is very pretty and even the regular roads are so empty of traffic that it makes for a pleasant ride. And It is all dead flat. It was some 65 miles or so from Montreal to the crossing I took at "Morses Line".
The border crossing was cute. The Canadian side wouldn't open until I brought my bike up to trigger some kind of sensor, then the gate let me out and suddenly I was in Vermont! A little ways into the US side there was a shack with a CBP officer who thought I was nuts, but my US passport was legit so he had to let me past. Things here close early, so do NOT arrive at the border after 4pm or bad things may happen--such as you having to sneak across the border in some dude's field a mile or so away. Fortunately I was on time so I am not currently an illegal resident of my own country.
Once into the US, instantly the hills began. I was headed for the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail and I picked it up a few miles into Vermont. TBH the trail was quite a let-down; I'd been riding nice paved roads in Quebec and Vermont with zero cars for 40+ miles and now I was on a boring gravel trail. Of course there still weren't any cars, which was nice, but the drag from the gravel was immediately noticeable and what I didn't notice (at first) was that it began a slow and steady up-slope that eventually reached nearly 2000 feet (on day 2). The trail eventually got more interesting (though also steeper) as I got toward St Johnsbury the next day, but the 20 miles or so nearest Lake Champlain was rather dull and had a coarse red gravel that kind of sucked. The gravel further east on this trail is a finer, lest battery-sucking stuff.
Ended up day 1 in Morrisville, VT after about 110 miles traveled. I was very glad I hadn't booked a hotel further along the trail because the last 20 miles or so was a real slog and my batteries were down to 47V or so. I had started at 100% (~58.8V) but I had been pretty careful to pedal as much as possible and not rely on the battery more than necessary.
Day 2 began at 6am with 100% charge and me feeling good. Except my ass hurt--badly. I had gotten saddle sores on day1 and that would prove a big problem that day and the next. This day I had to get off the Lamoille rail trail and onto regular roads and I learned how important it is to find good route planning software. Do NOT rely on Google Maps! I had done a shit-ton of research in the weeks before the trip so I knew the basic route options in my head, but never did I expect that my mapper would just stop working as soon as it lost internet connection. Well, Google Maps does that: it will forget a route if you once are careless and swipe the app the wrong way or something while off internet. Then it says it can't calculate the route (the same route it knew a moment before) and you are totally screwed. Also it picks routes that are totally impassible (this happened twice to me, the second time adding a couple of miles of backtracking) and sometimes it ignores much nicer parallel routes I discovered later that would have kept me from riding along the edge of horrible 55 mph New Hampshire highways. In short Google Maps is garbage for bike route planning as of May, 2024. I did try some alternatives as I was stewing in my hotel that 2nd night, but I was dead tired and not in a state to properly research that kind of thing.
I ended Day 2 in Tilton NH after about 130 miles of riding. The very last part was horrible because I had been way too easy with the throttle toward the end, slightly misjudging the remaining distance as I tried to spare my aching butt. I reached Franklin NH with batteries completely drained, only to find out that there was another 5 miles to go on an uphill rail trail in the gathering dark and rain. That was when I realized what a total slug my bike was without motor support: this part would have been a cinch if I'd just had even 1 more volt in the battery packs. What should have been a nice ride along the river instead completely sucked and I was hating life.
Another night's sleep, another day, some coffee and 100% batteries. This day I only had to go 80 miles but my ass was so raw I could barely pedal so I decided to see what would happen if I literally did nothing and let the motor do all the work. I motored from Tilton to Franklin and down through Boscawen NH, visited some ancestors graves there and then continued through Concord, Manchester and down to the MA line. Much to my surprise, the batteries got me close to 80 miles that day with almost no pedalling at all! I hit 0% battery (and 0% human battery) just a short ways from Lowell MA, where I was picked up by my wife who was in town for a rowing regatta along with the rest of the family.
That last day was actually kind of embarassing because it made me wonder how much I had even contributed to the whole ride. All along I thought I was pedalling at least as much as the battery was contributing, but then on Day 3 when I did nothing I could still go nearly as far (80 miles vs.110 and 130 miles on the days I pedalled myself to exhaustion.) But to be totally fair, those pedalling days were also significantly net uphill, while the last day was almost entirely down a river valley. So it isn't quite as bad as that and certainly I did a lot of work, though the batteries probably did somewhat more.
I'll try and post some pictures from the trip sometime soon if I get a chance.
Krusty
