Perth to Sydney by ebike 2013 - ride diary

[Rodney64]

Good to see that Chings smiling again

Guys everyone's interested how you guy keep yourselves occupied during the ride.

How are the locals in balladonia, what's the pub like. Is the beer cold.

Nullarbor night 1, made it to Balladonia, 190km since Norseman


Our latest electric bike epic!
Glowwormbicycles.com.au/perth-to-sydney

 

[voicecoils]

Day 12 - Norseman to Balladonia, 197 km (1627 km to date)

37.44 ah
1374.1 wh
61.1 ave pedal RPM

 

[voicecoils]

Hard to believe you guys are there already! Well done.

Are you used to the scent of dead Kangaroo yet?
I remember driving through there and being able to pick up that sweet, sweet skippy's-just-sleeping smell a few hundred metres out.
That was the middle of Summer though.

Lots of dead roos, wallabies etc on the roadside, some with blood still pouring out, others just a few scattered bones. Also seen some dead foxes, rabbits and maybe some ferral cats, hard to tell with roadkill sometimes. Smells bad but at 25 km/h they're easy to spot so I just hold my breath for a moment.

I find all the rubbish and junk everyone seems to toss out the window even more disturbing. What a pointless act, when you'll be at a petrol station with rubbish bins soon anyways filling up on fuel. I've also lost count of the number of bottles people have drunk the contents, then pissed in (literally), screwed on the lid and tossed out the window. Every type of soft drink bottle filled with the same gross yellow liquid. I wonder how many years that will sit baking in the sun before the plastic degrades enough to spill it's contents.

 

[voicecoils]

I was going to ask what you guys do to pass the time.
I expect you'd pretty quickly get sick of talking about the weather :lol:
A well stocked MP3 player ?
Maurice dreaming of what lies ahead that he can suspend himself from or balance on ?

Bummer about the reed switch. That's why I like getting a speed signal from the halls.

Fortunately riding is a fairly envolving act, and a physical one too - hard to fall asleep at the handlebars. The scenery is interesting to look at, so is spotting wildlife.

Riding in a group is an activity in itself as you're always catching up or falling behind others and trying to modulate speed to match others.

I'm also spending some time listening to audiobooks on my phone, charged by the bike through the GrinTech DC-DC converter. Mostly sci fi books and at the moment I'm listening to Eon by Greg Bear written in 1985 about a large asteroid that enters a parking orbit around the earth and moon. I just keep 1 ear piece in on the left ear, away from traffic and the road, leaving my right ear free to listen to traffic. I can hold a button on the earphone and give voice commands to the phone which is also handy.

We have rest stops every 50km or so and a lunch break at mid day or if there's any towns. For the moment, there's not much between our stops for the night!

Every night I've slept well so far since the combination of a long day and lots of pedaling and time in the sun means we're plenty tired by the time we've put batteries on the charger and eaten.

 

[voicecoils]

Day 13 - Balladonia to Caiguna, 179 km (1806 km to date)

Just woke up, getting ready and doing a 'top up' charge in preparation of tackling Australia's longest straight road, 145km. Total ride distance will be 180-190km, will update stats tonight.

Update, here are the stats:

33.14 Ah
1251.0 Wh
59.4 ave pedal RPM

 

[Rodney64]

I offered to post across the photos

Day 12 - Norseman to Balladonia, 197 km

It’s actually a little bit hilly in this part and plenty of scenery, some water around too

Norseman to Balladonia. The trees are still tall around here

It’s a small country so we bumped into Chris’ parents again. Well timed meeting near a rest stop for a hot cuppa! Thanks guys again and have a lovely trip home!

Picked up our 18kg of breakfasts, lunches, dinners and desserts to last us the rest of the Nullarbor! Now where are we going to put it all?
Abraham is enjoying a rice pudding after a lovely eggplant pasta. Thanks Kaitlin!!

 

[jonescg]

Haha, they're following you

Looking at the BOM you should have a pretty sweet tailwind.

 

[Hyena]

Haha, they're following you

Heh, oldies. I'm pretty sure that's not what Maurice meant when he gave them the blog url and said "follow us"
/dad joke

Keep up the suncream Abraham, your shnozz is looking a little burnt. I'm guessing a case of sunburn when faced with endless, unavoidable sun +/- sandy winds while out riding there would royally suck.

Looks like it's serious business time now - onwards, through the Nullarbor! Charge!
(oops, unintended pun )

 

[Rodney64]

Day 13 photos - Balladonia to Caiguna



Day 2 of Nullarbor from Balladonia to Caiguna. The start of the day had some trees, an airstrip that doubles as the highway and the start of the longest stretch of straight road in Australia, at 146km

When you ride 146km in a straight line you need to make up some activities. Like watching your own shadow grow taller

Made it to Caiguna with a big tail wind!

Will be interesting to see stats with tail wind

Our latest electric bike epic!
Glowwormbicycles.com.au/perth-to-sydney



Well done guys. What did you have for dinner tonite

Looks like a road house with a lot of activity

 

[maramusa]

Awesomeness, the Nullarbor begins.
You should be able to get some pretty precise performance stats on the longest straightest road.

Keep a look out for the fabled nude Nullarbor girl who runs across the plains, I assume she would have quite a suntan by now.

Cruise control on, feet up on the handlebars, beer in hand, Easy Rider style.

 

[jonescg]

It's amazing to think that only 10 years ago you couldn't even get mobile phone coverage on the Nullarbor. In fact the road wasn't completely sealed until the late 70's. Now you can send photos to Tumbler and folks in the northern hemisphere can read about it in the same instant. It just blows my mind this technology stuff.

 

[Rodney64]

Well done guys.

Most of us are thinking ( well I am) how u working out your energy intake. Knowing when your energy levels are low and do you need to monitor each other or is it just from experience.

 

[voicecoils]

I've added Day 13 stats in my post above. (I'll have to correct day numbers above as I think the 2 rest days we had knocked the day numbering out a bit EDIT corrected).

It was indeed long and straight. Early on in the day we celebrated our 1000 mile mark (1609 km) for Americans reading. I enjoyed watching the bush change from tall trees to small ones, shrubs and scrub down to grass and basically desert as the day progressed. At times it was a bit boring, it looked up hill in the distance and uphill behind us but was in fact pretty dead flat and certainly dead straight the whole time.

As for energy, which Rod asked about, we've learned from the first week of riding that our 2000 watt-hours each is sufficient to do 200 km if the winds and hills are favorable but challenging to do in harder conditions. Mid day charging adds a safety margin, which we've done a few times but I haven't run out of power on any day yet.

For dinner I had beer, risotto and hot chips! (I'm a vego) Ching had an enormous burger with the lot. The largest he said he's ever eaten and he's been to the US many times.

Today we ride to Madura, 155 km away and tomorrow we'll hit our 2000km Mark.

Here are my utalisation stats so far:

Battery percentage used:
Day 1 75%
Day 2 62%
Day 3 91%
Day 4 78%
Day 5 72%
Day 6 48%
Day 7 48%
Day 8 65%
Day 9 Rest
Day 10 Rest
Day 11 96%
Day 12 67%
Day 13 59%

 

[voicecoils]

Keep up the suncream Abraham, your shnozz is looking a little burnt. I'm guessing a case of sunburn when faced with endless, unavoidable sun +/- sandy winds while out riding there would royally suck.

I am getting sunburn but have been wearing my hat, long sleeves, pants and gloves plus sunscreen on my face and nose and some days zinc on the nose too. I'm sunburn the most easily of the group but it is annoying! Fortunately my preventative actions mean I haven't had any painful sunburn with burning, itching, blistering and sleepless nights. But I do hope I won't need my nose or patches of my head and face cut off when I'm older like so many older Aussies I see.

 

[marcn]

This is awesome.

I've been following on Tumblr and Facebook closely, just realised there's a thread here too!

 

[voicecoils]

Day 14 - Caiguna to Madura, 156 km (1962 km to date)

26.9 Ah
983.82 Wh
65.0 ave pedal RPM

Massive tailwinds today meant we were able to travel at 33.5 km/h moving average over the 156 km. Most of the time we were doing 35-37 km/h on minimal power and it was the most comfortable speed to travel at since it matched the wind speed. Quiet and warm at that speed. Slow down and it got windy and cold, speed up and we'd exceed our motor's no load speed and get no assistance (a terrible thought!).

Today was not entirely dead straight which was a welcome change we even had a tiny elevation gain towards the end of the ride. Exciting!

Looking forward to hitting the 2000 km mark, 38 km into tomorrow's ~180 km ride!

 

[Rodney64]

Day 14 - photos, Caiguna to Madura, 156 km (1962 km to date)


Caiguna blow hole
http://ezeebiketouring.tumblr.com/post/58377688513/caiguna-blow-hole



A whole lot of plain and sky
http://ezeebiketouring.tumblr.com/post/58377967156/a-whole-lot-of-plain-and-sky



Madura

Made it to Madura at 35kph and battery to burn. Too easy with a tailwind!

It was nice to have the odd bend in the road again and the Madura pass was spectacular.

Madura Pass

 

[voicecoils]

Day 15 - Madura to Eucla, 192 km (2154 km to date)

Stats:
34.7 Ah
1264.5 Wh
63.4 ave pedal RPM

Today was our last full day in Western Australia and we hit the 2000 km mark bright and early this morning too. Tailwinds continued though they are starting to die down.

Been seeing many wedge tail eagles flying in the distance and some road kill ones too but today one took off into the headwind traveling in the opposite direction to me which made it look as though it was hanging still in the air only a few meters above the ground and just to my left. I got a nice clear look at it and it's quite an impressive bird!

 

[voicecoils]

I've started a map to show our progress, distances and my own battery stats.
You can find it here.

Scroll down the page just a bit to find the map and by clicking on each stop you'll see my stats pop up. Hopefully it's a handy way for people to see how far we've come, how much more there is to ride and visualise the distances involved.

(I've also amended the my first post in this thread with a link)

And for North American's reading... here's a reminder of how the Australian continent compares with the continental USA:

 

[Rodney64]

Day 15 - Madura to Eucla, 192 km
Abraham I'm happy to keep posting the photos across
Easy 180km to Eucla, still with a beast of a tailwind! If anyone is impressed with our progress you can stop now, its too easy with a 30km tailwind! With cool temperatures and a zero effective wind speed while moving, it’s not only easy on our legs and batteries, it’s also quiet, pleasantly warm and still!
Crossed the 2000km line early today and tomorrow morning we’ll cross the border to South Australia.

The 8km return dirt road ride without bags was fun. The telegraph station itself is a few crumbled walls filled with sand, barely worth a photo

 

[voicecoils]

Abraham I'm happy to keep posting the photos across

If so photos to follow

If you're up for it, please do - much appreciated. But I know copying the photos across can be quite time consuming so if you don't get the chance to, no worries. People can always read the tumblr blog for photos if they're not coming up on the E-S thread.

 

[Rodney64]

Day 16 - Eucla to Nullarbor Roadhouse, 198 (2352 km to date)
Well done guys. I'm sure that felt good crossing the boarder. Celebration pics please

 

[jonescg]

Ahh Western Australia. The only state in the country which takes two full days of driving to leave. By the shortest route possible

 

[voicecoils]

Day 16 - Eucla to Nullarbor Roadhouse, 198 (2352 km to date)

37.5 Ah
1383 Wh
61 ave pedal RPM

The kilometers are starting to add up fast, tomorrow we'll hit 2500 km which could end up being the half way point of our trip distance wise.

Great feeling to cross the border into South Australia and getting the chance to see more of the Australian countryside for the first time. We didn't have any big state crossing celebration but later in the day we stopped at one of the lookouts for an amazing view of the Great Australian Bight cliff side and 2 whales quite close breaching and doing all sorts of acrobatics in the clear blue water below. That was a real treat!

In the late afternoon we also spotted 3 dingos at separate times, close to the road which would run away as we rode past. My first time seeing dingos in the wild.

 

[voicecoils]

Ahh Western Australia. The only state in the country which takes two full days of driving to leave. By the shortest route possible

Hah. A few years ago I went on a driving trip from Broome to Perth via the coast and now having cycled from Perth to the SA border via the coast too I've seen most of WA's coastline! I couldn't tell you what anything inland in WA is like, I'm not even sure there's anything there :lol: