350htrr

I just got my 350ht rr bionX kit yesterday, but am leaving for my trip to Hider ALASKA tomorrow... I really want to do the trip without assistance, but... anyways, can I can re-charge the battery enough every day without plugging in to make the trip. Can I still be proud and say I did it "basically" on my own...? Or is this just a pipe dream and re-charging the battery manually everyday just too hard? Will I just use too much power and would not be able to re-charge? I guess what I'm asking , has anyone gone on a trip with an electric assist bike and managed something like this??

EDIT; if this is in the wrong part of the forum please move to road cycling or where ever...

crackerdog

If you are asking, can you recharge the bike by pedaling it, then the answer is no. That will become apparent as soon as you try it. We are so used to cheap power that we don't realize what it takes to charge a battery. If you want to do this without plugging it in, use a non-electric bike. It will be tremendously lighter and easier to pedal and people do it all the time.

dgk02

That's pretty much my answer. Pedaling with the BionX in easiest regen mode is a fun spin-bike type of thing but I wouldn't want to do it for a long ride. Any higher regen mode is not fun. And leaving it in 4 is pretty good theft protection unless the thief knows how to undo it.

knurly

Last winter I had the bike on the trainer with half the bars showing. In regen level 1, it took the equivalent of 30 miles at 12mph to get full bars. Next time I did it in regen level 2 @12mph and got up to all bars after 15 miles. You can extrapolate with my observation but regen 3&4 are impossible unless you are going down a hill.

Scaliboy62

I've been doing calculations all day & the odds are exactly 783 Billion to 1. I hope this helps

EBikeFL 

That's the same figure I'm getting too.

350htrr

OK, I guess I will just have to try it and see... By knurly's numbers there maybe a chance... Maybe as good as... 391.5 billion to 1...

knurly

I'd like to go camping but I don't like the thought of leaving my battery in need of charge over night. Don't think you can charge your battery with a good downhill at regen 4 neither. You'll know when protective circuits kick in when the battery can't take the charge, even the brake regen will be ineffective. If it was me, I'd get a trailer and bring along another battery. You can charge your batteries whenever you see a laundromat or if you find an acceptable hostel, or whip out your dad's credit card for a motel.

TScott27

Since the odds are totally against your favor, perhaps, it is best to work on your endurance and make sure that your bike is just as fit.

CigTech

ok the max rang is 37 miles in assistance mode level 1. So if you ride it untill the battery is half dead then ride it in regen mode 1 for 30 miles then you be back to full. So you'll be riding for 18.5 miles with assistance mode level 1 and then 30 miles with regen mode 1. Do this for 21 times and you'll be there.

crackerdog

I don't have one but I bet it takes many more miles to recharge than it took to discharge.

350htrr

DAY 1; 75 KMs finished with 3 bars down, had to re-charge
DAY 2; 74 KMs finished with 2 bars down, had to re-charge

I need to figure out how much to "use" the power mode as compared to how much I can regenerate in a particular day... But things are not promising so-far... I "KNOW" I can ride the bike without any power for the whole day but it's sooo tempting to use it up hills that's it's going to be an up-hill battle restraining the use of assistance on the hills... ...

SpecialX

I have a friend that bought 3 X "12v" 60Ah batteries from elite solutions dot com and is able to go 100 miles (160km) before recharging. (He got the 15a charger, so it only takes a max of 4 hours to recharge).
Not exactly "non-charging", but at 20mph(32kph) you could ride for 5 hours (100m/160km), rest for 4 hours to charge, ride another 100m/160km (5 hours) and recharge and start over in the morning.. 200m / 320km per day would take you 5 days to travel the 1600km you want!

jfi8

There's a lot of daylight in Alaska right now.

https://www.absak.com/library/average...olation-alaska

Why not charge while you sleep?

https://www.powerfilmsolar.com/rollab...r-chargers.php

Cheers

R

350htrr

Yea ,thanks, It's not the lack of charging options I have a problem with, it's the trying to ride my bike without charging, other than manually pedalling or going down hills... I have my wife driving our truck/camper with a 155W solar panel to charge anything I need to charge, and it's the challenge of doing it myself that's seems to be the problem. Tomorrow I will try to use the assist as little as possible and the re-gen as much as possible and see what happens...

knurly

Seems to me all those solar companies are here today, gone tomorrow. An Amazon link therein...doesn't fail to disappoint

CigTech

If I was you I'd take 3 batt's. Have the wife charge them in the truck and swap them out as you go.

crackerdog

If you have a car with you, why bother with an electric bike? I would just use a regular bike which would be much lighter and more pleasant to ride up the hills. I think you are trying to use an electric bike in a fashion that it isn't much good for. Like using a rock for a hammer, it works but there is a better tool.

Allen

Because there is no such thing a 100% efficiency in any mechanical system it takes more energy to charge a bike than you will get back out of it. The rest will be lost as heat. If you are self charging an electric bike takes more energy to go the same distance as a normal bicycle. If you are charging from the power grid that energy is not coming from your legs and you don't suffer the energy loss.

350htrr

Yea, I think you have hit the nail right on the head, I am using this tool the wrong way... I should just ride it and use the assist when needed and just re-charge every night for the next day. If I wanted to ride unassisted I should ride a regular bike, it would be a better tool for that job... SO, I will just say that from now on I will use the assist when I need it and not worry about recharging "manually". So, my conclusion is that no, there is no free lunch, you need to work for every KM on a regular bike to be able to claim you did the ride under your own steam...