Bike to Work Day
 

Well, tomorrow (Thursday, May 12th) is the 17th annual "Bike to Work Day" here in the San Francisco Bay Area and I thought I would give it a try. I will have some "extra" equipment, of course ;). After all, I have a 17-18 mile commute. What I did do was remove the rear hub motor, keeping only the front hub and controller, and lowered the voltage from 72 to 60 volts which enables regen on my controller all in an effort to maximize my range. I will have 60 volt, 15 ahr lipo battery pack. I test rode the bike in this configuration last weekend and I made 20 miles and still had 3 volts to go on my pack voltage.

The only thing that I see going on is that they will give away some refreshments and BART train stations and a few places in downtown Oakland. Also, the ferry boat to nearby Alameda will be free (which I don't need).

So is anyone else going? Are there any other areas doing the same thing?

Ed

I Made It!
 

Well, I made it. I started of pedaling using a little throttle and keeping my wattage just under 400 watts with an average speed of 17 mph when my friend from work called to let me know he had arrived at our pre-planned meeting point of the bridge at the south end of Alameda island. I was still 4 or 5 miles away so I poured on the juice to 800 watts increasing my speed to 22 to 24 mph and leaned down low over the handlebars for less wind resistance and I got there in 10 minutes. From there we crossed into Alameda, rode across town to the Park Street bridge and crossed into Oakland. I just pedaled and didn't use the motor since my friend was on a regular bike.

We stopped at two roadside stops setup by the East Bay Bicycle Coalition for some water, a banana, and some granola bars. Then, across from work was a stop that had muffins and Pete's coffee and I couldn't resist. It was good!

Overall, it was 17.0 miles and my battery pack went from 62 volts down to 58 volts. My lower limit is 54 volts so I may still have half a pack left for the return trip. The weather was just perfect for this, a little cold at first but nice now. :)

Congratulations. Will you be biking to work more often? Can you describe your bike and the motor(s) and battery type that you use?

Thanks,
Ambrose

I would like to commute in maybe once every other week. It's hard because I'm already part of a car pool so it won't save much gas without me in the car but, I would enjoy commuting this way anyway. As for the bike I made a signature description below here.

The final trip home went great yesterday. I'll spare all the details but, I can say that I never had a chance to charge the battery at work so I went home anyway for a total round trip of 31.5 miles and I still had a couple volts remaining on the pack voltage with moderate pedaling. Overall I'm very pleased with the results.

What was interesting was the interest in the hub motor on my bike by the road stop (East Bay Bicycle Coalition) staff. Most of the time no one notices the hub motor but, this time it didn't escape their sharp eyes yesterday. At least for some of them anyway. They asked a lot of questions about where I got it and how it works and about performance, etc. One guy said my bike with the front hub motor was like a front wheel drive car and I told him "yeah but when I pedal, I have all wheel drive" in which they all laughed. It was a fun day...