One bike, one battery, one hundred miles

Something I’ve wanted to try for a bit was to speak to the local shop to me (South Downs Bikes) and have 5 turbo levos lined up along the SDW..one every 20 miles (? a guess) and just smash out the SDW on an e-bike in TURBO mode…. swapping to the next one when the power runs out…

You do realise you can just change the battery?

This is a bit more of a challenge

Avoid being stranded somewhere and just mount the ebike on a treadmill… no arduous pedaling and no chance of crap weather either!

Can’t see what there is to prove here.

Not everyone is trying to prove something (and Rob especially doesn’t need to), sometimes people are just having a laugh.

Go for it Rob.

I also like the flat out turbo many battery idea just to set an assisted record.

Can I just get something clarified?
Am I going to be forced to ride an e-bike if I want to smile whilst I am riding?

very few folk smile whilst cycling any bike.

apparently you need a fatbike for teh grinz

Thats just miserable roadies and east lothian folk who never smile 😉 the rest of us grin all the time 😉

It’s going to interesting to see how this turns out.

There’s lots of variables, so there’s lots of theories whether it can or cannot be done. Or rather with a rider of the stature of Rob, it can be done, so the question really is how much of the battery juice will he use doing it.

And of course the typical STW outrage that some iconoclast dares to not conform to their narrow focus of what constitutes fun or an orthodox bike for the job.

If the challenge is to make the whole trip before running out of juice, then I’d do the first half with the power off while I was fresh.

If the challenge is to make the whole trip before running out of juice, then I’d do the first half with the power off while I was fresh.

That sounds to me like it’s completely against the sprit of the ride. Using that logic he may as well do with it off for the whole ride and see what his time is 🙂

What would the SPZ app suggest if you entered the distance & climbing stats for the SDW? How would it decide how to share the power – by time or distance or something, or would this throw it completely? I guess it would never get out of lowest mode?

This ride does open up an interesting question: at what length/difficulty of ride does a particular e-bike become slower than an equivalent non-e bike (assuming no recharging or battery swapping).
Clearly for a 5km loop of some hilly trails an e-bike should be quicker.
For a 500km ride it will definitely be slower as for the vast majority you’ll be lugging a heavy bike with no pedal assist around.
But where does the crossover happen? I’m sure it will be in less than the 100 miles of the SDW, but for half that distance would the e-bike still be quicker?

Hello all – all this chat is more detailed that I thought….. I plan to use ‘eco’ mode on the steeper uphills; for all those that know the SDW lets do a list of them and see how it stacks up. First hill I expect to need the ‘assist’ is the tarmac out of Chilcomb – who feels like listing out the next ones?
I’m getting ready for the rest of the day, thanks for the interest – I’m sure the bike will do me proud and get me to the Kiosk before I know it.

Enjoy stalking mo on
https://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0gEppCB0bKu3eM1WtLx5spZzUQoo0vFCL&fbclid=IwAR0OxCduaaL1zPEQyKr6ghbtqSBaGqASjolQDO1BwWAf4LcpkWhqxbJhz3s

and Andy G will update the page with some pics as the day goes.

That sounds to me like it’s completely against the sprit of the ride. 

There is no spirit of the ride. Rob has already said he’ll push some bits to save power, pedal only other parts. It’s like me saying I’m going to drive to Spain without refuelling, only I’ll run out so will be towed part of the way.
We know Rob could cycle the whole thing, and have a full battery at the end so I fail to see any “interest” in the ride, any more than people would be interested in my ride last night. ( it was great by the way 😁)

I hope the OP can handle riding 60 miles non powered! 😆 (Choose the first 60 miles as non powered if you want to make it!)

But good luck.

As for extending the battery range by going slower, I’d say it’s a bit of a moot question. He’ll be riding eco mode all the way anyhow, so the speeds aren’t going to be blistering fast anyhow, and wind resistance at higher speeds is what causes more drain on the battery than anything else. So I doubt going even slower will extend the range all that much as the wind resistance will be less of a factor in eco and at lower speeds.

Still say 40 miles is the whack on the undulating terrain of SDW, most I’ve managed on a 500wh battery is 45miles on road/gravel paths, still hand a wee bit in the tank, not much, but it was essentially flat. (I was just testing range, on xkings, wasn’t particularly slow mind.)

Tyres will make more of a difference, I reckon swapping from continental xkings, to high rollers costs me about up to about 1/5 to 1/4 of the battery.

es legal ones top out at 15.5 mph. However you could do all the climbs at top speed and of course you can pedal them faster than that on the downs.

yeah.. if tackling the climbs at 15mph, and using the full sus on the downs, I reckon i’d be MUCH quicker!

DrP

You’d be even quikerer if you de-restricted it.

You could pull some wheelies too 🤠🕺🤙

taxi25

…We know Rob could cycle the whole thing, and have a full battery at the end so I fail to see any “interest” in the ride…

But there is… 🙂

Member
Can I just get something clarified?
Am I going to be forced to ride an e-bike if I want to smile whilst I am riding?

I don’t think so, I said “This is **** mint!” out loud whilst riding my bike down an old favourite descent the other day after a long spell off the bike. It has tiny 650b wheels, minuscule 2.3″ tyres, I was on my own, and my frame isn’t even BOOST.

Cant fathom why my catchy tagline suggestion of ‘Rob discharges on the downs’ didnt make the cut. Oh well, may the electrons be good to you and hold out till Eastbourne Rob 🙂

I’ve done 34 miles on half a bosch 400 battery.
I weigh 20 stone, and i did walk up one really steep hill.
But on the later flatter bits, the most economical way was to actually sit on the speed limiter.
Acceleration uses a lot of power, pulling a fat knacker up steep hills does too.
I’m interested to see how op gets on tbh. Hope he manages it.

6AM and the church bell chimes in Winchester. Chilly but Rob is kitted up and off. 5 bars on the battery level

Anyone care to assist on getting a shared Google pm to to appear

Another attempt at a photo link

Good luck 👍

On his way

Have fun!

Rob went through QECP at 08:19. Already punctured before Milburries, Stans did its job with a tubeless repair slug.

Battery still on 5 bars.

500whr battery over 100 miles sounds impossible but in reality it is do-able.
If you were to use zero assistance for all decents , and all the flat sections and keep the battery for the stiffer climbs then you need the battery for approx 5hrs of the whole ride
If you could add 100W to your output for those climbs then its job -jobbed.
A std distance rider should be able to tap along at 150W all day on a pedal bike , with an up rider+ bike weight of roughly 85kg.

By adding a battery and motor and an extra 10kg of mass the Watts per Kg of overall weight is significantly increased if run at 100watts of assisatnce 85/150 V 95/250

So 10 climbs of 30 mins @ 100w gets you there . I actually dont think there are 10 climbs that will take 30mins. As with elec assistance and a theoretical speed of 10mph uphill , 10 x 30mins = 300mins = 5hrs = 50miles @ 10mph. So using that logic there would be no flat sections half up and thn half down.

There has to be an allowance for going slower on the flat and on on any gentle rises where using elec would be wastefull.
Thinking about the route, in reality there are probably 20-25 bits where ~ 10 mins of boost would get you over the top alot quicker and alow the battery to recover a tiny bit

Reminder keep an eye on Robs progress:

https://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0gEppCB0bKu3eM1WtLx5spZzUQoo0vFCL&fbclid=IwAR0OxCduaaL1zPEQyKr6ghbtqSBaGqASjolQDO1BwWAf4LcpkWhqxbJhz3s

can’t you just stop at a servo to stuff a load of ginsters and fizzy snakes in the battery when it runs out of energy?

Rob went through Cocking at 09:43. Running well.
Battery on 5 of 5 bars.

is he taking this serious.

hes not wearing his bibs outside his top as per usual.

Rob got to Amberley 1/2 way at 11:05, still 5 bars of battery left. Think the plan is to start using the boost a bit more now. Up Amberley Mount for sure.

I would wait until past Truleigh YHA to start hammering battery, big hills after that and they come up fast

4 Hours to go, looks a long way from Eastbourne to me.

Edit: I just need to refresh my screen ha ha

He’s about to go within half a mile of the office, 4 hours to Eastbourne from here isn’t too difficult.

Newmarket, Itford, Windover and the Eastbourne Mile climbs left.

Itford is the worst of them, hate that one once you are on the grass.

Robs just been through Southease at 14:45. Still 4 batery bars remaining out if 5.

Proper good effort. 👍👍🥳

I thought he’d be done in by Cocking. 🤷‍♂️

#whatdoiknow

Really impressive, loving the story.