The Marin has one purpose in life which it to get me to work and back, it has no other route or need and it never will. Having fitted the rear 250Watt motor today was the first run into work and back as an ebike. The weather was cold with wind blowing from the west, everything was normal. The ride into work mostly has the wind behind me and this morning was just the same as I set off. I was soon up to “e-speed” of around 18mph but I felt I was going slower than I would do normally in similar conditions. With peddling I was doing around 20mph for a lot of the time which I still felt was probably a bit slower than I would be if I was peddling unassisted. However, I was doing this speed but I was having to put little effort into it at all, which was the main difference. Also, I was keeping to this speed for most of the journey. When I got near to work and the small (and only) uphill bit I just changed down gear a little bit as I continued to pedal upwards keeping a similar speed. Once parked up at work I noticed the battery reading was showing 40volts (it started at 41) which showed that the motor was not having to strain much at all for the 10 miles.
The journey home would normally be a bit different. If the journey to work was fast then the journey home would be against the wind and slow, tiring. This evening I continued around 18mph for most of the way with little effort in pedaling, however I noticed the strain on the motor was more. The control has a little “rev” counter which suggests how hard the motor is working. The ideal, just like a rev counter, is that it should not be right up at the top for long periods of time, just how in a car you wold not drive with the rev counter showing in the red all the time. For most of the journey in, this counter hardly registered. On the journey home it kept at around midway for most, showing the effect that the head wind was having. I was still keeping at 18mph, and my ears were getting cold. With no real effort needed for pedaling it meant you didn’t warm up as you would under normal effort. Final battery reading was 36.9volts.
An interesting ride. I have quickly discovered that top power level is fine for the journey but you need to turn it down once you get into town and with traffic. The whole idea of the motor is that it knows its top speed depending on the set power level, as you start pedaling it knows to turn on and accelerate with you as you pedal until it hits its top speed. If you have that set to the top power level then it will keep going as long as you keep pedaling until it hits 18mph. When you are in town, it’s a bit too much. I learnt to put it down to power level 3 or 4 (out of 6), saving you from shooting off each time you move forwards in a traffic queue!
Where does this leaving me and biking? It means now when the weekend arrives I am looking forward to some bike trips without the feeling of 100 miles already done before I even start.