E-Bike racing is pointless - Discuss

[Wisper Bikes]

Great idea

Maybe that's the answer, each rider has to compete on a provided selection of bikes ~ this should make it possible to compare the bikes and the riders. Assuming that the riders will to win exceeds their loyalty to a particular make.

What a fantastic idea killjoy!

We could blindfold the riders too, so they wouldn't know the make of bike they were testing!!

Best regards David

 

[Tiberius]

I have just had a first hand experience that neatly illustrates one of the things we have been discussing.

Recently, I've been testing myself and the e-bike against hills, for reasons that are explained in other threads. This evening I went off to the next town, where there is a long hill climbing out of it.

Half way up I passed a lycra. He wasn't so out of breath, and I wasn't in such a hurry, that we couldn't have a pleasant chat, but basically I had about 8 mph advantage over him when I opened it up and left him behind.

Less than two miles later, when I was cruising along on the flat at about 22 mph, he came past me.

Wow, I was impressed. He must have been able to finish the hill climb pretty smartly and then sustain over 30 mph on the flat to do that.

As I said before, there are some parts of the flight envelope that favour the e-bike and some that don't. He could never hope to beat me up the hill, but on the flat he was doing over twice the cut off speed of a restricted motor. To make any kind of sense, an e-bike race has to have much more of the first type than the second.

Nick

 

[flecc]

I definitely agree with that conclusion Nick. By extension, it's somewhat difficult for a fit person to justify using an e-bike in a completely flat area since an ordinary bike is potentially so much more efficient then. It puzzles me why they are now getting so popular in the low countries.
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[JohnofCambridge]

I definitely agree with that conclusion Nick. By extension, it's somewhat difficult for a fit person to justify using an e-bike in a completely flat area since an ordinary bike is potentially so much more efficient then. It puzzles me why they are now getting so popular in the low countries.
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....or the low counties.

Could it be the wind rolling across the plains, or the fens, (depending which country you are in)

I have just gone through all the thread trying to determine how it could be used to change the approach at Presteigne but am failing miserably.

The mixture of those who want to race (some bike suppliers)and those who want to fun ride is a bit of a lethal cocktail at Presteigne, but it just about worked last time to make it a fine afternoon. I think luck was on our side as there were no disasters.

What made the afternoon interesting were the smattering of home made machines and people trying out new designs or changed designs as well.

The prize for the fastest ( or for the ability to use a result for strong sales advertising) seems to spoil it. Should be a prize for the most innovative instead.

Maybe in the ideal world of a race, everybike / rider combination should have a handicap to reduce everyone to the same level. So that means an age handicap, a fitness handicap, a definite lycra handicap, a motor size handicap, a battery handicap, a distributor handicap etc.etc, finely tuned from race to race to remove all advantages. But that is the ideal world.

I think I will just go back to sleep and dream on......... for a Presteigne without lycra next year

 

[flecc]

....or the low counties.

Could it be the wind rolling across the plains, or the fens, (depending which country you are in)

Yes, the wind on the polders is certainly a good reason for electric power, though with the distances between centres many models be rather limited. I just think they are getting lazy!
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[JohnInStockie]

As I said before, there are some parts of the flight envelope that favour the e-bike and some that don't. He could never hope to beat me up the hill, but on the flat he was doing over twice the cut off speed of a restricted motor. To make any kind of sense, an e-bike race has to have much more of the first type than the second.

Nick

Hmmm, you could argue that that means that your bike is designed a bit incorrectly then Nick. It could be argued that an electric assisted bicycle should more closely match the man on the road bike without the effort couldnt it?

If you beat me up a hill, but I beat you going down it, and someone else is generally faster on the flat, what does that mean?


I dont know how I could judge that accurately. How can you tell 'which is the best' from that?

I say again, your just judging the motor, not the bike and the rider/route/conditions.

John

 

[JohnInStockie]

I think I will just go back to sleep and dream on......... for a Presteigne without lycra next year

Oh I dont know, he was the only one in the village (sorry couldnt resist)

John

 

[Tiberius]

Hmmm, you could argue that that means that your bike is designed a bit incorrectly then Nick. It could be argued that an electric assisted bicycle should more closely match the man on the road bike without the effort couldnt it?

That's an interesting point, John. If we step back from the details of the bikes, perhaps we should be asking why an e-bike doesn't beat a lycra in all parts of the flight envelope.

After all, if the motor, controller and gears were set up so that the e-bike could apply 150 W from the rider and 250 W from the motor at all speeds, then it ought to be able to take on any lycra.

The answer is that current e-bikes are built around the 15 mph limit; even the de-restricted ones are still based on it. They are also set up as town or shopping bikes rather than road bikes, so the aerodynamics are bad for high speed work. So instead of being able to apply 250 W motor at all speed, even a typical fast de-restricted bike will apply 500 W at 10 mph and zero at 25 mph.

So, suppose we had an e-bike v lycra race on the flat and the lycras won. Then the next year the e-bike community came back with machines optimised for that regime and beat the lycras. Not out of the question, and certainly technically feasible, but the e-bike that resulted would be very different from the ones on the market today.

Maybe that goes some way to answer John of Cambridge's question about Presteigne. Its also this point that I hope Mark of Cytronex is reading this.

Flat racing, with lycras beating e-bikes, can be seen as showing up a weakness in e-bikes. If e-bike design evolved to fix that, then surely that could then be seen as making those races far from pointless. Sadly, though, we would either need a change in the law to allow high speed e-bikes on the roads, or we would have to accept that it is like much of racing, where the race machine and the road machine are very different.

Nick

 

[WaiWonChing]

Chief eZee Operator

Hi,

Since there is some mention about what I raise earlier in other threads.
Maybe I should make clear my intention and designs on the Stage 3 ToB challenge to David Henshaw, and a few minor matters.

1) The riders apparent physiques are known . W W Ching vs David Henshaw .
It is clear that David is fitter, And by age I am 58 , but David is younger I should think , I would only guess he is in his 40s.

2) The bikes are also known, but to me, there are huge misconceptions and facts ignored in all these publicity in AtoB and in this forum.

3) I would not challenge David in the Presteigne because he would definitely beat me to it,
simply the sum of his energy David + Pro-connect would win in this 1 hr or 23+ miles plus his skill in handling speed in town.

BUT in this 113 miles and over some hills, that would make us even maybe or maybe an advantage for me , for I have 370 x 4 wh and he has 270 x 4 wh of battery. People keep forgetting this, and we have these stories of how powerful , and high torques and how far the Pro-connect could go, and so let's us see if there is a miracle or simply facts of physics.

I just wanted to open the eyes of David to get every thing together in perspectives, I did not want to win a race.

The higher torques of the Pro-connect simply comes from the lower gears compare to the Torq 1. With the Torq 2 , we have 36 N-m with 140 rpm, this is something the Pro-connect can't reach for the electric power. The gears could very simply be changed if we like.

4) Now for a little information on the Jurassic Test. I am a little involved simply because our Swiss distributor entered the rally, this happened just about the same time as the Presteigne. The rider that was on the Torq 2 is a tri-athelon man although near retirement age for this. BUT he did not get on the Torq 1 until that day of the rally, and he did not know exactly what to do. The idea to enter was a very last minute thing. He has put the "throttle - the potentiometer" like at 60 %". Therefore we lost to the Swiss Dophin 500W at the 8 km up hill stage, but he could have easily won if he turn the throttle all the way to max. At the end of that 50 km he still have about 30-40 % battery capacity left because he was worried he would used up all the batteries and so he pushed his muscles as much as possible. Anyway, he/Torq 2 (350W) came in way ahead of the Flyer, Dolphin, Bionx, etc.

And a little additional information, we have been selected the best e-bike of the year by the Swiss Automobile association -TCS, and they launched a trial promotion in Geneve in April 2008, and we could not make it fast enough to supply over this summer. the huge sales surge was beyond expectation. In 2009 TCS is going national after the successful trial in Geneve.

5) And finally about making E1 bikes counterparts just like the F1.
We are working on the " ZERO AFRICA RALLY " , check out their website.
4000 km in 10 days. I have just finish testing our bikes for this 40 kmph speed average , takes 10 amps at about 470 watts for 40 kmph ( ridden by W W Ching) and one charge of the battery gave a little more than 470 Wh.
This separate the man from the boys and from the Grannies on Pro-connect.

6) Please don't forget the www.bigriverride.com , Quentin Van Marle rode >2000 miles Minnessota to New Orleans on the Torq 1 with only one battery pack.


Warmest regards
W W Ching

 

[Angus]

Scott,

Have you forgotten how not very long ago, emblazoned all over your site was how great eZee is and you were selling the best electric bikes in the world!

Remember Presteigne and how you marketed the Torq afterwards?

Now you don't sell them anymore they are suddenly crap - perhaps you should show a bit more respect to all those thousands of 'happy' customers you sold an eZee bike to. I guess your conscience wasn't working then?

 

[Django]

Hi

It is obvious the ezee bike with a throttle is for people that may not be able to ride a bike or impaired in someway and is definately aimed at the senior citizen sector.

I am 41, fit and chose a throttle bike precisely for the clear advantages it gives over the Panasonic system. Last time I was in your shop, two of your technicians were very clear that they also preferred throttle control after I had expressed concerns about the Panasonic system following a test ride. They are younger and fitter than me.

The market is not looking for this type of bike anymore which is becoming very dated. Our sales in comparison clearly show this, we cannot even sell an ezee at bargain basement prices nowadays. I too am also really suprised that hub motors are not the consumers choice of bike as well. I think people are getting tired of this junk and have realised that it is not a feasible form of transport if it keeps breaking down.

Correction. The market is not looking to buy this type of bike from 50cycles anymore {comment partially removed}. Also, you were selling that batch of Livs for £595. Now your 'bargain basement' price is £200 without battery, charger and warranty. The latest battery alone is £410 so actually you have effectively raised the price and dropped the warranty. Your lack of sales suggests that people are not as daft as you think!

At least we can both agree that 'people are getting tired of this junk', albeit for different reasons.

 

[Tiberius]

Scott,

Leaving aside the question of whether your post was accurate, I could not see how it was relevant to the discussion. Nor did I see anything in Mr Ching's post that demanded a reply, and certainly nothing to justify you starting a slanging match.

I don't blame Angus and Django for their replies; in fact I'm surprised there weren't more. But could we please stop this here and stick to the topic of the thread?

Nick

 

[rsscott]

Folks,

please be civil and stay on topic.

 

[keithhazel]

Yes, I just think they are getting lazy!
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what do you mean , are GETTING !!

 

[bode]

Our service compared to most companies in the UK is second to none. You cannot please everybody all of the time but we try our best always in always. I doubt many firms would still be standing having kept ezee's head above water for so long.

And still advertising at least one of their models on your web site...
Quando Folding Electric Bicycle exclusively from 50cycles UK, specialists in advanced electric bikes

 

[flecc]

Whoops!

Actually 50cycles may well acknowledge the Quando's worth, there are few hub motor bikes that perform like it.
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[Django]

Hi

The ezee bikes were good but as I have mentioned before the last 6 months of 2007 seen nothing but problems from these bikes and our pure effort of aftersales service kept most people on the road despite 3 seperate product recalls. So I totally disagree with you Django as you were not the one having to deal with this mammouth task and cannot possibly know what we have been through with ezee.

Just to clarify. What precisely is it about what I wrote that that you disagree with?

I made two points only:

1) Your view that a throttle is not attractive to younger fitter riders is misguided; evidenced by me and your own technicians.

2) That your evidence for a perceived decline in demand for eZee bikes is based upon your own sales figures, and as such is misleading given that you don't stock them any more and openly tell everyone that they are 'junk'.

Both points are simple facts. I confess that I find it really difficult to follow your train of thought in most of your postings, so would be grateful for clarification.

 

[bode]

These are strange PR tactics indeed, and hardly the way to win friends. I am not sure if I for one would ever want to deal with a company that displays such a "nah-nah-nah-nah" attitude, linked to a somewhat flexible approach to the facts.

 

[fishingpaul]

I have recently bought a second hand torq 2,i was not over impressed with the free wheeling of the motor, which appeared to have a lot of drag, however after setting the front disk brake which was binding very badly, and required complete resetting and centrallising,it freewheels superbly now, at 17.5mph it will continue rolling for around forty seconds after letting go of the throttle with the front wheel lifted up,being a low mileage bike i guess this is how it was supplied by 50 cycles, with the disk brake very poorly alligned and it should not have passed any pre delivery inspection.

 

[flecc]

I think there is a gradual change in perception happening, and I think there's a couple of reasons for that. One is the way people are looking for more economical ways to travel with the current high fuel prices and to some extent the ever increasing commuter bus and rail fares. For these people the e-bike is seen as an alternative form of motor transport, rather than a way for a cyclist to be lazy.

The other is the expanded media coverage, with several appearances on national TV channels and many more newspaper brief tests on them.
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