Kudos Rapide gets 108 miles out of a 10.4 Ah battery.
- Thread starter Kudoscycles
- Start date
Unfortunately it seems I am one of the unlucky few that burns below 8 W/km. On a good day a lot less.
I have strong legs but shot lungs. My bike weighs 20.5 kg with the battery (the same 10.4 Ah one KD has). I am over 60. The wind blows from the North East... I can do 70 very hilly km on a full charge (soon to double thanks to a 10 Ah lipo range extender pack
).
I am only using the motor to climb hills and against the wind on the flat. Where I live just those two factors makes a pedelec the dream transport costing peanuts to get from point A to point B for the least sweat. Oh and when I have the trailer hooked up full of shopping or fishing gear - priceless! And not having to rely on public transport when there is hardly any or being tied to the public transport timetable.
I could go on and on (I'm starting to enjoy being over 60 can you tell...) with more very good reasons why we the 8 W minus minority also need a pedelec. Did I say I don't like cycling as a sport and for me it is just a means of transport? Yeah thought I did...
I have strong legs but shot lungs. My bike weighs 20.5 kg with the battery (the same 10.4 Ah one KD has). I am over 60. The wind blows from the North East... I can do 70 very hilly km on a full charge (soon to double thanks to a 10 Ah lipo range extender pack
).I am only using the motor to climb hills and against the wind on the flat. Where I live just those two factors makes a pedelec the dream transport costing peanuts to get from point A to point B for the least sweat. Oh and when I have the trailer hooked up full of shopping or fishing gear - priceless! And not having to rely on public transport when there is hardly any or being tied to the public transport timetable.
I could go on and on (I'm starting to enjoy being over 60 can you tell...) with more very good reasons why we the 8 W minus minority also need a pedelec. Did I say I don't like cycling as a sport and for me it is just a means of transport? Yeah thought I did...
Tom....your not trying 6 watts per mile,my guy down to 3.47 watts per mile...if you want range ignore all the others it's a Kudos bike you need....did I mention the profile of the handlebars and windcheating mudguards,all these things add up or should I say add down.
KudosDave
Bet he can,in fact without the wind resistance I am sure he would go longer,get a tred mill and strap the bike to it and get him to do it in a controlled space and i bet he can not do that distance even on that.
if he cant then sack him
....did I mention the wind tunnel tested saddle.
His job is safe.
KudosDave
In this as with all averages questions, it's a standard distribution curve. Like all such curves, there is a large hump in the middle, and that is the mean or average.
In e-biking that hump centre is 12 wh per mile.
For those of you who are arguing with Kenny and I on this subject, have a look at our pedelec forum join dates. That will give you some idea of the extent of the facts we've gathered on this subject over the years.
.
In e-biking that hump centre is 12 wh per mile.
For those of you who are arguing with Kenny and I on this subject, have a look at our pedelec forum join dates. That will give you some idea of the extent of the facts we've gathered on this subject over the years.
.
Just remember there is no standard as to how these ranges are measured,I can now put that the range of my Kudos Rapide is 35-130 miles,obviously if I am in marketing mode I will select 'up to 130 miles'
The BS descriptions of these bikes is becoming ridiculous,trouble is customers who are not knowledgable believe them.
When I worked for Ford in the atmospheric cell,the urban cycle figures were strictly controlled and the driving route/throttle/gear selection etc were uniform and could be reliably compared (ignore VW).
We have no such standard on the ranges,performance of these bikes and therefore any range claims are meaningless.
Ok,here is how we achieved the 108 miles over 5 days.
The rider....my guy is a sports racing champion,he does 50 miles training on a mid week training session,he is racing cyclist fit.
The bike....the Kudos Rapide is the nearest bike we have to a vanilla sports racing bike,it has low rolling resistance tyres and 30 speed gears,it can be ridden quickly by a strong rider,keeping it above the cutoff speed....this is critical.
The route...it pretty much follows the sea all the way,only 1 short steep hill,it is as flat as it is possible to select a route.
He was told(by me) to ride the bike only on PAS setting 1,about 20% of the available power,1 of 5.
He was told to ride the bike as fast as possible so that the bike speed was mostly above the 15 mph cutoff speed,he managed to keep this speed above the cutoff speed even on an incline.
He was told to avoid using the brakes, as long as it was safe.
In fact he rode the bike just like his Carbon KTM vanilla bike,the electric power was pretty much superfluous to his speed,he finished the journey time within a few minutes of his Normal sports road bike.
Ok,it's all a bit of a tease but it blows out of the water all these BS claims of range put out by so many manufacturers.
Can I now legitimately claim my Kudos Rapide has a range of 130 miles?
KudosDave
The BS descriptions of these bikes is becoming ridiculous,trouble is customers who are not knowledgable believe them.
When I worked for Ford in the atmospheric cell,the urban cycle figures were strictly controlled and the driving route/throttle/gear selection etc were uniform and could be reliably compared (ignore VW).
We have no such standard on the ranges,performance of these bikes and therefore any range claims are meaningless.
Ok,here is how we achieved the 108 miles over 5 days.
The rider....my guy is a sports racing champion,he does 50 miles training on a mid week training session,he is racing cyclist fit.
The bike....the Kudos Rapide is the nearest bike we have to a vanilla sports racing bike,it has low rolling resistance tyres and 30 speed gears,it can be ridden quickly by a strong rider,keeping it above the cutoff speed....this is critical.
The route...it pretty much follows the sea all the way,only 1 short steep hill,it is as flat as it is possible to select a route.
He was told(by me) to ride the bike only on PAS setting 1,about 20% of the available power,1 of 5.
He was told to ride the bike as fast as possible so that the bike speed was mostly above the 15 mph cutoff speed,he managed to keep this speed above the cutoff speed even on an incline.
He was told to avoid using the brakes, as long as it was safe.
In fact he rode the bike just like his Carbon KTM vanilla bike,the electric power was pretty much superfluous to his speed,he finished the journey time within a few minutes of his Normal sports road bike.
Ok,it's all a bit of a tease but it blows out of the water all these BS claims of range put out by so many manufacturers.
Can I now legitimately claim my Kudos Rapide has a range of 130 miles?
KudosDave
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Can I now legitimately claim my Kudos Rapide has a range of 130 miles?
no because why would some one like that buy electric bike in the first place ?
and why would you use some one like that to test the bikes battery range makes no sense at all tbh other to hide what the range is and what the buyer is capable off fitness wise and weight.
if i wanted the same bike and could not get the same range would you tell me im to fat and not fit enough to achieve this distance when buying the bike?
and give a full refund due to false advertising cos im not fit and to fat
no because why would some one like that buy electric bike in the first place ?
and why would you use some one like that to test the bikes battery range makes no sense at all tbh other to hide what the range is and what the buyer is capable off fitness wise and weight.
if i wanted the same bike and could not get the same range would you tell me im to fat and not fit enough to achieve this distance when buying the bike?
and give a full refund due to false advertising cos im not fit and to fat
I would have thought some people may find the trick useful. I'll try it tomorrow. I'll set my cut off speed to 12mph on my converted Giant. It should still give me full power to climb hills, let me enjoy a little excercise on flat roads and extend the range.
Ok it's a bit of trickery but the experiment does open our eyes to how these very high ranges can be unrealistically achieved by some manufacturers.
I did a show opposite Quic,they had exactly the same bike as my Kudos Liberty,they claimed 100 km range,I claimed 35-40 mile range.
Obviously if you raise the PAS cutoff speed none of this trick is possible.
The other interesting point was that he was still quicker on his KTM vanilla bike, but the rider is used to travelling at plus 20 mph,well above the cutoff assist speed,most of us would not normally ride that fast.
KudosDave
I did a show opposite Quic,they had exactly the same bike as my Kudos Liberty,they claimed 100 km range,I claimed 35-40 mile range.
Obviously if you raise the PAS cutoff speed none of this trick is possible.
The other interesting point was that he was still quicker on his KTM vanilla bike, but the rider is used to travelling at plus 20 mph,well above the cutoff assist speed,most of us would not normally ride that fast.
KudosDave
In a similar vein to these Woosh, Kudos battery range claims I want to talk about KTM speed, when I took my Macina Cross on the motorway I found it easy to maintain a 70 mph speed.
In the back of my van of course.
In the back of my van of course.
Whilst I accept and agree with all you say, the claim of 130 miles range is proven,albeit under not realistic circumstances.
Perhaps I should add a caveat...these ranges are dependent upon rider fitness,terrain and bike speed.
Don't worry I am going to stick with my 3 mile per Ah of battery.
KudosDave
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This has been a thought provoking moment I am going to turn MAX Amps on my controller down to 10.5 A. That means I will be running the battery at 1C tops and at 36V nominal still be getting up to 378 Watts in assistance level 5.
KD a good test would be to have the same bike ridden over the same course with different riders with the same instructions. Then you could do some marketing like:
Sports rider up to xxx miles
Reasonably fit 45 year old up to xx miles
Unfit wheezy asthmatic up to x miles
That in my mind would be really useful for the punter and you would be very seriously thumbing your nose at Bosch et al.
KD a good test would be to have the same bike ridden over the same course with different riders with the same instructions. Then you could do some marketing like:
Sports rider up to xxx miles
Reasonably fit 45 year old up to xx miles
Unfit wheezy asthmatic up to x miles
That in my mind would be really useful for the punter and you would be very seriously thumbing your nose at Bosch et al.
The Kalkhoff 100 miles was similar, done by three track cyclists.
True ranges are all about the numbers of persons involved. Someone made a false comparison with car mpg by model earlier, apparently ignoring the numbers involved.
Of course only a few buy a smallest engine ECO version of a small car and driving it very carefully all the time, and only a very few buy Ferraris or Bugatti Veyrons.
The great bulk of buyers are of the common Fiesta/Focus/Polo/Golf etc car class, returning a central band of mpgs forming the classic bell shaped distribution curve that defines the common average.
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