Old Battery Range Check

[georgehenry]

Cake Box Range Test.......

Now that I am not using my 2015 Yamaha Haibike to commute to work, I need to find other ways I can regularly use it to benefit from the exercise and fun of riding the bike.

The excuse today was to return a cake box to a caterer who had supplied food for my retirement leaving do. I planned to ride cross country to the sandwich shop to return the cake box, and then do a small shop at The Lidl in Farnham as my home town does not have a Lidl. Unlike riding to work I would not be able to charge my battery. Would it make the whole round trip without a charge?

I used my normal cross country route to Farnham which is about 14 miles. Unlike going to work which is usually a 24 mile round trip, this would be a few miles further.


Sheep!

I bought my bike in Spring 2015 and am using the original 400Wh battery that is over six and a half years old now. On the off road route I only use my lowest assist level and also switch the assist off in places where the gradient allows me to ride the bike without. Used in this way I used 30% of the battery getting to Farnham, dropping of the Cake box, and shopping at The Lidl before setting off for home. Unlike riding to work I was carrying a heavy U lock and then on the way back my shopping that included four bottles of wine!



Going home I rode on the road and just like riding home from work aimed to travel faster using the higher middle assist level of the three I have to maintain speed up the steeper hills I encounter. Used in this way I know my bike can cover the 10 miles home in thirty minutes and average 20mph, but this uses more power and reduces the batteries capacity quicker.



Anyway I made it, hitting the bottom of the last steep hill that climbs me out of a river valley up to where I live with 30%. of my batteries capacity remaining according to my display. I know that there is a point as the capacity reduces where the capacity on my battery really falls away much more quickly especially when under a heavy load and going up the last hill I could literally see the percentage remaining fall away almost by the pedal stroke and when I got home I had 17% left and had covered 26 miles.



So when I used to ride home from work starting with a fully charged battery and travelling at the same relatively high pace similarly loaded or even more loaded I would use around 40% of my battery getting home. Travelling home today with around 70% of my battery remaining I made it, experienced no drop off in performance but used 53% of my remaining battery, 13% more battery than if I had started the journey with a full battery, and having got home with only 17% left, know that the performance of the bike was right on the cusp of suddenly collapsing.

To be honest I am pretty impressed by this old battery, as its still working almost as well as it did when it was new.

Total mileage covered by the bike and this battery 14,348

 

[Nealh]

Just goes to prove even in retirement one can have his cake and eat it.

 

[georgehenry]

We have been finishing off my retirement cakes for about a week now, so I definitely needed the exercise!

 

[Nealh]

Exercise = analogue push bike .

 

[egroover]

Exercise = analogue push bike .

analogue push bike = stays in garage not used much

 

[sjpt]

Exercise = analogue push bike .

Exercise = walking carrying a fridge

 

[georgehenry]

So I am not used to needing to charge my battery when I get home, but at only 17% left it needed a charge, so I got my timer plug set it for an hour and got on with the rest of my day.

This entailed riding the "Old Nag" on some errands, the chemist in a nearby village, the library, and a bit of shopping. I got home and thought I would see how much charge an hour on the timer plug had put in. So I took the battery to the garage and was confused when it showed 100%.

I then realised what I had done. I had set the time on the timer plug and then plugged the charger into the plug next to it! So just as I don't like to leave this battery too empty, I also don't like to leave it too full, so out I had to go on it for a spin again accessing a quite difficult track that drops down into a gully and out the other side with a steep climb with roots and rocks and then continuing onto two more steep and difficult rocky and tree rooted tracks up to a nice view point and back home.

I basically managed by using the middle assist level to use 20% of the battery in two miles of climbing. Then two miles back home using another 5% climbing back out of the gully track. So 4 miles added to the 26 to make a nice round 30.

 

[richtea99]

Cake Box Range Test.......

Am I the only reader to immediately think 'Is this about how far you can travel only fueled by a box of cake'?

 

[georgehenry]

The Cinema Show "Range Test", that almost ended in tragedy.......

I forgot to take a camera so could not record my tragedy as it unfolded. Probably for the best.

For a bonus point what prog rock album from the 70's featured the rather lovely track "The Cinema Show". Showing my age.

So today I set forth with 100% of my battery, to ride from my home in Godalming to ciniworld in Aldershot to purchase three tickets for the sci fi film "Dune".

I was a bit nervous after my cake box outing as I thought the cinema was further, but found out on my return that I had cycled the same distance, 26 miles, as my cake box outing.

Because I thought this ride was further I was even more conservative in how I used my six and a half year old 400Wh battery and reached my destination after only using 26% of my battery.

The outward journey was a mixture of off road tracks and road. On the way back I did more off road knowing that I had more battery left than I expected.

However on one lovely single track climb somehow a branch got jammed in my rear mech and cassette. It was quite a job to get it out. I should have checked the alignment before setting off and on the first pedal stroke the chain came off and got jammed between the cassette and the spokes.

It was quite a job to get it out. I had to invert the bike, drop the chain off the chain ring and drop the rear wheel out of their drop outs and it still took quite some effort and time to get the chain unstuck.

Getting the wheel back into the drop outs was fun too, requiring in the end a good thump on the tyre to get it to finally drop in. Then it was clear that the rear derailleur had been bent so that it was fowling the spokes and I needed gently pull it away to give clearance.

After all that I set gingerly off and was quite surprised that the gears were indexing properly and everything working. Then my display started flashing a warning and I lost drive from the motor.

I checked the spoke magnet and it had come lose and moved. I moved it back and set off again but it was clear that it needed tightening. Then I realized that I had parred down my tool kit to just give me puncture repair capability and had left the multi tool at home so could not tighten it up.

It would work for a while and then need realigning again. I managed to borrow a phillips screw driver of a BT man who it turned out owned a Bosch powered ebike, got the magnet tightened up and made it home. Phew. What a palava.

I had 42% of my batteries capacity remaining when I got home, so my range has jumped to a theoretical 44.8 miles in just a couple of days after it was only a theoretical 31.3 miles after The Cake Box challenge. Or, maybe, I used lower assist levels. Darn it. This range business is complicated. Now if I don't use the motor at all perhaps my range becomes infinitely large. Cool.

Mileage has crept up to 14,378

 

[guerney]

Mileage has crept up to 14,378

Very impressive! Have you ever had to replace the controller?

to ride from my home in Godalming to ciniworld in Aldershot to purchase three tickets for the sci fi film "Dune".

Was Dune any good?

 

[Nealh]

Theoretically yes, the yamaha motor had to be replaced due to bearing play.
Also GH had to carry out a fairly simple but silly battery charge /discharge port repair to save a whopping £800 replacement battery bill as the dealer washed there hands of it because like bosh, yamaha have in effect a throw a way policy.

 

[georgehenry]

No I have never had to replace my controller, and have been really impressed by the bike and its build quality and ability off road.

But as Nealh has said above, I was lucky to be given a new motor right at the end of my two year warranty. It developed play in the bearings that you could detect by flexing the pedal arms and feel the movement. The motor was still working as it should but the bearings had gone. Rather than change the bearings the shop I bought the bike from put a new motor in free of charge, which from my perspective was a result.

I have tried as carefully as possible to keep water away from the bearings of that second motor. I think the water that got into the first motor was due to me washing the bike rather than riding it.

I had ridden the bike 6,000 miles in those first two years, so the motor had a relatively high mileage on it compared with many. Ebikeshop Farnham where I bought my bike told me it was the highest mileage they had seen on that motor.

The battery and charger issue was as Nealh said actually quite simple to fix, but highlighted that there was no support for me or anyone else with the same problem from my otherwise up to that point excellent dealership or Raleigh the importers. I do not blame the dealership. Their hands were tied by the importer. The dealership were not allowed to open up the battery. As Nealh says, all they could do was offer to sell me a new charger and battery at a cost of £800. Martin at Ebikeshop did suggest that as both items were at that point out of warranty, I could attempt to fix them myself. An electrically competent friend and myself changed the connectors of the battery and charger, but needed to open up the battery and solder wires into place inside.

My original battery and charger are still working a treat. The rather ugly connectors we got of ebay for less than a tenner are a triumph of form over function. They are ugly but work a lot better than the originals!

I was sorely tempted to buy another Haibike in the 2020 model year but in the end did not due to the worry that something you could not fix could go wrong just outside of the warranty and write of the bike. The defeat technology built into these types of bike is designed to make you buy very expensive replacement parts if you can get them or buy a new bike. You do have a few more options to have motors repaired than I did when I bought my bike. The bearing man for example. Also I think Ebikeshop now offer a service to replace motor bearings.

As for Dune. My two kids and I are Sci Fi fans and thought the film was superb. A great story and truly amazing special effects.

Oh and after checking and adjusting rear hanger and rear mech it seemed I had got away with it, after my nightmare with a branch jammed into my rear mech and cassette. Not quite, I am afraid, I went for a ride yesterday and the chain broke. Weakened where I had to yank it out after getting stuck between the cassette and rear spokes. The off road environment is much more unforgiving than the road.