Quoted v actual range

[lightning]

So l've just bought a Mirider 1 which a pretty standard rear hub drive folding ebike.

The quoted range is 30-40 miles although l admit this is "using power level one" presumably on flat roads.

Being a regular MTB rider l've ridden the Mirider pretty much to the limit of its speed all the time.

l've found power level 3 to be okay on the flat and 5 (maximum) on hills.

The first ride was home from the shop. The battery showed a full charge when l started, but after riding home a distance of 8.7 miles and 730ft of climbing the battery was down to 1 bar.

I charged it up and on the second ride did 10.87 miles
Again the battery was down to 1 bar when l got home, so l don't know how much further it would have gone.
The ride was mostly on full power as fast
as l could get the bike to go, and l climbed a total of 1250 feet.
Some of the hills were steep and required me to be out of the saddle to get up, one was about 2/3 of a mile and is a beast on any ebike.

At the top of that hill the battery was registering zero but it recovered to 2 bars.

Overall l am very impressed with this little bike, some of the ride was off road, on terrain that the Mirider isn't really designed for.

Next time l am going to try my regular 18 mile
loop which has around 1800 feet of climbing and see how far l get before the battery expires.

The range is supposed to improve after 2-3 full charges, so let's see.

 

[Bonzo Banana]

As a very rough guide if you share the Watt hours by ten of the battery that gives you a the range in kilometres for the average ebike with average effort by the rider. So if you had a 36V battery with 10Ah that would be 360Wh so the range w ould be about 36 kilometres or somewhere around 22 miles or something like that.

 

[cyclebuddy]

When you say "MiRider 1", is that the older version with alloy wheels and the smaller battery, or the later version with spoked wheels, more powerful motor and slightly larger battery?

I couldn't imagine attempting 18 miles on any bike with 16" wheels... 10 miles on my 20" is far enough!

 

[matthewslack]

So l've just bought a Mirider 1 which a pretty standard rear hub drive folding ebike.

The quoted range is 30-40 miles although l admit this is "using power level one" presumably on flat roads.

Being a regular MTB rider l've ridden the Mirider pretty much to the limit of its speed all the time.

l've found power level 3 to be okay on the flat and 5 (maximum) on hills.

The first ride was home from the shop. The battery showed a full charge when l started, but after riding home a distance of 8.7 miles and 730ft of climbing the battery was down to 1 bar.

I charged it up and on the second ride did 10.87 miles
Again the battery was down to 1 bar when l got home, so l don't know how much further it would have gone.
The ride was mostly on full power as fast
as l could get the bike to go, and l climbed a total of 1250 feet.
Some of the hills were steep and required me to be out of the saddle to get up, one was about 2/3 of a mile and is a beast on any ebike.

At the top of that hill the battery was registering zero but it recovered to 2 bars.

Overall l am very impressed with this little bike, some of the ride was off road, on terrain that the Mirider isn't really designed for.

Next time l am going to try my regular 18 mile
loop which has around 1800 feet of climbing and see how far l get before the battery expires.

The range is supposed to improve after 2-3 full charges, so let's see.

You can calculate reasonably accurately how much battery the hills consume:

Energy required = height gain in m x all up mass in kg x g / estimated efficiency

So 1800 ft and say 100kg gives 549 x 100 x 9.81 / 0.7 = 769,000 Joules, which is 214 Wh (divide by 3,600 for Wh).

Add say 15Wh per mile for hard riding in high assist gives another 270, and assuming you do 1/3 of the work on the hills, you might need about 400Wh of battery for that route.

The 11 miles and 1250ft might have needed about 210Wh on the same assumptions, more if the all up weight is more, less if you were doing more of the work, and my .7 efficiency assumption may be a bit off too. Compares quite well with the 7Ah? 36V battery, which is nominally 252Wh.

I predict you will manage about 2/3 of your longer route, if the hills are evenly distributed!

 

[lightning]

When you say "MiRider 1", is that the older version with alloy wheels and the smaller battery, or the later version with spoked wheels, more powerful motor and slightly larger battery?

I couldn't imagine attempting 18 miles on any bike with 16" wheels... 10 miles on my 20" is far enough!

lt's the newer version. To be honest l
expected the same, but am amazed by how good the ride is on 16" wheels. l
did have the shop fit some slightly larger tyres with more tread, but l could happily ride this bike 20-30 miles.

The steering is a bit more twitchy compared to my regular bike, but it's perfectly stable, for instance riding down the main road near here l was easily able to stay between the double yellow lines at the edge of the road.

Maybe the unusual frame design has more compliance or the elastomer rear shock is helping. But even on unmade roads such as the old railway line to the next village it's okay.

l've actually deliberately headed for the worse roads and tracks to test it, l will take some photos next time and post them up on here.

 

[lightning]

Thank you also for the posts re battery range, l will let you know how far l get on the 18 mile route!

 

[sjpt]

My rule of thumb is you get a little over 1/3 'up to' miles if you ride somewhat hilly areas with middling levels of assist (eg 2/5 on a 5 level system, tour on Bosch), down to 1/4 or less if you use higher levels and travel faster. So the 30-40 up to miles become 10-13 realistic miles, to match matthewslack's suggestion of 2/3 of your 18 mile route.

Good luck with it; it'll be interesting to hear how you get on.

https://www.bosch-ebike.com/en/service/range-assistant/ give a good idea of probable range even for non-Bosch bikes with a little interpretation for motor type, and of course battery capacity. It's even more useful to give an idea of expected differences depending on assist level, road type, etc, etc, though it's 'flat/ some inclines/ hilly/ uplands/ mountainous tour' is a little vague.

 

[matthewslack]

Thank you also for the posts re battery range, l will let you know how far l get on the 18 mile route!

Real world range info is always interesting to hear! If you turn it right down there is an outside chance of getting round...

 

[lightning]

The bike is rideable without assistance from the motor, there's seems to be very little drag, and the bike is quite light (for an ebike) so l should be fine to carry on when the battery is exhausted.

So this time l am going to go for maximum speed and see what happens, and l will report back!

 

[guerney]

Isn't there some unusable capacity as percentage of your 7ah battery protection level? I expect you'll manage only slightly more than 10.87 miles of your 18 mile journey, if it's hilly.

 

[AndyBike]

I think a 'real world' test needs to be carried out, probably with someone with a smartphone that has some sort of sat nav or gps on it to record the real distance you've traveled.
EG. My bosch gen 4 performance cx tells me i get on a full charge for the 625wh battery on eco-87miles,on tour-57miles,on Emtb-48miles, and on turbo-42miles.

These distances are based on the lightest rider(probably about 9 stone in weight,wearing the minimum of clothing, on the smoothest of smooth tarmac, in the height of summer and without even a single breath of wind.
Any deviation from that- a slight hill, a bumpy road, a few extra winter clothes, any sort of luggage, a bit of a headwind and that figure drops, sometimes considerably.
I would guess that the range criteria quoted by the manufacturer is fantasy, and even in normal flat riding conditions anything happens- its raining-you wear a jacket, there's a slight incline etc etc, you're carrying a pannier,
Its al basing itself on those super flat, smooth wind free conditions, and while it could claim 60miles, the journey for you might be the odd hill, a bit of shopping etc etc and in truth those 60 miles are in fact(On Eco) 45, or less.

Only by using it for your usual journey can you know for sure that the battery size you've chosen is enough power to allow you to travel the distance you need to in all weathers and conditions.

On mine - im 14 stone, usually overdressed, carry shopping up to about 15kg and while it states 57miles on the display,(Again that is the ideal) its probably not 57miles im getting.
My only advice can be get the largest size battery your bike can take.
I'm probably well overpowered, its 625wh, but the majority of the journeys i undertake are between 2 and 5 miles tops on any given day, with the occasional 20-30mile on a special off to the furthest corners of my city on a potter about round trip. The 625wh means i will never have range anxiety because even if i vary my route on a long potter- say from Glasgow to Bowling harbour, i wont run out of juice. Im covered for all eventualities.

Hope that makes sense

 

[sjpt]

So this time l am going to go for maximum speed and see what happens, and l will report back!

As long as you pedal at 18mph including up the hills you should arrive home with a full battery (the bike's battery that is, not sure about your battery!).

 

[lightning]

l wish !!

The ride will be recorded on Strava so l will know the actual distance.

l will give both results (the bike and Strava)

Looking at the weather, l will probably be testing the water resistance of the bike as well

 

[Bonzo Banana]

I think on a direct drive motor with regen you could use the motor and your own power for the hills, use your own power exclusively on the flats and regen down the hills to give yourself a huge range possibly 100s of miles out of a large capacity battery. If the bike is configured with a throttle so you only use the power when you need it rather than constantly assisting.

There is a thread here that shows an analysis at the end of using a geared hub motor without a clutch plate/freewheel so the gearing is engaged for regen and therefore provides higher regen than direct drive but with mechanical wear. The setup allows a hill climbing net consumption of 7W per km for a 7% gradient. So that would give about 90km of 7% climbing or 60 miles approx out of a 625Wh battery before the battery is exhausted what percentage of hill climbing makes up a average journey is debatable and without a freewheel there will be a little extra riding resistance on the flats probably more so than direct drive although I think the person in that thread has enabled trickle current freewheeling on his hub motor, just enough current to equal the feel of freewheeling.

I think it would be fair to say you could get a range of 200-300 miles overall only using assistance for the hills and using regen down hills. I don't think a direct drive hub motor would get to 7W per kilometre with regen it would be more like 9W per kilometre. However you would have regen braking without any mechanical wear at all, neither to brake pads or the internal planetary gears that a geared hub has.

Analysis of regen on an ebike

This June I gave a presentation at the monthly VEVA meeting ( http://www.veva.bc.ca/events/pastevents.htm ) about among other things regen braking on electric bicycles. This was before the cross-canada ebike trip but after doing some quantitative tests riding around Vancouver with various early...

endless-sphere.com

I suppose you could make the point if you have a very small light geared freewheeling hub motor and small capacity battery on a light ebike and only use the motor for the steepest hills you can get a very high range that way too probably 100s of miles.

 

[lightning]

That's interesting, thank you.

After l've done the "full speed" test l may well give your suggestion a try and see how far l get. l could try riding to see my friend who lives 25 miles away and a fairly flat route.

 

[AndyBike]

Looking at the weather, l will probably be testing the water resistance of the bike as well

Well theres a good number of MTB vids on YT with guys out cycling int he rain, wet mud coating everything, though these are mid motor out and out mountain bikes, so maybe the sealing is better, but rain, despite our fears each and every time we set off appears to be less of a problem than those fears.
I've put a clear (Small freezer type) bag over my Purion display, as i think thats maybe a weak point.
Full mudguards would of course help, stopping water being directed off the tyres into electrical points and areas, and i suppose if there is a spot, for example a charging point, you could put a bit of duct tape over that just to totally seal it from water ingress.
Possibly the same thing on the fold of the mini rider 1, if you hardly ever fold it up, or maybe just for rainy conditions, with duct tape as on that frame it looks like theres an electrical connection there, but its maybe not well sealed and a possible spot for water to get into the contact area.

 

[lightning]

Sadly l didn't go out last night, the rain was going sideways and l just didn't fancy it.

l'll try for tonight.

The Mirider is billed as fully water resistant to IP65 so should be okay.

 

[lightning]

So, this afternoon l went for it and set out on my regular 18 mile loop.
The first 3.6 miles were road and then l got to the first beast of a hill, a one mile partially out of the saddle climb, at the top the battery showed two bars (from 4)
Hold the warp drive Scotty, we're experiencing a power fall off

However over the next few miles of undulating road the dilithium crystals re energised and it went back to 3 bars.

Down the hill into the local town and then another "turbo" climb saw it back down to 2 bars, where it stayed until another climb at 15.5 miles and down to 1 bar.

At the top l briefly had no bars "l don't know how much more of this she can take Jim"

But one bar re appeared and l carried on, round the local park which is a varied off road route.

Out of the park and no bars showing

More fairly flat road riding then the out of the saddle climb back to the house

"Scotty, give me all she's got". "l cannae promise she'll hold up Jim"

Top of the hill and out of warp drive to impulse power for the final bit, still going, bike said 19.9 miles and Strava 18.6

Ride was done in assist level 3, and 5 on any significant hills.

 

[GSV3MiaC]

Like most car petrol gauges, I find the Bosch display(s) are a bit pessimistic / safe at the low end, i.e. they go several km (sorry, metricated) on zero bars (but maybe good to stay away from power level 4/5 when the battery is down there). When testing that, better be within push/unassisted range of home though.

I don't know what the bars actually measure, but it doesn't correlate well with range - I get 20km-ish on the 5th bar, and the next 20km takes me thru 4,3,2 and sometimes 1. though I admit the first 20km has more downhill than the rest.

 

[soundwave]

it trys to guess the range left based on mode used and whats left in the batt so can be all over the place depending what mode you are in.

with a dongle it cant compute lol i now have the kiox display so now 1-100%