My wife and I decided to spend the Easter weekend going on a bike trip to the South Coast. This plan was formed before the weather forecast for the weekend became clear, and we reviewed it last week and decided to go ahead anyway - but with some more warm clothes!
Our route started from home in West London, went down via the Croyden area (keeping a close eye open for fast-moving test cyclists!) to pick up the Sustrans route 21 by the M25 at Redhill. From there we followed the route (with a few detours and short cuts) along a mixture of country roads, disused railway lines and bike lanes down to Eastbourne. We had two overnight hotel stops, in Horley and Tuinbridge Wells. Total distance travelled was 116 miles in three days.
My wife took my Wisper 905se while I rode my (non-electric) touring bike. The Wisper gave 30-35 miles range, depending on hilliness, wind and surface travelled on, and we re-charged during lunch and coffee stops to get the distance. As we live in a flat area, this was the first time the bike had been tested on hills and it coped well with the Kent and Sussex Downs. There were no cut-outs on hills (other than when the battery was running very low after 32 miles on day 1). I don't know the gradients but it managed to get up some pretty steep slopes, which I would estimate at not less than 1 in 8 or 9 (11-12.5%), and did not fail on any. My wife said it felt as powerful as our old Powabyke, which she rode on our previous trip to the Sussex Downs last year.
We had a great trip. Highlights were:
Seeing the sea at Eastbourne
A beautiful hotel open for morning coffee, with big leather sofas in front of an open fire, after riding for 10 miles through yesterday morning's snow
The quality of the sustrans route - miles of old railways providing great cycling terrain and excellent signposting making it a joy to navigate.
For next time I'd like to get an additional battery for the Wisper, to give us a bit more range and make it less of an imperative to find an electrical socket in every pub and cafe we stop at. buying a second Wisper lithium would be very light but doesn't make sense given high cost and short shelf life of lithiums, so its probably going to be an NiMH booster style battery, as others have made for Ezee Torqs. I've also realised how hot the Wisper charger gets (I usually leave it in my cold garage) and will look into drilling a few holes to help it stay cool.
Frank
Our route started from home in West London, went down via the Croyden area (keeping a close eye open for fast-moving test cyclists!) to pick up the Sustrans route 21 by the M25 at Redhill. From there we followed the route (with a few detours and short cuts) along a mixture of country roads, disused railway lines and bike lanes down to Eastbourne. We had two overnight hotel stops, in Horley and Tuinbridge Wells. Total distance travelled was 116 miles in three days.
My wife took my Wisper 905se while I rode my (non-electric) touring bike. The Wisper gave 30-35 miles range, depending on hilliness, wind and surface travelled on, and we re-charged during lunch and coffee stops to get the distance. As we live in a flat area, this was the first time the bike had been tested on hills and it coped well with the Kent and Sussex Downs. There were no cut-outs on hills (other than when the battery was running very low after 32 miles on day 1). I don't know the gradients but it managed to get up some pretty steep slopes, which I would estimate at not less than 1 in 8 or 9 (11-12.5%), and did not fail on any. My wife said it felt as powerful as our old Powabyke, which she rode on our previous trip to the Sussex Downs last year.
We had a great trip. Highlights were:
Seeing the sea at Eastbourne
A beautiful hotel open for morning coffee, with big leather sofas in front of an open fire, after riding for 10 miles through yesterday morning's snow
The quality of the sustrans route - miles of old railways providing great cycling terrain and excellent signposting making it a joy to navigate.
For next time I'd like to get an additional battery for the Wisper, to give us a bit more range and make it less of an imperative to find an electrical socket in every pub and cafe we stop at. buying a second Wisper lithium would be very light but doesn't make sense given high cost and short shelf life of lithiums, so its probably going to be an NiMH booster style battery, as others have made for Ezee Torqs. I've also realised how hot the Wisper charger gets (I usually leave it in my cold garage) and will look into drilling a few holes to help it stay cool.
Frank
