which of my ebikes to take for long ,hilly ride, dilema

footpump

Esteemed Pedelecer
Mar 19, 2014
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hi all I used to be in a local cycle club, but left as I was always way behind on hills, and sometimes they thought I must have a puncture.

a m8 has recently joined the same club and often rides 50 miles or more mostly on unpowered bikes.

he also has a orbea keram 30 ebike , but he is able to ride in eco mode , and did a fairly hilly ride nr Watford to dunstable downs 50 miles with some biggish hills.

I on the other hand need lots of assistance so eco mode is no good for me

we intend to do the same rout tomorrow, but I am not sure which ebike to take
my ktm bosch active line 50nm not done a long trip on it but would need to use sport or turbo quite a lot and no doubt run out of battery on return , plus its t sensor.

my kudos now has 350w moter and is fitted with 17 amp controller and is speed sensor 5 modes of pas + throttle, but seems to have a gremlin in the fact that with a fully charged new 17ah battery ,or new 13.8ah battery fully charged,

it seems to get to about half battery level on display , and can either cut out , or I need to lower assist level , throttle can also cease to work.

but I can carry both the 13.8 and 17ah and use either singley or in parralell on kudos but the bikes heavy I need to make sure I can do 50 miles in total.

I could carry charger on the bosch, but not sure if there will be anywhere where I can charge up

the most I have ever ridden is 40 miles on flat unpowered
 
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footpump

Esteemed Pedelecer
Mar 19, 2014
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I can now answer the above.
I took the 350w ebike and 13,8+17ah battery ,locks /drink etc
the outward route was hilly so I was often in pas4 and the bike started to play up as regards pas at 22.5 miles , down to 1 bar .

swopped to 13.8ah battery , outward journey 23.3 miles./

return less hilly so more downhill , but got lost on return journey did 15 miles battery on 3 bars , did not fancy running out and pushing.
so taxi home at 8 miles to go.

my m8 on the other hand was considerably faster on outward rout despite being in eco mode , carrying moderate size backpack at 30 miles covered , display gave v37 miles remaining (eco mode)
 

Nealh

Esteemed Pedelecer
Aug 7, 2014
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You would have got home without the taxi, by using pas 1 or 2, also the 17ah would have bounced back a bit after having to work a bit hard with pas 4.
You will be surprised how much more efficient pas 2 is over 3 & 4 as the amp draw is less and kinder to poor or mediocre cells.
There is nothing inherently wrong with your set up, all that is happening as you know is voltage sag with the choice of cells used, when that is the case you have to think about how you use them a bit better.
 
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footpump

Esteemed Pedelecer
Mar 19, 2014
713
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nealh someone I met a while back has 3 yosepower 17ah batteries , exactly the same as my 17ah yosepower and uses with 3 ebikes.
250w yosepower front moter kit and got about 35 miles on smallish doner bike pulling a trailer on the flat.

but he is light at about 11 stone.
saw him last week ,he has ditched the thumb throttle, changed the doner bike and uses pas 1 or 2 and can now get about 50 miles range.