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Kinglake

Big ride to Kinglake and Yarra Glen then home.

The ride I’ve been looking forward to.

View at Sugarloaf

Kinglake, Toolangi, Yarra Glena and home.

This ride is something I have been looking forward to for some time.

The day

Sunny, 21 degrees, absolutely perfect weather. Met a few lovely people. Had a nice coffee. The most amazing scenery. WOW.

I have had the most amazing day. The bike ran beaifully (well mostly, see end).

Performance of my EV5

The bike performance was lovely. I am just a beginner, so I am not a great judge. Even in the last few weeks I have really improved my speed. I am riding a lot faster around corners, and braking a lot less and generally increased my speeds.

Braking is lovely. Biggest thing I say against this version (the EV5) is the lack of ABS brakes. That said, I found the brakes and handling around the corners really lovely.

The ride

  • My place to Kinglake - about 20km, then coffee
  • Kinglake to Chocolate fatory in Yarra Glen - about 25km, then chocolate
  • Yarra Glen to Sugarloaf - about 15km
  • Sugarloaf to home - about 10km. Probably, if I had have made it

I love electric. I love the feel and lack of vibration. I had a greaat day.

Range!

About 3km from my house I lost power. Turning it off then on gave me about another 500m and then it lost power again, with no ability to turn back on.

The total ride was about 70km, or a little less. This is a lot less than I have had in the past however it was a very hilly ride and I am definitely riding more aggressively than I have in the past.

What I noticed was the voltage regularly dropping into the 60s and lowest to 66.

Fully charged 72V battery is 84V. 66V is 25% so not unreasonable flat rate. Totally flat (0%) is 60V which is not great for the battery.

In the past I have done 80km+ and voltage has dropped only to 72V. I think when I got it going the second time it was 68V.

None of this is a major concern for me. What is an issue is below in sudden stop and battery indicator.

Weight

This is a heavy bike. Considering that the battery is only 30kg, the bike being 190kg is a lot, and trying to push it even up a very gentle grade road is VERY difficult. I can’t even imaging what the really big bike owners deal with.

I’m going to look into Weight.

Issue - sudden stop

I felt very uncomfortable, even in quit a dangerous space, to what happens when the battery stops. I’m riding along, 2 bars but can see voltage down and feeling the acceleration a little lower.

Then BAM! Complete power off. No dash, one quick beep, and no lights, NOTHING. This means up hill and in the dark - I go completely dark, no lights, no rear lights, no emergency blinkers, and almost sudden stop since I’m heading up hill.

Issues:

  • No lights - stopping the motor is one thign, turning off the whole bike is NOT OK!
  • No ability to turn on emergency indicators - no power, NO LIGHTS, no emergency blinkers.
  • No warning - doesn’t slow down or limp mode just goes dead flat after a beep and in about 2 seconds.

I felt quite unsafe.

See Sudden Stop

Issue - battery indicator

I never noticed it go below 2 bars, even after I restarted it on the way home. I think under load it did drop to 1 bar very briefly.

My feeling is that it drops from 5 to 3 bars is no time at all. Less than 20km range. Then it drops from 3 to 2 more slowly. But then 2 was also actually flat.

Battery indicators are HARD WORK! Very hard to get right. Very hard to make accurate. But I think this is a particularly bad one and I think we can work on better.

Delightsful end of the day

I stopped close by to a house and the owner came out and helped me not only push it off the road, but into his place and near his shed, so I could go get the charger and charge the bike up. Then to top off his generosity he drove me home to get my car. What a delight to meet another neighbour on our road.