Ride Blogs

• Dirt rides every few days
• Lots of Kinkglake Trips
• Kinglake
• Healesville
• First Dirt
• First Night Ride
• September 19th
• Next few days
• First ride

Dirt rides every few days

I have been riding my Honda 125 on dirt roads every few days. Done almost 400km all up. It is just so much fun riding on little back dirt roads. I notice I’m going around corners a lot faster now I’m used to riding fast on the EV5.

It isn’t fast up the hills, and I develop some bad habbits like pretty much keeping throttle open all the time. I get to experience drifting sideways when on loose dirt, and even occasionally needing my foot down. Comming out onto the bitumen once there was a heap of loose gravel, and as I turned the back end went out miles, and I kept good control.

I’ve been practicing heaps for my test ride and license on this bike. I need to spend a lot more time in suburbs with it.

Going to book my test ride in the next week. Soon to be on Ps

Lots of Kinkglake Trips

I have now done many trips around the Kinkglake area. It has been such a delight.

Battery

Most of the trips range between 72 and 80km and I am usually down to between 68 and 71 volts.

Issues

Wheel Alignment

This issue is now fully fixed. My brakes do not make any more noise

Power Failure

One trip around I had a power failure. After about 25km power just failed and I watched the voltage drop down and down until it went off. On pulling over, I could not turn on the bike first time. Second time I turned it off then on, it would constantly power cycle. Finally I found resetting the whole system by turning off the circuit breaker and back on fixed the problem, and I rode home the next 40km no issue. It has not happened again since, but keeping an eye on it.

Kinglake

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.

Healesville

Longer Ride

Rode to Healesville for breakfast. I reliaed I need to do these rides, but maybe without the food, as the cost is starting to add up.

Healsville trip was amazing. Lovely twisties, I got to experience more lean and more speed.

The views ! Not been, go.

Trip each way was approximately 36km. Just over 70km all up. Bike down to 70 volts, and 3 bars. I want to do 100 then more, but I need first to organise a trailer in case I need to get home, but I think over 100km will not be an issue.

Issues

Food is expensive

Well, eggs benedict is!

Speedometer

Reads almost exacltly 5km under actual speed. This is pretty standard for vehicles but I also notice you can change it - see documents.

https://support.braaapmotorcycles.com/hc/en-au/articles/5666679535513-MotoE-Changing-Speedometer-from-Miles-to-KMs

Indicator Wire

The right hand front indicator wire was getting slightly fowled on the forks. It was easy to reach in and move it, and when I got home add a cable tie. Check your cables !

First Dirt

There is a theme here…. “first”… I’ll get over it…

Took the Honda CB125E out today on dirt roads around my house. Amazing fun. There is a really steep hill I used to love racing up on horses 35 years ago, and hated riding my bicycle up, but loved down. Today I rode up it and although I was in 2nd most of the way up, it was a total blast !

First Night Ride

Wasn’t too wet this evening, so I did a short 12km ride to buy some milk.

Issues

Lights

I really don’t know if they are good or bad. It is hard to see enough in a car, and on a bike it felt kind of worse. I do know that these lights are WAY brighter than the Honda.

Horn

I think it should be louder, might put this on my upgrade list.

September 19th

Honday CB125

Rode the Honda CB125E again today, getting my practice up to get my license.

Interesting note. This is a 124CC, 10.2HP, 7.6kW motor. And yet my 5kW electric motorbike literally smokes this for speed, acceleration up hills and top speed.

Back on the Moto EV5 (ODO ~ 200k)

Did another big block on Moto EV5 lots of twisties, starting to finally do some leaning. Very wet on the roads, debree, and some pot holes from the big rain yesterday, so I took it easy.

Issues

Mystery Buttons 1 or 2

There is a set of buttons on the left handlebar, just inside the grip, with 4 buttons. Power, +, - and something. No idea what it is for, can’t find it on the web site. When you press power button, it makes a sounds, like Windows turning on. Press again it clicks off. But when it is on, it doesn’t do anything. I suspect it is the unused cruise control. If so, why is it there? What can I do with it? Why does it make noise.

Myster Button 2 - and the trip meter

There is three bits of information on the trip meter. Odometer - only shown at power on, Battery Volts and Trip meter.

The trip meter automatically resets at the start of each power on of the bike. So this means for multi stop trips, you need to keep an eye on it. In some ways kind of annoying, in others it is pretty cool.

There are two buttons on the left of the dash, I would have thought these would be perfect for things like showing odometer, but they don’t seem to do anything. Again, I want to look if I can make them work.

Next few days

The Rides

I am having the most wonderful morning rides. Getting out there on the bike each morning has kept me more alert and awake for my work day. It was fantastic decision to start riding, and with such a cool and interesting bike.

Starting to get experiment with the cornering. I live in a wonderful part of Melbourne with amazing, albeit dangerous roads, and get to experience and practice so many types of riding.

Issues

Mirrors

Maybe just because I am a beginner, but I am struggling with the mirrors. The mirrors on my Honda CB125 allow me to see easily behind me. The Moto EV5 mirrors are much lower, and no matter where I place them, I only see my hands with a very narrow window behind me. If I move them further out, I see wide but no behind me. I need to look at this more.

Noise over bumps

There is a small knock noise over bumps. It maybe nothing. It maybe because I have never ridden a bike like this. It may be because I have been riding for less than a week. But I want to make sure specifically that there is nothing loose.

Hill Start

Hill starts? The bike has a feature, where when you are still, with the brakes on, then the accelerator will not work. Seems logical to start with. But then you want to take off up a hill. At this point I would normally just drag my back brake, but I have to release both brakes to take off. This means I can only use my feet to stop rolling back.

Similarly, slow speed turns with back brake dragging can’t be done.

See the issues doc Hill Start

Parking

Related to the above, parking on a hill without gears to stop it rolling?

See the issues doc Parking

First ride

Forgot to take a shot on first day

Delightful

My first ride of this bike was a delight. I live in a very hilly part of Melbourne, and my CB125 will barely keep up to 60 up a couple of the hills, and it is about a 7kW motor. This 5kW motor will happily keep acacelerating past 90 before I stopped. And it is a heavier bike too.

I am a total noob, riding only 2 days on the roads, never ridden a sports bike, never something so big, so I am taking it slow, cornering slow etc. Already I notice just how it sticks to the road, how much faster I can turn, how the front forks compress nicely with some brake. I feel very safe.

Trying to think about every turns as if I am going faster, entry, exit, trail braking.

Issues

Some issue during first ride

Power failure when handle bars hard left

I discovered if I jerk the handle bars hard left the power cycled. After a quick call to the manufacturer, we discovered a loose connector from the key. I have to remove the a few things to get to it to reseat it. However, for now I discovered that using the remote key to start intead, then does not have this issue. For now, safetly wise, I will use the key, until the 500km initial service.