Hi Leo and everyone,
We only had to drive about 4km (not six hours) to Rebecca's shop to fetch the tandem. We have the battery unit mounted on the stoker's downtube so that Mary can monitor the battery level and move the selector up a notch when the "More power, Scotty," call goes out unless of course we are already in notch three and the response becomes " I am giving her all she's got, Captain".
My first impression when I wheeled the bike out of the shop was feeling the extra weight of the battery and motor. On my test ride I went up a rise that if I get to the crest on my single at 20 km/h I would have an increased heart and breathing rate. Anyway riding the tandem solo I crested at 25km/h breathing normally and at least three gears higher on the Rohloff than on my Rohloff single.
There is an occasional kick from the motor when I stop pedalling but I was aware of this before we placed the order and as I said it is occasional, not all the time.
I rode the bike home solo and Mary and I will be going for a longer ride on Friday or Saturday.
I will report again after that.
Thanks for, so far, confirming my belief in the system and I look forward to hearing more about it.
During my first, and only so far, loaded tour on one of my e-assisted bikes, I realized that I needed to use assist differently than I used it on my local, unloaded rides. My local rides do have a lot of climbing, but that climbing only lasts for maybe 45 minutes and then I have 15 minutes of descent followed mostly flat riding. On tour I had to deal with much longer climbs and much longer rides.
If I minimized my use of assist on steeper hills as I was used to doing on my local rides, I ran out of energy too soon and had to shorten my touring days. I realized that, as long as I had enough battery to make my day's goal - typically around 60 miles or 100 km - I was better off using more assist than I would on shorter unloaded rides. I also chose not to use assist at all when I didn't really need it when riding flat or downhill sections of my tour.
2 years ago