Week's Riding km's

And this weeks stats are...
Time: 5hrs, 6mins, 21secs
Distance: 105.06km
Average Speed: 20.5km/hr
Maximum Speed: 60.8km/hr
Calories Burned: 1616.5
Odometer Total: 1286.1km

Days I didn't use my electric bike;
Monday: it snowed and hailed (if I can't use that as an excuse what can I use :P )
Wednesday: FOOD POISONING!!!!! :(
Saturday: went out on my road bike instead of electric for 24km

Why to Keep Those Tires Pumped

Lets start off with the all the stats for the week, I'' just recite what my odometer says before I reset it ;)
Distance Traveled: 123.67km
Average Speed: 21.3km/hr
Maximum Speed: 54.0km
Calories Burned: 1986.5
Odometer Total: 1181.1km
Days I didn't bike: none

Now onto the tires.
I'm coming at things from a 'knowing very little and learning as I go' perspective, so if I say anything oober obvious just roll with it ;)
Over the past week I seemed to be getting less and less out of my battery, normally I get ~15-20km per bar of my battery, but I was getting less than 9km per bar. Something was up so I decided to get to the bottom of it, this meant going to my 'go to guy' a.k.a-Dad, and stating my problem then waiting for a calculated solution.
Next morning Dad said he had pumped my tires up, 'they weren't low or anything, just not full,' was the comment I got from Dad. (It's at this point that I would like to point out that I do now how to pump a tire up, my Dad had just been awesome and done it after I went to bed, thanks Daddy xx).
I went on my merry way to college and when I got back that night (a round trip of just over 15km) I hadn't even gone through a bar of battery yet! Before tire pumping I was going through two!
Now for the nut-shell explanation about why keeping your tires pumped uses less battery (it's at this point that you can please feel free to comment with better explanations if you like :P ). Basically when your tire is flat there is more of it touching the ground, resulting in what some might call 'tire drag,' This is were the excess tire that is touching the ground is actually causing friction (resistance) and therefore you need to work harder to move it. Physics wise the more surface area contact an object has with the ground the more energy must be expelled to move it and combat the friction. The same goes with your battery, not only are you having to work harder to keep the tire rotating but so is your battery (hence you get a lot less out of it).
At the end of all this I will now be checking my air pressure once a week and topping up as needed, it was a very gradual change so I didn't notice at first but when I compared my 'normal' battery usage with what I was getting a the end they difference was huge! I was needing over 50% more battery with flat tires, I sure wont let that happen again.

Sorry!

Well as the title states I'm sorry, I have neglected this blog for...well a very long time. let me explain why.
About 4/5 weeks after getting my amazing electric bike, I crashed. Right into the back of a car, wound up in A&E getting my eyelid glued back together and my knee butterflied. The bike on the other hand, lets just say that almost all of it had to be replaced. Needless to say I was very embarrassed and hence did not blog it, I apologize.

I got a new bike about 6-8weeks later and have been using it A LOT recently, so I have a proposal, I am wanting to do a very brief check in once a week (probably on a Sunday night) with my total in km's traveled and any issues/things learnt that week. It wont be much, unless I learn something really fantastic (which may well happen) but it will be a start :)

Again I do apologize for my lack of postings but hopefully the posts will be regular and on the up from here :D

How to Ride an Ezee Sprint

Short answer is hope on and pedal, but here's the break down of what actually goes on.

First off here is what you will be faced with on the handlebars.

This is what we have from left to right.

-first left is the throttle (don't confuse this with the gears or you will likely take off into something), to use the throttle just twist toward yourself, this works the motor, turning the front wheel. (Do not use this if you are on gravel or wet road, the only way to use the throttle in these conditions is if you transfer quite a bit of your weight through your front and onto the handlebars. If you do not have weight bearing down on the front wheel the wheel will skid out from under you). The throttle is great for giving assistance while taking off while on a hill or pulling into quicker moving traffic, it just gives you a burst of speed to get you going.

-next is the front break (which I hope is self explanatory).

-The bell, which everyone likes to use differently but is basically for warning people in front of you travelling in the same direction that you are approaching from behind.

-Odometer, mine is a Cateye and measures; distance, speed, time, and gives all the averages of these.

-Here is the most notable difference, we'll call it the controller (as I am not 100% sure there is a technical term for it), the top row show the battery level,with my battery I have worked out I get 20km per bar (total of 100km). Underneath this is your pedal assist setting, the higher the setting the more assistance the bike will give you as you pedal, I like to keep mine at 3, if i'm in a big rush 4 and if I'm just cruising on the flat 2, the wee arrows (going up and down) on the side of this box are the adjusters for this level.

-Second last is the gear dial (showing which gear you are riding in) and the twister to change it (toward you to go down a gear and away to change up).

-Last off is the bake brake (again I'm hoping this is self explanatory)

When you hop on your bike you are going to need to check your battery is charged and pick a power setting. Once you have done this you are ready to ride. As you push off your first few pedal rotations are going to feel a bit hard (as you have such a heavy bike) but on about the third rotation you will feel something else kick in and go forward (quite suddenly if you are not expecting it), don't panic this is just the pedal assist kicking in, the pedal assist will keep assisting as long as you pedal, if you don't pedal for about 5seconds then you will have to start over with a few more difficult pedals until the assist kicks in again. While riding use your gears as you would in a normal bike to make things easier or harder. I find that the slower you pedal the more work the bike does and less you have to. If you are wanting a good workout just set the power lower and pedal quicker, if you are wanting to get from a to b with not much effort set a higher power setting and pedal slower. If at any point you feel you need a little more help just to start off or get over the final part of a hill simply twist the throttle and this will give you a bit more power.

My eZee Sprint

It was either an electric bike or a moped/scooter. The prices were roughly the same so I couldn't be swayed either way by that, what it came down to was with a bike I would either be in cycle lanes or on the edge of the traffic, not right in it (and for someone only just learning to drive the thought of being right in with the traffic and having to hold your own on the road is...shall we say, daunting), I also did the calculations for how much each ride would cost and maintenance each year (or rather my Dad did those and we discussed them). It worked out something like $2-3NZD a day for a moped and 12centsNZ for the eZee bike, either way it was way cheaper than a car!! The second reason for getting the bike was for fitness, we live on a rather long hill (or it feels that way) and so getting out to exercise is all too often too much bother. Thirdly I am a type one diabetic and I felt that if I was to go low it would be easier to pull over and sort it out on a bike than on a moped.
Thus decision made, the eZee bike it is.
The next decision I had to make was between a step through frame or basic frame, I tried both out and loved how I could just swing off the step through!! But it felt slightly sluggish. When Dad and I got home we looked up the specs for each and the step through is 2-3kg heavier than the basic because of the need to reinforce the frame. Now I need to make it up a hill and make it up with as much ease as possible (or I wont be wanting to do it often) so anything that I can do to help this process I will, thus the basic frame was chosen.

My new eZee Sprint 7M electric bicycle from 'The Electric Bike Hub' ordered through 'Avanti Bikes' right here in Dunedin.