How may watts needed for 25 MPH etc?

Boyntonstu

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Boynton Beach, Florida
I am curious about the Watts necessary to propel a bike on level ground at various speeds. Say 15, 20, 25, 30.

I once saw a figure of how many hp was required to propel a car at 60 mph and it was surprisingly low.

Is there a compilation for electric bicycle data?
 
Use this simulator:
http://www.ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html
You can watch the black line which tells you the Power required to keep a certain speed.
If you enter the requested data about motor, battery, vehicle weight and hill grade, you will find out much more than that.
 
miuan said:
Use this simulator:
http://www.ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html
You can watch the black line which tells you the Power required to keep a certain speed.
If you enter the requested data about motor, battery, vehicle weight and hill grade, you will find out much more than that.

Thanks,

The simulator is old. but useful.
For example, no LI batteries.

I am looking for some real world experience.
 
Boyntonstu said:
Thanks,

The simulator is old. but useful.
For example, no LI batteries.

Simulator was created some time ago, yes, but has many types of default batteries including lithium packs, but either way this changes nothing, enter custom ranges if you want. The simulator has also been updated very often, even recently and works great.

Boyntonstu said:
I am looking for some real world experience.

The trouble with your question is there is no perfect answer, there are many variables that go into power for speed. Weight and drag are a few pretty large ones that are massive variables. The person who weighs 130lbs and rides a low racer (very low drag recumbent frame) with skin tight clothing and thin high pressure tires is going to consume a vastly different amount of power compared with the rider who weighs 330lbs (weight increases rolling drag by plenty) on a fully upright mountain bike with wider knobbie tires, a wide body frame and baggy clothing. Lots in between there. You could cast a generalization here in lots of ways, but the simulator is likely the best answer in general. I might go 25mph on around 300w, the next person might need 800w or more, this is the same with automobiles. Basically you are asking for comparisons of drag from one bike to the next, it's a pretty irrelevant question that often ends up being a pissing contest or something. There is no rule of thumb here, individual real world responses are pretty irrelevant to your question.

If you really want to know for your own situation and setup, you'll just have to get an electric bicycle and something like a cycle analyst and ride several routes several times to see what you get.

If miuan hadn't written it first, I would have given you precisely the same answer myself, play with the simulator to get an idea, the simulator is pretty accurate. If you want to know a range, again, the simulator is going to give you an excellent answer. The only thing I might add is I prefer to adjust the throttle to see power consumption at speed, the results seem much more in line.
 
This is my favorite speed and power calculator for bicycles:

http://kreuzotter.de/english/espeed.htm

I use the ebikes.ca simulator often, too, when I want to reckon power available at speed from a motor that's in the database. It's not enough to know how much gross power a motor makes; you have to know how much power it will make at your target speed. Then you can reconcile power required versus power available.
 
Assuming you are sitting up tall, coat a flapping, and weigh between 180 and 200, no wind, and no slope.... BTW no slope is really rare, but mild rolling hills turn out about same as flat. You get that free ride down the next roll.

And, pedaling some. hence the range in wattage depending on your effort, that is likely 100w or less.

15 mph can be as low as 200w, 250 more likely. But at this speed if you pedal 100w or more, you might see 100w on a watt meter.
20 mph can be as low as 400w, 500w more likely
25 mph can be as low as 600w, 800w more likely
30 mph, usually at least 1000w. By 30 mph, your not able to pedal at all unless you have special gears.

If significantly heavier, then add about 100w for slower speeds, 200w above 20 mph. In general, a lot heavier means a lot less aero, so a wider body, or a set of gigantic panniers affects wattage more and more the faster you go. 15mph or less, aero stops mattering so much, if no wind.

Once hills are involved, very hard to pin it down. So dependent on every pound of weight for one. But with minimal effort, you can count on pulling 800-900w up hills, if you have a 1000w bike. Even mild hills. The wattage will remain about the same as seen on a watt meter, but with varying grade your speed will be slower and slower as the grade increases. With hard pedaling, so much variation of throttle position, pedaling effort, gear you are in. It just gets impossible to generalize.
 
Graphed up various speed requirements using ebikes.ca simulator data
http://www.ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html

Provided data lines for mountain bike, crouched racing bike and full recumbent - level road, hard surface.

NOTE - Watts are motor output watts ... not battery input watts, input watts would be notably more, possibly as high as 200% or more - dependent on speed, gearing or winding, efficiency etc.

file.php


Differing requirements for different bikes is largely due to wind resistance.
 
Real world data:
The bike below needs 700-900W to go ~44-45km/h (alittle faster than 25mph) on the flat in calm weather, with a 183cm tall rider. No aerodynamic clothing.
Its an upright seating position, and it is also a heavy bike. Probably 55-60kg. Tyres are schwalbe big ben's.

Should give a referencepoint that is higher than most regular bikes.

*Edit this data is with effortless pedaling included. Guessing +100W if not pedalling at all.

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That graph is very close to my data, which was for a mountain bike converted to a commuter. 2 inch street tire, not knobbies.

But worth noting, when do you get to ride with no hill, and no wind? Hills will average out if they are small rollers. But on my commute, every day was a 15 mile all uphill ride home. So 20 mph home drew same as 30 mph on the flat.

My data from a huge cargo bike was very similar to yours Wheazel, using about 200-300w more than normal for the commuter.

After posting the other day, I looked a bit closer to what my off road bike uses, on street. Amazing how much power was sucked down by the sticky off road tires on that bike. Again 300w more than the commuter to just go 20-25 mph. That was no pedaling though, the off road bike is geared too low to pedal 25 mph.

Also notable, that once on dirt, the knobbies roll easier, unless you have the rim sunk into deep sand. It's on the paved that you really feel the suction.
 
You need to put the question into context before anybody can give a meaningful answer. When I'm out on my road bike, I'm often doing 25mph with just my legs providing power, which I estimate is about 3-400 watts. I have to wear slippery streamlined clothing otherwise I can't go nearly as fast.

On an electric MTB bike with winter clothing sitting upright without pedalling. I can reach about 25 mph with 36v and 30 amps from the battery, which is a bit over 1000W of INPUT power.

There's so many factors that affect speed, but the most important one is the motor maximum rpm in conjunction with the battery voltage. battery voltage changes the maximum rpm in proportion, so they have to be matched to get the right speed. After that. you have to have enough current to reach the speed. The current of a hub-motor decreases as the motor speed increases. If your motor/battery combination gives 300 rpm, all the power in the world won't get it to 25 mph in a bike with 26" wheels.
 
800w for a typical MTB, going 25 mph, minimal pedaling, no wind.
 
Note also that's 800W at the wheel RPM corresponding to 25 mph, not just a motor that can produce 800W at some arbitrary lower or higher RPM. This is an important distinction that gets left out of motor kit specs.
 
Well I thought we are guessing a wattage with guess hub motor 1,000watt yescom the ebay kit. 1 guess or 3 guessess's ? What motor setup please ?
 
As speed increases aerodynamics becomes so critical that your question is impossible to answer. Here's a real world example for you though. Keep in mind that I'm large and neither my bike nor clothing had any aerodynamic touches. In the smallest most aerodynamic tuck I could muster on one of my ebikes it took right at 1000W of input to travel at 30mph, and sitting in a comfortable fully upright position the power draw increased by 600W for the same speed on flat ground with no wind.
 
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