Ride both ways was relatively uneventful, and only had to use the primary pack, recharging at each end. My only real issue was that the bike lanes were unusable for long stretches of Cave Creek Road, either because of road damage or because they have been restriped at some point in recent years (after I was last on that road, which has been a long while up north of Sweetwater, and a few years even up to there), and are far narrower than a bicycle. In some places, they are only a few inches wide, with ridges of pushed-up asphalt at the join with the "gutter", making it impossible to actually ride in the lane itself. This is true in both directions.
So for a number of stretches, I simply had to ride in the right traffic lane, forcing all the cars to go around me. On my way there, at 8-9pm, it wasnt a big deal because the traffic was pretty light, even on Bell Road whcih is normally horrific traffic during daytime. But on my way back, at 7-8am, it's still "rush hour" and there are a lot of people that are probably almost late for work or just impatient or whatever, so it was fairly stressful.
Sidewalk riding was pretty much as unsafe as street riding, becuase of the number of driveways, damaged concrete, sign posts and utility poles right in the center of the sidewalk, and lots of cars pulling out across the sidewalk and even partway into the road, waiting to make their turn onto the road. Most of that was on Bell, but a fair bit on Cave Creek Road right where the bike lane was the most unusable.
So I chose to ride the road for all of the trip except for my copule of hundred yards of attempting the sidewalks.
The most whiteknuckle part of the ride was in the morning going downhill on Cave Creek Road, becuase at the edge of the road, for over a foot into the road from the gutter, are typical iron grates for drainage--not a big deal. But whoever last resurfaced the road (and improperly remarked the "Great Sonoran Bikeway" bike lanes into uselessness) not only didn't smooth down the edges around the drains, they actually left "rolls" of asphalt on some of them that raised the edges up to three inches. More of them don't have "rolls" at their edges but just very very thick asphalt around them, leaving what amounts to a 1.5-2.5 foot wide pothole that is anywhere from 1" to 3" or more deep.
Most of these drain-potholes are in the wider (but not wide-enough) section of bike lane that is mostly usable, but one must essentially exit the lane every few dozen feet to every couple hundred feet (guesstimate) to go around them. If you don't go around them, you'll need good DH-type suspension and a light bike to avoid a crash and/or wheel damage--I definitely don't have that on DGA, which is not only heavy but even heavier than usual with two packs on it, and has only a basic RST Omni spring/polymer front shock, and hardtail.
These are mostly on the southwest-bound side of CCR, downhill. I'm glad I rode that part in daylight, because at night even my "moped/scooter" headlight might not be sufficient to give me reaction time to avoid them.
On the trip home, on Bell Road, most people passing did so in the next lane. But on Cave Creek Road southbound, most people passing me were so close that had my mirror stuck out any farther, they probably would have hit it; I started taking more of the lane to force them to pass me in the other lane, becuase some areas of the right side of the road were as noted above, unrideable, and I couldn't risk finding one of those spots suddenly and having to swerve, and ending up runover by a car that I didn't have time to see. For the most part, this worked, though a number still passed closely and never changed lanes completely.
There was only one person that was aggressive and honked at me, and that was on Bell Road, as I slowed during approach to a red light, letting it coast down so that hopefully the light would change before I arrived (it didnt'). SInce I was approacing an intersection, and there were no cars directly behind me in my lane, I had taken the lane to prevent right cross/etc. As I was about 8 or 9 car lengths from the intersection, some guy in a small dark car (dunno what kind) approaches me from the rear left, out of one of the two lanes to my left that had already almost slowed to a stop, only this care was continuing at at least half speed (25MPH or more). I guess they didnt' wnat to slow down or stop for the red light, so they thought they'd just go around the already-stopping and stopped traffic in what they assumed was an empty lane.
I was wearing my brown leather jacket, and light gray pants, and a not-yet-used and thus unfaded bright orange mesh vest over the jacket. I don't normally wear such vests these days, as I am on CB2 where it couldn't be seen anyway. But I figured on this ride in the morning it would be a really good idea, and it might be what let them see me in time to not run me over in their impatience.
They honked medium-length, and rapidly slowed, but were probably less than a bike-length from me before they matched speeds and then stopped, just as I braked to a stop at the intersection, and just as a couple more poeple in the stream of pedestrians walked directly in front of me in the crosswalk--I couldn't have continued to get out of the car's way even if I had had time to try.
Usually when someone behind me honks, if they cannot get around me they keep honking, even if we are sitting at a red light when they could not go anyway (and when they are going to go straight, not turn!). This guy did not, at a guess because he was not honking out of aggression but out of warning, though the warning was useless as I coudln't have gotten out of his way anyway--not enough time to ditch right or left or accelerate (even if my path hadn't been blocked by pedestrians). So after we stopped it was all quiet, no revving/etc.
But right after the light changed, and I was on my way across the intersection, and heading to the right side of the lane again, when the other cars to my left were far enough ahead of me and the car behind me that he slammed his throttle to full and roared around me, and he almost hit the car in front of him before he was able to slow down, not only squealing his brakes but actually skidding on the road. I guess he must've been really late to work or something.
Charging at work was easy, with an outlet in the vestibule well out of the way of all the construction crews and materials and such.
The actual ride uphill on Cave Creek Road required fairly close power monitoring, trying to budget watts to 500 and under, to prevent overheating of the geared hub motor. I mostly ascended at 12MPH or less. At some points I had to pedal a bit, though not strenuously, but probably enough to add 50W to the system. I didn't want to damage the motor, because I could not have pedalled the rest of the way up by myself, or gotten home very easily after work. Plus I really don't wanna have to fix another motor. When i got to the top of the hill, I felt the motor, and it was fairly warm on the outside . Later I felt it maybe 10 minutes or so, and it was getting hot as heatsoak thru the casing finally started venting some fo the heat of the motor inside.
The ride home I managed 18-20MPH for most of the ride, with some stretches needing slower speed due to poor road conditions vs traffic to my left. No worries about overheating the motor, even at 600-700W as I was at-speed for most of that. Never got more than very warm.
Ride data for the to-work (pm) route:
55m 16s trip time
14.73miles
22.2mph max
15.9mph avg
32Wh/mile
8.919Ah
469.39Wh
50.87Amax
58.3Vstart
52.3Vrest
47.5Vmin
0% Regen
0Ah Regen
-8.7A peak Regen
Ride data on the wya home (am):
50m 4s trip time
13.98miles
23.5mph max
16.7mph avg
27.0Wh/mile
7.077Ah
377.1Wh
55.03Amax
58.3Vstart
53.1Vrest
48.2Vmin
0% Regen
0Ah Regen
-15.4A peak Regen
I'm considering moving the 9C over to it until I get CB2 back and working, but would rather not.