Long distance candidates - Gasoline? Propane?

[swbluto]

What a conundrum,

Gas, diesel, propane... hydrocarbon? Methanol fuel cell? Ugh and cops and regulation, heh.

Not to be a party pooper, go through the motions to register this hybrid. EDIT, yikes, umm something along the lines of energy research? somebody knows your traveling with a propane powered bike? Maybe not "register" but... document? lol

I can see it going a lot of different ways. One is a cat and mouse with the local. The other is, the, "safety first" you know, do you let everybody strap hydrogen tanks to their bikes? Please think about that for a second. Better energy density, hmm? Start strapping propane tanks to a moving vehicle cruising through the commercial district at 30 mph...

I would say gas is where it's at, amazing substance that petrol. Propane. Fleets use it, might be cheap in the future, seems a bit bulky an apparatus to be carting around though. On a bike? Imagine if your caught in your ruse, and the funny story you would have to tell.

Unless you have access to some kind of thin film deployable laundry rack style solar collector or telescoping mobile wind turbine, I think for long distance... and I hate... I HATE to say it. A small generator... but then this is converting energy to a medium to convert and convert.

So for long distance candidates I would recommend one conversion of energy. All gas. Ditch the conversions.

What a great question. Not only does it pertain to bikes, but for all future transportation. I'm trying to think of an abundant alternative available in your travels, the overhead to accommodate this alternative in equipment, the legalities, the hazards, and so on. You can be practical, or not.

You are a smart man. This whole post is packed with wisdom, and I agree with it fully.

Synopsis: Mechnanical drive with gas? Or a gas generator?

A pure gas drive really has its own practical (legal and performance) complications and limitations with an interstate bicycle application. If it were simply a pure gas drive, I'd probably go with no less than a motorcycle. But, I wouldn't do that unless I could trailer along the bike and I don't know of any rental agency that offers motorcycle rentals. Ideally, when I get to wherever, I can take the e-bike on local trails and wherever I want to (Which wouldn't be accessible with a gas vehicle).

I could use a train, bus, car, etc. but it just doesn't have the same exposed "adventure" element. It has the safety advantage, though.

 

[johnrobholmes]

Gas with mechanical drive, they say. It would be most efficient. Just turn off the gas when you hit places that don't allow it. Then you can use your assisted 20mph Ebike. :wink:

 

[torker]

jrh, You mentioned your 50cc goes 45 mph. That got me thinking oh crap.. So I looked at the Honda ruckus and others and read a review on the 110 cc Elite. It mentioned a 150cc min. for Calif. freeways. So he could use that and lace a hub motor in the front and carry the batts in the trailer. Might have a hard time convincing people that he would only use the electrics in sensitive areas. The review on the 110 cc they got 90mpg. in LA mixed traffic. Not too bad.

btw how do you get 45mph out of 50 cc? You mod/tune a little?

 

[Rassy]

In this thread and others small generators have been mentioned as the possible answer for long distance ebikes. I've got a 1000 watt Yamaha 4 stroke gen that is similar to a Honda gen. It weighs under 30 pounds and runs about 11 hours on 2 liters of gas. At the low setting it is somewhere between 50 and 60 decibels.

What frustrates me is that it is way more than is needed to recharge the ebike batteries. Honda used to make a 500 watt gen but they are no longer sold new. I think most of their weight and size specs were similar to the 1000 watt one anyway. I have searched for small gas powered generators to no avail. It seems there should be a good market for really small generator sets just to recharge batteries used on power tools, bikes, lawn tools, etc. How about a little 4 stroke system that weighs 10 to 15 pounds, produces 300 to 500 watts, and runs 10+ hours on a liter of gas. I would gladly pay several hundred dollars for something like this that was as reliable as the 1000 watt Yamaha, which I think cost $650 about 5 years ago.

 

[grindz145]

Small gas bikes are amazingly efficient. Riding 3000 miles on a Ruckus would be a hell of alot of fun. However, nothing beats an ebike. Why not push the boundaries? Fast charge with LiPo or A123 and 3 KW-h of pack and that could definitely be practical. 40 miles worth of charge in an hour of charging. Or maybe go with a slightly larger pack, It's still much less awkward than carrying a generator. It's certainly more expensive to go with an ebike, but without mass production on the scale that we have with ICE bikes thats just going to be a matter of fact.

I can get over 200 miles per charger with 5kwh of pack on my bike, and I could easily cross on the country in a couple of weeks on it... I would love to see someone do it

 

[johnrobholmes]

I haven't done much of anything to hit 45 on my gasser. It will hover around 35 to 37mph on the flats, and with any downhill or back wind it will creep up past 40 pretty quick. I just have it geared so the max power is around 35mph in 3rd gear, around 7 to 8k engine rpm. It is an XR50 motor.

Next on the list is a better exhaust though, that should really help out the power. MO doesn't have exhaust or noise laws for motorcycles and 50cc bikes.

 

[lcyclist]

For your nowhere man charging needs, perhaps you can still find a Honda EX350 (small, 2-stroke) lunch-box sized generator. Even smaller generator is
Honda EM80/100 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPfMeupVFBU&feature=related), to put in your panier.

10 hours a day on a bicycle is very tiring, even if you are running a motor assist. The most I have been on an upright bike is 8 hours and after that, I didn't feel like going
the next day. Maybe more comfortable on a recumbent or a motorcycle.

 

[swbluto]

Okay, I'm convinced. A recumbent posturing it is.

However, I can say I was hoping I would have a mountain goat of a mountain bike for trail riding. I wonder if could add a detachable bike-rest to the bike? And of course more relaxed handle bars. The bike is already dual suspension, so I wouldn't worry as much about "comfort" as I would with a hard-tail.

 

[liveforphysics]

So for long distance candidates I would recommend one conversion of energy. All gas. Ditch the conversions.

You are a smart man. This whole post is packed with wisdom, and I agree with it fully.

Synopsis: Mechnanical drive with gas? Or a gas generator?

 

[liveforphysics]

For a drivetrain, being the most impressively mechanically inept person I've ever observed, stick with something simple and hard to mess up.

Gasoline for energy.

Single energy conversion stage from chemical potential to kenetic at the engine.


No gears or BS to be cobbled together and fail.

Small Honda 4-stroke engine in any displacement you like, make sure it ends up with a sticker (even if you print it yourself) on it saying some number below 50cc.

Centripetal clutch.

Single-stage chain drive, using real chain (not bicycle chain).

The added bulk and weight of muffling the engine to a degree that it's extremely quiet would be a good thing to do. You can make little 4t engines extremely quiet with a minimum sacrifice in performance.

 

[REdiculous]

For a drivetrain, being the most impressively mechanically inept person I've ever observed, stick with something simple and hard to mess up.

Doesn't that imply hub motor though?

 

[John in CR]

For a drivetrain, being the most impressively mechanically inept person I've ever observed, stick with something simple and hard to mess up.

Doesn't that imply hub motor though?

He already has one. He wants a bike better for trails and hills, though this may be a different bike for a 3k mile grind.

 

[liveforphysics]

Most mechanically simple would only imply hubmotor if he was weight and money budgeted for the ~4-6kw-hrs of battery, and could always secure a plug-in for at least a 500w charger every night.

Otherwise, it implies something like towing a generator... aka,signifigant drop in efficiency, and much added complexity. Perhaps overall a 50% decrease in efficiency vs a gasoline engine driving the wheels, and now you add a wide range of additional devices to fail... engine, generator, engine/generator coupler, rectifier setup, charger or charger regulator, battery, BMS, controller, wireing etc.

You also would have your energy go through lots of conversions... each conversion = lost energy...

 

[REdiculous]

So if everyone is saying gas drive..are there kits that make that easy enough for the "mechanically inept"? later

 

[johnrobholmes]

Standard motored bike kits are easy to install. Places like thatsdax or spookytoothcycles carry them.

 

[torker]

Standard motored bike kits are easy to install. Places like thatsdax or spookytoothcycles carry them.

Is yours a kit on a bike JRH or is it a factory bike? The reason I ask is if one was put on a bike with 26 " wheels and it was pretty aero like recumbent you could probably get at least 45 mph. Probably better to gear it for a little less though.

 

[swbluto]

It's that mechanical inexperience that makes me a little wary of a gas engine drive setup. Plus, the higher legal risks. However, it does sound like it'd be superior from a reliability view point, as the "system" would be parallel and have that potential "redundancy" (Not for long distances, but at least enough to get to the next town to fix the problem or declare the trip "bust!".).

For the generator's pros, it'd enable in the field recharging.

I kind of wonder if there's some way I can do both... I could couple the gas engine to the motor AND have a sprocket on the back wheel. If the generator went out, then it should be as simple as hooking a chain between it and the trailer's wheel. Of course, I would keep repair material for "everything" (Besides that one little thing, of course) and the electrics would undergo extensive testing. Electronics are very reliable once you get them to a certain reliable "within rating" state, and the electronics needed for gen is pretty simple: a rectifier and some capacitors. Plus, a special charge port controlled by a mosfet.

I think the engine would need a clutch and that would complicate things a bit.

Man, I think I just need electric ignition on the engine and forget the clutch. If I'm stranded, pedal until I get to 18 mph and fire up the engine with a push button. If it dies because I suddenly stop, oh well. Just start it up again when I get going. I wonder if pull-start engines can be readily modified to be electric ignition?

 

[torker]

That would be cool, pedal or elec. motor the bike to 15 and pop the clutch to start the motor on the fly

 

[swbluto]

I'm thinking things through and running simulations and I think a 9C hub motor laced on a 20" rim might actually be doable. On the straights speed is not problematic, while it seems possible to push the 9C at roughly 20 mph on a 7% hill with 325ish pounds of load - the motor heat seems to be only ~300-400 watts, which seems tolerable with cooling holes. After roughly 10-15 miles of this uphill (Depending on how much the generator contributes), I would be forced to park it and charge the batteries for roughly an hour with the generator's ~1 kW charge rate.

I wonder how many mountain ranges I would expect to have 10-15 miles of 7% uphill?

While a 9C wouldn't be my idea of a performance machine, I think it'd be more ideal from the reliability perspective and it also would be more "legally comfortable". Of course, I should run a temperature monitor on the motor's windings (And heck if I know how practical that is - I'd have to run two sensing wires through the axle, which could be pretty thin.)

 

[jerryt]

Over on the http://www.motoredbikes.com/index.php forum, a man named Paul Crabtree (recently deceased, RIP) posted under the forum name of "bamabikeguy".

Paul used to travel about 500 miles a month on his gas powered bicycle with a rack mounted Golden Eagle Bike Engine (GEBE). He went from Alabama to Colorado, to Florida, to South Carolina, etc. He talked about going from coast to coast in 2007 but I don't know if he ever did.

The nice thing about the GEBE kit is the reliability, low operating cost and low initial cost; about $625 for the motor and kit plus your bicycle and camping gear and you're on the road.

Here's a link to his Florida trip.
http://www.motoredbikes.com/showthread.php?t=3897

Here's the GEBE website
http://www.bikeengines.com/index.htm

 

[swbluto]

500 miles a month?

I take it he wasn't trying to get anywhere fast.

 

[swbluto]

Just got a more realistic idea on the efficiency of an RC generator. The motor efficiency would be around 85% and that's at 1000 watts output, and at 46v and 22A, I'd expect about 14 watts of loss or less in the shottky diodes, so another 1.5% hit or so.

That comes to a mechnical/electric conversion efficiency of around 83%. Then it powers the motor which is operating at 85%, and the total mechanical / electric efficiency would be around 85%*83% = 70%. So with an engine output of 1.5 kW, I could expect upto 1.05 kW out at the wheel as opposed to maybe 1.45 kW with a direct drive. So, maybe about 70 mpg instead of 100 mpg. It seems like upto ~1.2 kW of electric power is available. It's probably somewhat less than that since I'm guessing a motor-generator isn't exactly an "ideal" voltage source, and I think it probably goes beyond just the resistance of the motor. The voltage is going to drop as the amps increase, and by more than what the "internal resistance" would predict. How much more, I'm not sure. This has something to do with transformer technology or something.

 

[johnrobholmes]

Standard motored bike kits are easy to install. Places like thatsdax or spookytoothcycles carry them.

Is yours a kit on a bike JRH or is it a factory bike? The reason I ask is if one was put on a bike with 26 " wheels and it was pretty aero like recumbent you could probably get at least 45 mph. Probably better to gear it for a little less though.

Mine is a Honda XR50 in a bike I have built. The rear wheel, swingarm, and engine cradle/ subframe are the only parts I haven't built.

http://www.holmeshobbies.com/blog/?page_id=60

 

[John in CR]

I don't get the rush to jump on a ICE parallel drivetrain. Why even bother with the electric then? The energy density is so much greater with ICE that you can overlook the losses on converting ICE mechanical to electric. Plus in terms of cool factor, a tiny ICE driving an RC sized motor as a generator seems too cool to pass up.

What's the plan for the trip, getting into nature and camping much of the time, or hotels and family and friends along the route? If you're doing any camping then I see being able to generate your own electricity is a huge plus.

 

[John in CR]

JohnRob,

Cool little gasser. I'm drawing up plans for a slightly larger electric version of that bike, but of course with pedals.