I've been a dedicated cyclist for most of my life. I did a bit of racing (mostly amateur-level criteriums, with a few time trials and road races thrown in) in my younger years. I also did some cross-country touring back in those days, riding one year from CA to the midwest and another year from the midwest to the east coast. The racing was a short-lived aspect of my cycling life, but a love for the intense aerobic workouts I used to do when training, as well as my love for cross-country touring by bicycle, has stuck with me.
I got interested in electric and other types of assist a few years ago on coming to grips with the fact that I will not be getting any stronger as a cyclist as I age. Also, my wife, who now joins in my cycling interest on our tandem, is a much weaker rider than I am. If long-distance touring is to be in our future, I'm going to need some additional assist in order to get--not just the two of us, but our gear as well--to the tops of some of those hills.
As I've noted elsewhere on this forum, I experimented with a cheap DD hub motor over the course of the last 2 years as a means of proving to myself the viability of long-distance touring using electric assist. Though that kit had its limitations and shortcomings, I was able to determine that electric assist will, indeed, be a feasible way for us to pursue our long-distance touring aspirations.
As I continue my research into electric assist systems in preparation for an upgrade from the kit I've been using for the last couple of years, I'm finding it difficult to locate information relevant to my aims. There is a great deal of information on electric assist on these forums, and I'm certainly learning from it. But I'm also finding that the aims of so many--perhaps most--involved in the development, review, and adaptations of these systems are quite different from my aims. Thus, much of the information produced is--especially for someone like me, who has rather limited technical knowledge--not totally relevant.
Allow me to explain. Because of the fact that I very much enjoy pedaling my bicycle and getting a good workout, in combination with the fact that, when going long distances it is necessary to use such energy as one has at one's disposal judiciously, I am not looking for a means of propelling my bike that does not rely on input from me. Rather, despite the fact that I have a motor on my bike, I want that motor to come into play only at particular points in my route--namely, when encountering difficult terrain (think long or steep uphill grades); the rest of the time I want it to be latent, awaiting the next bit of challenging terrain, when I will bring it to bear again. Even when going up hills, I should mention, I still want to do some pedaling: I just don't want to pedal as hard. I do not foresee any circumstance short of catastrophic mechanical or physical failure (and we don't plan our lives around such occurrences) when I would want the assist system to propel the bike independent of my input.
This is what I am calling "true assist," i.e., a system designed only to assist the rider, not to allow him to use his bike as something closer to a motorcycle. The aim of true assist, rather than being how fast the motor can propel the bike or how far the battery can take the motorized bike with no pedaling by the rider--which really aims at maximizing assist--is to determine what minimal amount of assist is going to be enough to ease the rider's exertion in difficult terrain.
True, that minimum could vary quite a lot depending on things like the rider's physical condition and the severity of the terrain. So, there will be no single authoritative answer to all true assist needs; of that I'm certain. For myself--someone who is in quite good physical condition and who rides on standard paved roads--the true assist equation will be different than it would for, say, someone in my physical condition but who rides trails with much steeper grades than are found on most paved secondary roads.
But the issue here is not that I expect to find a single authoritative answer: the problem is that, with the exception of one site I found, no one seems to be asking the sorts of questions I'm trying to answer. That is, almost all postings I find gravitate much more towards getting the highest performance possible out of a given kit than they do toward the question of what are the minimal power levels required to assist a rider who has no aversion to pedaling, up a hill. The only thing I've managed to find so far that is right on-topic is John Tetz's article at http://www.recumbents.com/mars/tetz/E-Assist.htm
Still, I don't believe there is no one out there besides me and John Tetz who are interested in exploring low-end systems. This forum must have readers and contributors who enjoy pedaling their bikes around--correct? Certainly not everyone is aiming at turning their bike into something like an electric motorcycle, are they?
So, can anyone point out any information on this forum or on some other web site, that has this sort of low-power aim? Is anyone else on this forum interested in developing and implementing something along the lines of true assist as I've described it? If so, please post in this thread. I'm interested in connecting with others who adopt this approach.
Finally, could this true assist approach warrant its own sub-section on this forum? We'll have to see whether there is sufficient interest, I suppose. If there are others who, like me, want to explore minimal power boundaries, it would be nice to have a separate place where high-power discussions could be treated as off-topic.
I got interested in electric and other types of assist a few years ago on coming to grips with the fact that I will not be getting any stronger as a cyclist as I age. Also, my wife, who now joins in my cycling interest on our tandem, is a much weaker rider than I am. If long-distance touring is to be in our future, I'm going to need some additional assist in order to get--not just the two of us, but our gear as well--to the tops of some of those hills.
As I've noted elsewhere on this forum, I experimented with a cheap DD hub motor over the course of the last 2 years as a means of proving to myself the viability of long-distance touring using electric assist. Though that kit had its limitations and shortcomings, I was able to determine that electric assist will, indeed, be a feasible way for us to pursue our long-distance touring aspirations.
As I continue my research into electric assist systems in preparation for an upgrade from the kit I've been using for the last couple of years, I'm finding it difficult to locate information relevant to my aims. There is a great deal of information on electric assist on these forums, and I'm certainly learning from it. But I'm also finding that the aims of so many--perhaps most--involved in the development, review, and adaptations of these systems are quite different from my aims. Thus, much of the information produced is--especially for someone like me, who has rather limited technical knowledge--not totally relevant.
Allow me to explain. Because of the fact that I very much enjoy pedaling my bicycle and getting a good workout, in combination with the fact that, when going long distances it is necessary to use such energy as one has at one's disposal judiciously, I am not looking for a means of propelling my bike that does not rely on input from me. Rather, despite the fact that I have a motor on my bike, I want that motor to come into play only at particular points in my route--namely, when encountering difficult terrain (think long or steep uphill grades); the rest of the time I want it to be latent, awaiting the next bit of challenging terrain, when I will bring it to bear again. Even when going up hills, I should mention, I still want to do some pedaling: I just don't want to pedal as hard. I do not foresee any circumstance short of catastrophic mechanical or physical failure (and we don't plan our lives around such occurrences) when I would want the assist system to propel the bike independent of my input.
This is what I am calling "true assist," i.e., a system designed only to assist the rider, not to allow him to use his bike as something closer to a motorcycle. The aim of true assist, rather than being how fast the motor can propel the bike or how far the battery can take the motorized bike with no pedaling by the rider--which really aims at maximizing assist--is to determine what minimal amount of assist is going to be enough to ease the rider's exertion in difficult terrain.
True, that minimum could vary quite a lot depending on things like the rider's physical condition and the severity of the terrain. So, there will be no single authoritative answer to all true assist needs; of that I'm certain. For myself--someone who is in quite good physical condition and who rides on standard paved roads--the true assist equation will be different than it would for, say, someone in my physical condition but who rides trails with much steeper grades than are found on most paved secondary roads.
But the issue here is not that I expect to find a single authoritative answer: the problem is that, with the exception of one site I found, no one seems to be asking the sorts of questions I'm trying to answer. That is, almost all postings I find gravitate much more towards getting the highest performance possible out of a given kit than they do toward the question of what are the minimal power levels required to assist a rider who has no aversion to pedaling, up a hill. The only thing I've managed to find so far that is right on-topic is John Tetz's article at http://www.recumbents.com/mars/tetz/E-Assist.htm
Still, I don't believe there is no one out there besides me and John Tetz who are interested in exploring low-end systems. This forum must have readers and contributors who enjoy pedaling their bikes around--correct? Certainly not everyone is aiming at turning their bike into something like an electric motorcycle, are they?
So, can anyone point out any information on this forum or on some other web site, that has this sort of low-power aim? Is anyone else on this forum interested in developing and implementing something along the lines of true assist as I've described it? If so, please post in this thread. I'm interested in connecting with others who adopt this approach.
Finally, could this true assist approach warrant its own sub-section on this forum? We'll have to see whether there is sufficient interest, I suppose. If there are others who, like me, want to explore minimal power boundaries, it would be nice to have a separate place where high-power discussions could be treated as off-topic.
But it's backed up by more than 10,000 miles of riding with motors. My experience is not one days commuter repeated 1000 times either. I've done the race track, the commute, the dirt trails, and the 70 mile a day tours. 
