Jack's Electric Bicycle

Why an electric bike?

Not long ago, the price of regular gas in my town hit $3.50 per gallon. Even though I drive a compact vehicle, I was still burning about $35 worth of gas every week. At that rate, I would spend $1,820 a year on gas. That’s a lot of clams.

And it's almost guaranteed that the price will steadily rise in the coming years. Given world instability, we might even see some sudden price spikes.

The solution, clearly, is to adapt and figure out how to use less fuel.


(Source: noaa.gov)

Besides economics, there are also a lot of good environmental and geo-political reasons to reduce fuel use. Conservation is smart, despite what Dick Cheney says.

So I began to consider alteratives. I figure about 60 to 65 percent of the mileage I put on my car is unavoidable, being that my business requires me to make at least one long trip a week and haul a significant load.

But what about the other 40 percent? Most of the trips are in town. I drive from my house to my office, sometimes going back and forth several times a day. I visit the post office, the coffee shop and see clients – almost all of whom are located along the town’s main thoroughfare.

The distances are short. Depending on what route I take, the office is about a mile away. My clients can be from one to two miles from the office.

I’ve conducted my business on a regular bicycle many times in the past. This works fine when making one or two trips. But when you have repeated trips and multiple stops, it becomes impractical due to time constraints and the “sweat factor.” Sweating is fine when you want to work out, but when you have to enter a business and sell something to a client, it’s best not to have sweat dripping from your face and giant sweat circles under your arms.

There's another problem – I can't just plan the shortest route possible and visit my clients in order. They come and go at different times and are unpredictable. It's not unusual to drive up and down the street multiple times, retracing the same route. This is what makes the miles add up.

My first thought was that I should purchase a motor scooter. The problem was that most of the scooters were expensive – well over $1,000. I also recalled my experience many years ago with a moped. The machine was great, but I was so mechanically deficient that I couldn’t even figure out how to replace a simple brake cable.

That’s not true with a bicycle. It’s one of the few machines I can work on.

During my research, I stumbled across electric bicycles.

This was an intriguing idea. I could take my existing bicycle, mount an electric engine on it and have something that would get me around town, all for under $400.

A company called Zap in Santa Rosa makes a motor that is mounted to your bicycle frame. A little “friction” wheel makes contact with your bicycle tire and spins it around. That sounded inefficient.

For nearly the same price, Western Energy Systems Research offers an Electric Bicycle Conversion Kit, consisting of an electric engine (Model BD36) mounted inside a hub on a bicycle wheel. The hub has wires coming out of it which connect to a controller box mounted on your frame below the seat. That controller connects to a battery pack, located inside a canvas bag mounted on a rear bicycle rack. The bag looks like a normal bicycle carrier bag that you might pack a lunch in and put on a rack. It has Velcro straps and is removable, so you can unplug it and take it in the house to be re-charged. On the handlebar is a little thumb lever with a wire that connects to the controller box. Press on the thumb lever, the engine is activated and the front wheel turns.


(Source: www.wildernessenergy.com)

I didn’t know much about how this would work, other than the fact that it would be a “pedal assist” form of transportation – meaning some pedaling is required. I also knew that my range is limited, the batteries will eventually need to be replaced after a couple hundred charges and, down the road, the brushes in the electric motor will fail.

I found that a local bicycle shop actually had one in stock. I could have saved a few dollars by purchasing it on the internet, but I wanted to have someone to complain to if something went wrong. I also had the shop install it for the same reason.

I picked it up on Monday afternoon. I conducted all my business on the bicycle from Tuesday through Friday afternoon. Late Friday I started my car for the first time in days and used it some haul some stuff.

(Coming soon: The upside and downside of the bike. How I bicycled without pedaling and then figured out the importance of pedaling and how to use, and not use, the motor.)

posted by Jack Durham @ 8:36 PM