Well Hivers if you have kept up with my last couple of posts, this has been a fun project and now it’s time for a test ride. I’ve been round the block a couple if times to get the seat and controls in a comfortable position. One thing I did move was the thumb throttle to the far side of the gear change the UK law only allows the thumb throttle to boost you to about 3mph so I figured I’ll be using the gears more so I moved them in to be more handy.
First things first a bit of down hill to bead the brakes in then into Torquay from Newton it’s a bit over 5 miles with a few hills. You can’t escape them living around here.
There is cycle path most of the way not that car drivers give much thought to that.
Newton to Torquay was my old route on the time trial bike it’s about 11 miles round trip the aim was to do a sub 20 minute circuit, but I was a lot fitter then, I could just about make it 19.4 minutes was my best ever time but that was pushing it and I was wearing my lungs on the out side by the time I arrived home if you know what I mean. Mind you it’s not been down off the wall in the garage for a while.
The route takes me along the old Kingskerswell Road.
Then the duel carriage way to Laws Bridge
Down to Torquay seafront and park up by the harbour to kill a bit of time and wait for a small rain shower to blow through.
So time for a coffee by the harbour this time as we’re not in a rush and it’s more to test the e-bike than me.
Then back along the seafront to the railway station and back up to the dual carriage way for the return journey.
One of the struggles is the last 200m is a bit of a climb one of the joys of living at the top of a hill, I have nice views of Hay Tor on Dart Moor about 15k away but it’s not a lot of fun cycling up the last stretch home. But it really is much easier on the e-bike.
So Hivers how did the e-bike do I kept it on eco level 2 all the way there and did about 11mph pushed it up to power level 5 on the way back and did around 15.5mph with a bit of a headwind and 12mph coming up the hill to the house. It left me a bit sweaty now so it was not exactly effortless, around 11 miles in total and one bar on the battery meter. I’m quite chuffed with the e-bike it’s been an interesting project and I might just get out for a bit more exercise.
