Sad nerdy Saturday night thought...

[Gary]

[Hypothetically]
If you happened to be the sort of rider for whom mtb (Emtb) was usually a once a weekend hobby. And there happened to be an Ebike charger available with the ability to be powered by an indoor static bike trainer (think turbo trainer or spin/exercise bike with built in generator). Allowing you to "train" indoors for say an hour a couple of evenings during the week to re-charge your Ebike battery ready for the next weekend. And assuming it was easily affordable. Would any of you be interested in owning/using one?

*ignoring the fact that a just couple of hours on a trainer wouldn't actually produce enough electricity to fully charge an Ebike battery.

 

[apac]

Nah maan, I'd rather go swimming and pay the 10 pence to charge me bike. Got no interest in cycling machine. Cycling is really boring unless it's in the 3D terra firma.

 

[Zimmerframe]

[Hypothetically]
If you happened to be the sort of rider for whom mtb (Emtb) was usually a once a weekend hobby. And there happened to be an Ebike charger available with the ability to be powered by an indoor static bike trainer (think turbo trainer or spin/exercise bike with built in generator). Allowing you to "train" indoors for say an hour a couple of evenings during the week to re-charge your Ebike battery ready for the next weekend. And assuming it was easily affordable. Would any of you be interested in owning/using one?

*ignoring the fact that a just couple of hours on a trainer wouldn't actually produce enough electricity to fully charge an Ebike battery.

Didn't we already do this on the joke Gary thread where we said you charged your bike on a trainer because you lived in Scotland where they don't have electricity ?

 

[Gary]

Didn't we already do this on the joke Gary thread where we said you charged your bike on a trainer because you lived in Scotland where they don't have electricity ?

we have electricty. But 10p is 10p so we currently don't charge our ebikes at all.

 

[Gary]

Nah maan, I'd rather go swimming and pay the 10 pence to charge me bike. Got no interest in cycling machine. Cycling is really boring unless it's in the 3D terra firma.

Yeah. There's only ONE form of indoor exercise that interest me at all.
*looks forward to reading witty responses^

 

[Doug Stampfer]

Synchronised chicken tossing?

 

[Mabman]

The sad thing is that mtb is a once a weekend hobby to some people.

 

[CjP]

[Hypothetically]
If you happened to be the sort of rider for whom mtb (Emtb) was usually a once a weekend hobby. And there happened to be an Ebike charger available with the ability to be powered by an indoor static bike trainer (think turbo trainer or spin/exercise bike with built in generator). Allowing you to "train" indoors for say an hour a couple of evenings during the week to re-charge your Ebike battery ready for the next weekend. And assuming it was easily affordable. Would any of you be interested in owning/using one?

*ignoring the fact that a just couple of hours on a trainer wouldn't actually produce enough electricity to fully charge an Ebike battery.

I’d buy one.
I spent the last 4 rides on an Giga and it has re invigorated my desire to train during the week. Don’t have the luxury of riding outdoors during the week atm so training indoors on my bike while charging it would be great. Could use it anywhere!
Can you add an incline function?

 

[Gary]

incline function?

Yeah. Of course.

 

[Hobo Mikey]

I don’t have a house so would have to buy one and they cost more than 10p so it’s a no from me.

 

[CjP]

Yeah. Of course.

View attachment 82949

Nice adjustable!

 

[Zimmerframe]

Just looking for the old thread on this and can't find it ... stumbled on this one which was the same era .. I never did get my shirt.

Limited Edition EPOWAH "Gary" Clothing

Following the amazing success in such a short time of Scottish Lowland Assisted Velo Excursions. S.L.A.V.E would like to celebrate this moment with the forum members by offering a range of "Gary" clothing. If you don't know, S.L.A.V.E. was created to help solve Gary's second battery logistic...

www.emtbforums.com

 

[Zimmerframe]

Ah, found it ... that wasn't easy !

In fairness Gary lives in Scotland where they don't have electricity yet, so he has to charge his batteries in the evenings using an old exercise bike (with no saddle) running two 1980's dynamo's to trickle charge. Imagine trying to eat your dinner whilst on an exercise bike with no saddle, he has the core strength and balance of a giraffe !

Battery life

Now that the Steps system has been around for about 3 years, I'm just wondering what your experiences are with battery life: How many Km's/miles (total) have you got out of your battery so far? How many charge cycles have you done? Have you had to replace a battery yet? Any issues with the...

www.emtbforums.com

 

[Waynemarlow]

Don't forget he optimises out at a cadence of 200 ( which he reckons he can do for hours on end ), you're going to need some mega gearing to bring that back to suitable alternator speeds, which by inefficiencies of gearing, would negate any of Gary's 45kg might.

Sort of makes me wonder about flying pink pigs a bit.

 

[Gary]

 

[Manc44]

It's Tuesday, right?
Yeah, so?
My turn on the electric blanket - pedal!

 

[p3eps]

It's Tuesday, right?
Yeah, so?
My turn on the electric blanket - pedal!

Red Dwarf? There’s a blast from the past!

 

[MountainBoy]

[Hypothetically]
If you happened to be the sort of rider for whom mtb (Emtb) was usually a once a weekend hobby. And there happened to be an Ebike charger available with the ability to be powered by an indoor static bike trainer (think turbo trainer or spin/exercise bike with built in generator). Allowing you to "train" indoors for say an hour a couple of evenings during the week to re-charge your Ebike battery ready for the next weekend. And assuming it was easily affordable. Would any of you be interested in owning/using one?

*ignoring the fact that a just couple of hours on a trainer wouldn't actually produce enough electricity to fully charge an Ebike battery.

The most efficient way to do this would be for the bike dynamo to charge the battery directly (generating and using DC that was regulated to the proper charge voltage) but this requires that the regulation takes over the function of the manufacturer's Battery Management System which is probably proprietary (and maybe even encrypted to prevent damage from tinkering).

So, the easiest way to do this would be to use a battery backup power system with built-in inverter capable of powering the OEM charger with line voltage. Going through all those coversions would result in a loss of at least half of your original energy so you would be lucky to provide 100 watts/per hour to the battery while pedalling with well over 200 watts of human power (to make up for the losses between the human and the dynamo). If anyone knows of a way to charge your eBike battery without using the manufacturers AC charger, let's see it. Because that charger is likely only around 70% efficient.

These solutions are far from efficient but you can easily put together a system capable of doing this with existing products that are basically plug and play. Here's a bike dynamo that works with almost any bike:

The Pedal-A-Watt Bicycle Generator is a pedal power generator that uses your bicycle to create electricity. Want energy independence? Worried about a power outage? Want to capture electricity from your workouts? The Pedal-A-Watt is what you are looking for. We carry the Pedal-A-Watt along with other human, solar and wind electricity generating products. (econvergence.net)

Note: This is going to be horribly inefficient, but you are pedaling for exercise anyway, right? It will NEVER pay for itself. A better idea is a solar powered charging station. Even this would work best if manufacturers provided a way to charge ebike batteries directly from low voltage DC current.

 

[Gary]

Look up the meaning of "hypothetically" bruh.

 

[Stoffel]

Nope, no interest in that whatsoever. Exercising has to be fun for me, I find exercising for the sake of it mind numbing.
I’d rather peddle a normal bike outside and pay to charge the emtb battery.

 

[MountainBoy]

Look up the meaning of "hypothetically" bruh.

So what you're basically asking is, would you use a stationary exercise attachment for your bike? I don't know what this hypothetical generator that doesn't even exist has to do with whether one would use a stationary bike. The average cost of electricity in the US of $0.12 kWh, it costs about $0.06 to charge the typical 500 watt-hour eBike from 0-100%. Most people are only using around half their total so that's about $0.03 per actual charge. The cost to charge is not significant enough to be part of the equation considering most of us have $3K to $12K or more invested in our bikes.

If a hypothetical generator existed so you could watch TV without having to plug it into the grid, would you use one?

 

[Gary]

It's a new month and I'm no longer bored. You clearly are. You've missed the (fairly basic) point big time but feel free to knock yourself out over thinking it and asking stupid questions.

 

[1oldfart]

Na, i am not a cyclist.
I am an outdoor guy.
But when politicians do bad i vote they go to jail
to earn their meal they have to pedal 12H and we sell the electricity.

 

[Manc44]

I remember thinking about this when they said Lance Armstrong puts out 450W or whatever it is, my microwave is 1,000W lol. Also, I am sure I only put out about 50W on my bike these days so, 20 of me = 1 microwave oven. Glad motors exist, I wouldn't be able to go to 80% of the places I do on my bike without one. The problem is I don't think I'm getting much exercise and have considered trying a few rides with it turned off. I've gone from one extreme (can't get up hills on 22x40 without a motor) to another (getting up those same hills with a motor without even breathing any faster).