Long ride yesterday!

I decided to play hookie on Wednesday the 15th to go downtown to have lunch with some of my old co-workers at USCIS. I didn't give my Bosch Fat Pack batteries a topping off since they hold their charge very well. I took off without my GoPro HD since I wanted to not have to futz with it in DC and I wanted to focus on enjoying my time with my old friends. I went over 20 miles on my pack which is the longest I've ever ridden. It still had lots of volts at the end of the ride so I probably could have gone another 5 miles easily without draining the pack. The pack started out at 82.1V and ended at 69.9V. I've ridden until the voltage read 63V before the low voltage cutoff started kicking in (stuttering) so I knew I had lots of headroom.

My Large Screen Cycle Analyst isn't working 100% so the amperage is way off. Here's the route I took. The green pin is the starting and ending points.

http://runkeeper.com/user/ambroseliao/activity/39652180


Runkeeper.com is a fun website for keeping track of your rides including distances ridden and elevation traversed.


More later,
Ambrose

Pictures of cleaned up wiring

I spent some time a couple of weeks ago tidying up the wiring on the front of my bike. All of the wires going from the handlebar to various places were getting out of hand! I removed the 3 speed switch since I wasn't using it and I didn't think I would get to it any time soon.

Here are the pics. All of the wires now travel through the frame and tied down with Velcro strips through the couple of Zip tie holders built into the frame. I trimmed the Velcro strips down with scissors so that the strip could fit through the tiny rectangular hole...

Front of bike. 

Angled view of cleaned up cables 

Bundled cables all go through the frame now! 

The wires come out of the rear hole very close to the controller. 

I still need to clean up the controller. I'm beginning to dislike Gorilla tape. It's too easy to use, but it can leave a very difficult to remove sticky goop after a while... I also would like to change the case on the controller. The natural aluminum finish just doesn't work with my bike's color scheme. Nothing else on the bike is that color!

More later,

Ambrose

Double Kick Stand

I finally decided that I'd had enough of the single kick stand that I'd bought for my TF wasn't doing the job so I succumbed and bought one of Oatnet's double kick stands. My old single stand just couldn't keep my heavy bike dependably upright. I would often put the stand down and walk away and see the bike pivot the front wheel and threaten to fall over! My back motor and battery pack just was too much weight for the poor little stand.

This is the original thread where Oatnet posted his TF frames and parts. Unfortunately, the photos have disappeared with the Endless-Sphere crash a while back.
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10748&start=0#p164988

I received the stand last week and installed it over the weekend. What a joy! It holds the bike up perfectly centered and bolt upright and doesn't get in the way of my pedals which was my biggest fear. I switched to the Shimano Tiagra road cranks in order to get the front 52T big crank and the pedals are closer together than the stock cranks that came with my Tidalforce S-750 frame. The double kick stand does not get in the way of the cranks or pedaling.

It folds out of the way very easily by just pushing the bike forward, the stand pulls back and starts folding up into the resting position. It's easy to deploy since stepping on the protrusions on the legs of the kick stand get it into working position and a quick pull back on the bike and the bike is firmly on top of the stand and very stable. The back Schwalbe Big Apple tire is firmly on the ground and the lighter front tire just barely makes contact with the ground. It feels amazingly stable. I can now adjust everything on the bike without leaning it against something. I'll really enjoy using this kick stand!

Highly recommended!

Kick stand mounted on bike.

Bike standing tall!

Kick stand in folded/resting position

Memorial Day Weekend...

Not much to report for this past long weekend. My wife and I went on our first rides with her new Tidalforce iO cruiser. She absolutely loves it. The quietness and smoothness of the ride are fabulous. The iO is so quiet that we happened upon a young fawn nibbling on berries on the Beach Drive bike trail and even though we were only at most 10 feet away from it, it just kept on munching and felt absolutely no threat from us! It finally left after it finished all of the berries that had dropped to the ground.

She lead most of the way so no high speed racing here! I didn't bring the camera because both rides were spur of the moment, however, the weather was hot and humid yet we didn't break a sweat!

More later,
Ambrose