Dear All,

I’m grateful to Russell for inviting me to write about the 1st leg of my silk route trip using the latest eZee Torqs. There are some details regarding the machine that has been the subject of endless speculations and comparisons. I have so far resisted all temptation to write in the forum despite cringing at some comments, especially from people who tried to promote their products while being quite ignorant of what they are talking about.

My friend (Mr. Wang) and I had each a Torq with a variation between them:

* 250 watt, 200 rpm motor EU version
* 350 watt, 250 rpm motor USA version

I chose the 350 watt version because of my apparent handicap – being 57 years old and have not been exercising regularly for the past 30 years (I suppose walking the dog doesn’t really count). Mr. Wang is a tough young man of 35 and so takes the 250 watt version. My epilogue for this trip is this - It would not have made any difference the other way around.

Both bikes are attached with the Cycle Analyst (formerly known as the Drain Brain) which is designed and manufactured by a very talented young engineer in Vancouver Canada. Justin is also now the eZee distributor for Canada www.ebikes.ca. With this excellent piece of equipment, it is possible to know what exactly is going on with regards to the electronics, here I share with you all. Just the facts and no BS. 

For those interested in technical details, attached here are the graphs for the motor test for eZee’s 250 watts and 350 watts. Both tests are done with the same controller, with the overload protection set at 20 amps, when this level is reached, the controller works to reduce the amperage but does not cut the system off. The second level of protection at 30 amps in the BMS (battery management system) shuts the system down when this level is breached over some micro-seconds. 

For those not interested in reading the graphs, I would simply state here that eZee’s 250 watt motor is capable of reaching 36 Nm at 20 amps with 135 rpm speed (i.e. 18 kmph or 11.25 mph on the Torq while holding 70% efficiency)
The 350 watts reachs 26 Nm at 20 amps with 198 rpm speed (i.e. 26 kmph or 16 mph on the Torq while holding 70% efficiency)
There is no point talking about the torque of a motor without qualifying the speed and efficiency and the amps it is capable of while running the bike.

The Route

We started on the 30th October at the beginning of highway 318 in Shanghai and finished in Wuhan on the 8th November. A total of 979 kms (612 miles) with 1 ½ day break to do some trekking on foot up Jiu Hua mountain.

5 packs of Li+ battery were picked randomly off the shelf.

We charged with the regular 2 amps charger and brought along a new 4 amps charger.
The batteries were charged for about 2 hrs during lunch when we stopped and rested, the batteries normally flat out an hour before reaching our destination point for the day. Each day starts at 9am and finishes around 8 – 9pm.

Day 1  Shanghai to Nan Xun  114 km ( 71.25 m )
Level road. 90 mins. charge during lunch. 
Collected sample data of one fully charged battery pack
46.57 km  8.763 Ah  330 Wh    7.1 Wh/km  Avg speed 22.9 kmph  time 2 hrs   - 

Day 2 Nan Xun to Guangde 124 km ( 77.5 m )
Level road. 120 mins. charge during lunch
Collected sample data of one fully charged battery pack
46.23 km  8.702 Ah 330 Wh  7.1 Wh/km  Avg speed 24.4 kmph  time 1hr 55m

Day 3  Guangde to Nan Ling 125.89 km ( 78.7 m )
Hilly road, and raining (drizzle)  which cleared during noon. 120 mins. charge during lunch
Collected sample data of one fully charged battery pack
42.59 km 8.85 Ah  328 Wh  7.7 Wh/km  Avg speed 19.4 kmph   2 hrs11 min.

Day 4  Nan Ling to Qing Yang (  Jiu Hua Mts. )  66.0 km ( 41.2 m )

Both level and hilly roads towards Qing Yan, atrocious road conditions with portholes and cracked concrete.
Rear tyre damaged.  Stopped at Qing Yang in the afternoon and to wait for the replacement tyre
Collected sample data of one fully charged battery pack
40.9 km  9.03 Ah  339 Wh  8.3 Wh/km   Avg speed 20.5 kmph    2 hrs.

Day 5  - Trekking up Mt. Jiu Hua

Day 6 – Qing Yang to An Qing  104.53 km   (65 m )

Departed at 1.00 pm after getting the replacement tyre from the Post office.

Reached the 500 km milestone.
Cross the Yang Tze River by ferry. We rode for 4 hrs 15 mins.
Collected sample data of one fully charged battery pack
54.77 km   8.5 Ah   323 Wh   5.9 wh/km  Avg speed 25 kmph  2 hrs 11 min.

Day 7   An Qing to  Yue Xi    119.55 km ( 74 m )

Day 7 and 8 were the most challenging of the whole trip as we had to cross the Dabie mountain range. Having only 2 chargers, we had to wake up several times during the night to change over, and unfortunately we had one “false green” i.e. one out of the 5 batteries did not charge fully. While there was no elevation mark, I believe we made it up to about 800m at the highest point of the trip. Someone from the area told us that the peak across from where we were was at 1400m. By 4.30 pm we were completely flat on batteries, and had to push the bikes for the next hundred of meters until we found a household willing to let us charge our batteries.  A lady in the house was packing some mountain herbs (an underground fungi call Fu Ling ).  We charged the batteries for 2 hrs before heading off again completely in the dark up the mountain roads. We finally made it to Yue Xi at about 9.00 pm.

Collected sample data of one fully charged battery pack
40.34 km  8.786 Ah   332 Wh   8.2 wh/km  Avg speed 21.6 kmph  1hr 51m

Day 8  Yue Xi  to Ying Shan   106.8 km  ( 66.75 m )

We started at 9.00 am for another day of mountain roads.  Stopped at the only mountainside restaurant, and the only one all along the way at 12.30 pm and charged battery for 2 hrs. More difficult than the day before.
 

Collected sample data of one fully charged battery pack
31.30 km   8.943 Ah  327.85 Wh  10.5 Wh/km  Avg speed 18.6 kmph  1 hr 41m

Day 9  Ying Shan to Huang Guang City  134.28 km  ( 84.0 m )

Rolling out of Ying Shan was all downhill, after passing the 830 km milestone on the Highway 318 we decided to turn to the Highway 106 entering Wuhan from the South instead of continuing on the 318 going by the northern route into Wuhan.  This was a big mistake as the road conditions on the 106 were extremely bad all the way – the roads were all but practically in total ruins, while huge trucks plied it and with patches of road repair works going on.  We were forced to stop at Huang Guang City across the river instead of heading into Wuhan because it already dark at 5.00 pm, reaching Huang Guang at 7.00 pm.  

Collected sample data of one fully charged battery pack
56.44 km  9.02 Ah 344 Wh  6.1 W/km  Avg speed 24 kmph  2hrs 30 m

Day 10 Huang Guang City to Wuhan --   50 km ?  (no record)

The road out of Huang Guang was just as bad or even worse than the road in.  We crossed the bridge across the Yangtze again, and into Er Zhou city and got on to Highway 316 which was extremely bad all the way into Wuhan city. Each bike has one spoke on the front wheel busted.  Wuhan Town is now a bustling and commodity center of China, its growth somewhat like Chicago. 

We headed for the Ramada Hotel, where we were stopped at the entrance by security who told us that bicycles weren’t allowed inside, that we were only allowed through the employee entrance at the back.
After arguing for a bit, we charged through as a car went past the raised barricade. We were immediately confronted by more security guards, who quickly removed our bikes to the employee’s bicycle parking lot the moment we dismounted and took our bags to check-in.  I was so annoyed with the whole situation at the Ramada and did not collect the records off the Cycle Analyst and had the data deleted accidentally.

After some futile discussions with the floor assistant manager, we couldn’t get them to be sympathetic to the idea that we would come back some months later in Spring to carry on with the rest of the trip to Xi’an. Despite getting a firm no after their management meeting, I chanced upon the Resident manager as we were leaving that our bikes would be left in the Ramada whether they liked it or not… the Ramada isn’t so bad after all.

The next leg is planned for end March: 7 days from Wuhan to Xian,  crossing some tougher mountain ranges with some peaks over 4000m eg. Tai Bai Shan and Hua Shan nearby.

Note:  We used the EAF (eZee Assist Factor on pedelec mode) instead of the throttle obviously on such long journey to avoid wrist fatigue  I have the EAF set at 5.0 ( from a scale of 0 to 8.4 ) most of the time and occasionally at 6.0 and a few mins. of fun at 8.4 going at full speed of 34 kmph on level road.  Going downhill reached 48 kmph sometimes. Not once even at the steepest climb , pedaling as hard as I could (which is very limited) on the 1st gear, or at any other time did I ever encountered a power cut off from an overload.  The power cut-off came only when the voltage dropped below the protected level of 31.5V,  and with all cases ,  the battery is practically emptied.

As part of my investigative report about my own bikes,  it is still quite beyond my comprehension why there are cases of people having power cut-off on climbing or other instances aside from the possibility that their battery is already low.

Yours truly,
Mr. Ching