Agattu 19t

[carpetbagger]

My 19t rear gear arrived from Wiggle. First i went on a test ride around our local BAE just to make sure it wasn't going to drop off !
Yersterday afternoon i went on another ride around Pendle hill. Again battery gave up at 32 miles,2 miles from home.Although the ride back is reasonably flat there is always a strong headwind.I had to be on medium power until battery died. The 19t makes a lot of difference,i was going downhill at 30mph and could still pedal to increase the speed whereas the 22t i was flat out at about 25mph.I can't wait to see if the Wisper that David is going to loan me will be able to climb the hills and get me back without the battery giving up...

samlesbury-sabden-barley newchurch-downham by carpetbagger1 at Garmin Connect - Details

i have now climbed 17416 ft since 2nd August,maybe i can climb the equivalent of Mount Everest before the end of the year !

 

[eddieo]

a Wisper 14Ah will EASILY do better the 32 miles.........

 

[carpetbagger]

It might well do 32 miles but will it do 32 miles with 2290 feet of climbing and a strong headwind. Personally i hope it will then i won't have to pedal the last 2 miles without power.
The test route should give good details of which is the better climber and battery..as they are both supposed to have similar ranges..

 

[eddieo]

But you must already know that the Panasonic system is the better hill climber....But how much serious hill climbing do we encounter, all depends on individual circumstances I guess. Our wispers are good enough for local stuff and manage most that we throw at them on holiday...But I know a Panasonic powered swiss flyer would be a better bike for our Swiss/Italian holidays

anyway the 18Ah panasonic battery is out now? this is really going to boost sales I would think...32 miles @ full power? would that be fesible?

 

[carpetbagger]

It won't just be a test of hill climbing,it will give a reasonable comparison of battery life,brakes,comfort and hill start ability...Same course,same rider. Also i intend doing different routes,some will be flatter and longer and the the one in the thread which will be going up hills steeper than probably 95% of people will attempt. Doing a ten minute test on each bike doesn't always tell the complete story. Hopefully i can give a fair assessment of each bike over various routes. Hopefully it should be more like a 200 mile test.

The 18a battery would do this twice....maybe....if somebody would just lend me one !

 

[tillson]

Again battery gave up at 32 miles,2 miles from home.Although the ride back is reasonably flat there is always a strong headwind.I had to be on medium power until battery died.

32 miles isn't bad on a 19 tooth rear sprocket set on medium power. My 20 month old, 5500 mile-ish Panasonic battery wouldn't achieve that sort of range (I use an 18 tooth sprocket). I might just be able to squeeze into the 30 mile range through a combination of low power and switching off.

 

[carpetbagger]

How many charges have you done or have you not kept a log of them ?

 

[tillson]

How many charges have you done or have you not kept a log of them ?

I just tend to use the bike and not worry too much about logging charges.

When the battery was new, it would easily do a round trip of 20 miles, which is the distance from my house to work and back. Now, the last battery charge level light will be flashing about 4 miles from home and I can tell that the power is falling away rapidly when I am within a mile of home. I noticed this starting to happen about 2 to 3 month ago when the battery was about 18 months old and had covered about 5000 miles. Because the bike is used almost exclusively to travel to and from work, I can estimate the probable number of charges, and this equates to about 250. Some of these 250 charges will have been partial charges in the early days of the battery's life when it easily made the round trip to work and back. The more recent charges will be near full charges because the battery is exhausted when I arrive home. Taking an average, I suppose that 200 full charge cycles would be a reasonable estimate.

I am now charging the battery at each end of the trip and try to charge only to about 80% capacity. This usually means that it is has about 30 - 20 % charge left after each leg of the trip.

I don't know if the above charging regime will extend the battery life by reducing the stress on the cells at each end of the charge cycle, but I would like to get a bit more use out of it before buying another one.