The Cricklade Country Way, or.........

[Blew it]

................what it will be like should the proposal ever come to fruition. (In my lifetime?)

THE CRICKLADE COUNTRY WAY

I've often toyed with the idea of riding this route as it is, before any work begins on the projected plans. The Swindon & Cricklade Railway guys have already started work at Mouldon Hill Lake, including laying the foundation layer prior to re-laying the tracks. This first layer of ballast is 3" stone, almost impossible to walk on let alone ride a bike on it.

Just around the bend, the tracks are still in place, and a bit further on is the Station just off Tadpole Lane. From there the guys run regular but short steam train rides.

By the year 2020, the track will be extended from Mouldon Hill and through to Cricklade allowing a much longer run.

Looking towards the lake, which is behind the trees. The pile of platform slabs show where the proposed station will be.

Currently, there is no cycle route through this two mile section and had to be bypassed with a couple of miles road riding on the B4553.

The route from the lake to the B4553 can be clearly seen.

A brief stop to don my hi-viz waistcoat before joining the B4553.

Blaze orange is my preferred colour for rural riding, it stands out well against hedgerows and grass banks. It's entirely possible I might disappear if riding past a field of poppies in bloom, fortunately, in Swindon, exotic farming of this nature is carried out in rented semi's with rather high electricity usage, not that the meter will record it.

Part two to follow..................

 

[Blew it]

Part two:

The Tonaro BigHit I'm riding today was originaly fitted with Kenda Kwicks, fine and dandy for trail riding, but sounding like an army jeep on smooth tarmac. These were quickly replaced with 26" x 2" Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tours, my preferred tyre for town and country riding. Inflated to 55 psi to suit my 72 Kgs weight, these tyres roll quietly on this B-road which, unlike many in Swindon, is billiard table smooth. The NCN R45 route marker indicates a right turn down a short track, where I rejoin the original railway route.

Looking back towards Swindon, this shows the limit of the currently useable track. As you can see, it would be impossible to negotiate on a bike, hence the need for the not unpleasant bit of road riding.

Although not visible from here, further up there are huge stacks of pre-assembled track sections ready for laying.

Ready for work!. A flat-bed rail carrying wagon hooked up to the ballast laying truck.

On the other side of the un-gated level crossing, the crane for lifting the track sections, an old derelict passenger carriage and another ballast wagon beyond that. In this photo you can also see the cycle route alongside, this is my route to South Cerney via Cricklade.

Part three to follow.............................

 

[Blew it]

Part three:

This part of the route is reasonably smooth compacted gravel. Five sets of galvanised gates have to be negotiated on this section where various footpaths cross the permanent way.

These heavy gates are self-closing, they will happily take a bite out of your mudguards if your not quick going through. This rather featureless section takes me to the outskirts of Cricklade. Over the years the suburbs of this sleepy little market town have sprawled across the original rail route. As a result, this is as far as the planned
railway will go. Another bit of road riding takes me into Cricklade Leisure Centre, where a narrow stoney track takes me back onto the original track-bed. The surface varies between compacted earth, limestone hardpack and surprisingly, a long section of ten feet wide smooth concrete. Judging by the cow-pats, I suspect this was laid by a farmer for moving cattle to and from the milking parlour. Again there was of little interest riding along between high hedgerows.

Until I reached the notoriously fast 'Spine Road West'

If accompanied by youngsters, great care would be needed to cross this very fast stretch of road. NCN R45 passes through one of the arches of this bridge. I'm afraid I do not have a clue as to what this bridge once carried, although I suspect it was once a railway line for hauling the extracted gravel away from the area.

Part four to follow...............

 

[Blew it]

Part four:

Noticing a little path leading off the route. I rode down it and got my first glimpse of this aquatic playground, and the 'New England' style lakeside lodges. During peak season it will cost from £800 to £1500 per week to rent one. Just as I arrived, I noticed some people preparing for a little Sunday morning recreation.

Sparking up a smoke, I sat and watched the locals at play.

Boiling water under the stern...the unmistakeable heart-beat of a big V8....

.....boat and skier quickly up onto the plane.......

.....It's a small lake....... they soon reappeared....

Mounting up on my rather more humble form of transport, I headed further on looking for a suitable place to enjoy my packed lunch, and started to realise how poorly I had researched this little Sunday morning adventure.

If you search for South Cerney in Google Earth, you can view the area. Rumour has it the total surface area of water now exceeds that of the Norfolk Broads.

Part five to follow...............

 

[Blew it]

Part five:

Another pretty lake, this one home to South Cerney Sailing Club

Deciding this would be a nice spot for lunch, I tried various ways of getting through the fences, but always confronted by high fences and locked gates. Pressing on
further along NCN R45, I quickly realised I was heading away from the lakes, confirmed when arriving at this spot.

As you can see, BigHit has already turned his head ready to start back. Arriving back at the Sailing Club I boldly rode straight into the premises looking for somewhere to have lunch. A very kindly gent enquired if he could help this stranger on a dust covered machine. The gentleman was quite happy to chat for twenty minutes about the lakes, then suggested I should head up the Spine Road to the public area at the Gateway Center. To use his own words "If you don't mind risking your life and limbs". Agreeing with the gentlemans concerns about my safety, I bade him farewell and headed for home.

Part six to follow.............

 

[Blew it]

Part six:

Arriving back amongst the slumbering machines at Hayes Knoll, I selected a railway sleeper that wasn't oozing tar, and finally settled down for lunch. There's always peace and tranquility at places like this, temporarily abandoned by the rowdy Joe Public. While enjoying my food, I had a think about the disappointments of the ride, entirely my own fault for not researching more thoroughly. The next trip up this way will be planned much better, including a print-out of the cycle route around the various lakes.

And now, a little more about my trusty steed.

Tonaro BigHit.

I'll confess, I bought this machine on little more than a whim. It looked kinda cute, unusual in appearance and just a fun bike not to be taken too seriously. How wrong could I be!!. After several hundred miles I have come to realise it's full potential, particularly how comfortably it rides on bumpy trails. Compare it to my broadly similar first electric bike, a lead acid steel framed full susser picture below.

ChinaBlue

Now, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out what's wrong with that bike!. That rear swinging arm contains a heavy hub motor and the lead acid battery. To hazard a guess, I would think two thirds of the bikes weight is contained within that rear sub-frame.....and it's all unsprung!. Sure enough, it will take the sting out of the odd pot-hole but, on short-pitch undulating ground the whole thing gets completely out of kilter, there's no way that cheapo shock is going to maintain any sort of control over that huge mass heaving up and down. I quickly realised a hard-tail with a ThudBuster seatpost gave a much easier passage over such ground.

The Tonaro BigHit, and it's more expensive cousin the Haibike Enduro, suffer none of these vices due to the center-drive motors. The rear wheels being no heavier than a normal push-bike.

The first mod on my BigHit was fitting an almost full rear mudguard, I got fed up with cleaning cow-poo from the knooks and crannies. Unusually, the mudguard moves with the wheel and therefore maintains a constant distance from the tyre...it adds but a few grams to the unsprung weight.

Not visible in the photo, a second bracket angles downward to provide good stability. A quick rummage in the workshop produced a 5mm alloy stay to support the rear, with stand-off brackets to clear the brake caliper.

The mudguard is cut to length so that the beaver-tail does not increase the overall length of the bike. This is important as the machine is sometimes carried in my estate car to venues further away.

Part seven to follow...............

 

[Blew it]

Part seven:

For the same reason, the front shorty mudguard was retained, albeit with new brackets to allow a snug fitting under the fork bridge.

When carrying the bike in the car, the left-hand pedal is removed allowing the machine to lay flat on the floor. The front wheel points up towards the roof allowing the tailgate to close.

Stowing stuff on the BigHit is a bit of a problem, It only took one painful encounter with the bottle carrier before moving it up to the handlebars roadie style.

Clutter!

Slightly amusing, my machine was fitted with two right-hand grips, oh well!.

Brakes!, the machine is now fitted with Avid BB7's front and rear.

Stoppers!

After a great deal of perseverance with the Promax calipers, including spot-facing the frame lugs, I failed to get the level of braking I wanted. The simple fact is, there is only just so much braking force available with pads no bigger than my thumbnail. In comparison, the BB7 pads are huge. The Promax calipers were confined to the 'bits' box. local youngsters regularly looking for bits will be quite welcome to have them.

A special riding technique

When first riding the BigHit, I found it reluctant to change up to top gear, a few adjustments to the B-tension on the derailleur cage soon cured the problem, but a
definate technique was required for upward gear changes, especially when the assist level was at medium or high. In low assist mode, the upward changes are acceptably quiet, but, when the assist mode is medium or high there is an almighty crash as the chain de-rails to the next smaller cog. My gut feeling is this puts an enormous strain on both chain and cog-set. I strongly believe there is the possibility of snapping the narrow eight-speed chain as well as premature hooking of teeth on the cluster. As I understand it, this has also become a source for concern on the Hiabike Enduro. Now, I'm quite happy to accept correction of my misunderstanding of some derailleur matters in the past, but this time I will stand my ground, the sickening sound of the chain crashing across the cog-set in higher assist modes is unacceptable.

Dipping the 'clutch'. Not exactly, but similar too.

On a motorcycle, we pull in the clutch with the left-hand lever and change up with the right/left foot. With the same dexterity, when changing up on the BigHit, I lightly pull the front brake lever, not enough to bring the brake on, just enough to activate the brake switch. At the same time the grip-shift is operated allowing the chain to slip quietly on to the next smallest cog. BigHit's controller incorporates a 'soft start' to the assistance, which feeds gently back in after the chain has shifted to the next gear. I haven't found it necessary to do this on downward changes, or when using the low assist setting. Alternatively, you could leave the assist setting in 'low' whilst working up through the gears. It doesn't matter how you do it, but doing nothing will surely result in premature failure of chain and cog-set. On the subject of gearing, the BigHit's ratio's suit my utilitarian cadence of 60 rpm very nicely. Top gear is a 42T - 11T combo. Much of the time I ride in seventh of eight at around, or just above assistance ramp-down, eighth being an overdrive top for when I want to crack on a bit.

The electronic control system deserves a mention, it's very subtle compared to some. With the exception of the last couple of miles, this ride was all done on low assist. For serious hill-climbing there's shed-loads of torque available in 'high' mode. Here in Swindon, the steepest hill I'm likely to encounter is around 13%, easily climbed in 'medium' mode, so far, I have not needed the 'high' mode.

It's now common knowledge the assistance ramp-down approaching fifteen mph is controlled by a rear wheel speed sensor. When this sensor is in place the ramp-down is very abrupt. Not a bad thing as it greatly helps the rider to keep the road speed at the point of least amps draw, thereby maximising range per charge. With this sensor taken out of line, the maximum assist speed becomes voltage limited, and therefore simply fades out in a more natural way at around fifteen mph in 'low' assist. In 'medium' mode, the assistance gently dies away at around seventeen mph. Switch up to 'high' mode and it's difficult to know when the assistance tails off in top gear, but I suspect it's around nineteen mph. This is not unusual with center drives, when riding my Panasonic powered Kalkhoff Sahel, it really is difficult to tell whether it's assisting or not when riding fast in top gear. Personally, I like to choose whether the speed sensor is controlling the assist or not. This depends on the circumstances of any ride, for instance, today the sensor was in-line throughout the ride to maximise the range. Had I wanted to, I could have switched the sensor out of line by flicking the rocker switch under the controller housing.

And, as you can see, at the first attempt yours truly managed to fit the switch in the wrong place, preventing the controller from sitting in it's housing, hence the patch araldited over the first hole. It's not a waterproof switch. By fitting it to the underside of the controller housing, at least I have gravity on my side in keeping water out of it. An occasional squirt of WD40 also helps in this respect.

Part eight to follow..........................

 

[Blew it]

Part eight:

Inevitably, the Tonaro Bighit will often be compared to the far more expensive Hiabike Enduro, and why not?, they share a great many similar features. Personally, I would not pay close on four grand for a Bosch powered Hiabike, for the simple reason I would never really benefit from it's superior quality, particularly in the suspension department. This ride today was just moderate off-road trail riding, nothing 'extreme' about it, and therefore needing nothing more than the rudimentary suspension fitted to the BigHit.

It should also be noted the BigHit can do some things the Hiabike cannot. For instance, those that prefer not to pedal too much will find the independent throttle and drive-through-the-gears an interesting combination. Riding the BigHit moped fashion, when coming to a hill, the rider could keep changing to a lower gear until the machine climbed with the throttle held open. The road speed will fall, but I have a feeling it will still climb a moderately steep hill without any pedal assistance. I haven't actually tried this yet, but I'll give it a go one day. To the best of my knowledge, only Cyclone kit powered bikes share this almost unique ability.

Oops!, nearly forgot the vital statistics.

Distance run: 23 miles.
Average speed: 10.4 mph
Max speed: 20.8 mph
Total ascent: 536 feet
Total descent: 563 feet (very easy ride).


The Phylion battery was recharged via a consumption meter, consuming 190 watt-hours including charger losses.

Energy consumption on the ride, around 8 watt-hours per mile. The Phylion battery is of modern pouch cell construction with the usual ribbon cable connector poking out of the array. Perhaps for checking individual cells? or maybe connection to an 02micro battery management system, who knows!. The battery delivers well at maximum amps draw with very little voltage sag.


I really like this bike!

But then, I say that about all electric bikes don't I!.

All the best
Bob

Edit: My apologies for the occasional gaps in the text, the posting was prepared in notepad in advance, and for some strange reason I could not correct the formatting errors.

 

[funkylyn]

Hi Bob,
Well....wow.....thanks for your report, I feel like I have just been on a cyber holiday !
Really interesting and great pics.
Love your excellent report on your bighit......I am looking forward to the arrival of the Tonaro Esprit, having tried the compy I really am tempted by the central drive/throttle combination.

Best wishes
Lynda

 

[tillson]

Thanks for the detailed report Bob Blew it. The Tonaro bikes certainly seem to be attracting favourable reports from their owners.

 

[Kenny]

Great stuff Bob. Your writing and pictures of your bike adventures are always a real joy.

You brighten up the forum.

 

[Blew it]

Hi Bob,
Well....wow.....thanks for your report, I feel like I have just been on a cyber holiday !
Really interesting and great pics.
Love your excellent report on your bighit......I am looking forward to the arrival of the Tonaro Esprit, having tried the compy I really am tempted by the central drive/throttle combination.

Best wishes
Lynda

Hi Lynda,

Thanks for your kind words, very much appreciated.

When you take ownership of your Esprit, I strongly recommend you check out a couple of things when prepping your bike. These will ensure reliability when using it.

When I changed the tyres, I discovered rubber rim tapes had been fitted, this is incorrect for double walled rims. Also, I discovered a large amount of swarf left over from the hole punching process rattling around the cavity of the rims. Any of this swarf working it's way between tube and rim will shred the tube very quickly. After clearing all the swarf out, I fitted Zefal adhesive woven cloth rim tapes before fitting the Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tours.

As with many electric bikes, there is a whole lot of electrical cables running to the handlebars. If any of these cables are accidentally snagged on anything, you might finish your journey without any electrical assist. These cables need to be protected with spiral trunking, or perhaps you could knit a nice 'sock' to wrap around them.

Have fun with bike when it arrives
Regards
Bob

 

[Blew it]

Great stuff Bob. Your writing and pictures of your bike adventures are always a real joy.

You brighten up the forum.

Hi Kenny,

I thought you would like it. To tell you the truth, I'm starting to struggle with these write-ups. It appears the ageing process is robbing me of the ability to verbalize... and it's accelerating at an alarming rate. Chances are, in another year all you will get is a series of photos with a garbled caption attached to each one. Oh well! all part of the fun of growing old.

Happy E-biking Kenny
Regards
Bob

 

[Blew it]

Watch this space

There is a very interesting e-bike here in Swindon just now. During the next few days I'm going to see if I can 'borrow' it for a couple hours. I'll post a report if I succeed.

 

[NRG]

Great series of posts Bob, a good read!

 

[Blew it]

Thanks NRG, have a good weekend.

 

[Willin']

Excellent post! I've joined the Tonaro Bighit club as well and I really appreciate the hill climbing abilities it has. If I get some enthusiasm I'll take some photo's of some of my trips around the routes up here in the North East.

 

[mike killay]

On my Tonaro Enduro, I have got into the habit of flicking the on off switch when changing gear.
Great post, really enjoyed reading it.
I get the impression that there are two types of e-riders.
1 Those who are really cyclists but want some assistance. Chain drives like Panasonic appeal to them.
2 Ex-motorcyclists who want an electric moped but are willing to put up with low power because of the freedom and ability to use cycle tracks. The Tonaro system with all its options appeals to these people.
Don't forget, the Tonaro always offers full power regardless of how hard, soft, or even if, you pedal.

 

[funkylyn]

Hi Lynda,

Thanks for your kind words, very much appreciated.

When you take ownership of your Esprit, I strongly recommend you check out a couple of things when prepping your bike. These will ensure reliability when using it.

When I changed the tyres, I discovered rubber rim tapes had been fitted, this is incorrect for double walled rims. Also, I discovered a large amount of swarf left over from the hole punching process rattling around the cavity of the rims. Any of this swarf working it's way between tube and rim will shred the tube very quickly. After clearing all the swarf out, I fitted Zefal adhesive woven cloth rim tapes before fitting the Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tours.

As with many electric bikes, there is a whole lot of electrical cables running to the handlebars. If any of these cables are accidentally snagged on anything, you might finish your journey without any electrical assist. These cables need to be protected with spiral trunking, or perhaps you could knit a nice 'sock' to wrap around them.

Have fun with bike when it arrives
Regards
Bob

Thanks Bob that is really important information to know.

Lynda

Ps I dont think you need to worry about your verbalizing ability too much in the near future......sounds to me like you have quite a number of good years yet to post to your usual high standard

 

[Blew it]

For Mike Killay

The front mounting for the 'floating' rear mudguard. This frame cross member already has lightening holes punched out, I therefore felt two 4 mm holes would not reduce it's strength too much.

A better view showing the second bracket angled downwards to provide a rigid fixing for the front end.

The rear supporting stay is mounted on stand-off brackets for clearing the brake caliper. You will notice there are two tapped holes in the drop-out just below the stand-off bracket.

Unfortunately, on the drive-side, these are used for mounting, or covered by, the derailleur hanger.

For this reason I decided to drill and tap for M4 screws to hold the stand-offs. The drop-out castings/forgings on the BigHit are pretty massive, over 7 mm thick where the holes are drilled, and therefore strong enough to accommodate a couple of extra holes.

More to follow...........