My Electric Bike

Let’s get the first thing out of the way: I quite often get people asking me about my bike, and they usually ask three things, in this order :-

1. Is that an electric bike? Yes.
2. How far do the batteries last? Depends how much I decide to use them, but about thirty five miles.
3. How much did it cost? I got a deal, but you can find this model online for under £1000.

Hi, I’m Giles. I have Myasthenia Gravis, an autoimmune disorder which means if I stress my muscles with repetitive exercise they tire extremely quickly and it takes me a long while (days) to recover. Before my diagnosis I was quite active, I took skiing holidays and I cycled when I could. After my initial, really feeble stage, I began taking drugs to counter the effects and I was able (after a while) to walk a couple of kilometers to the supermarket, provided I could take the bus back.

For a while I considered a mobility scooter, but as I can walk around an area fairly easily (if slower than I used to), it didn’t seem like something I’d want just for longer trips. Then I began considering an electric bike. I couldn’t easily afford one but a friend had had a good experience with gofundme.com so I started a campaign there and let my friends and family know about it. I also promoted it through a few facebook groups and Zach from byocycles.co.uk contacted me and let me know that they could provide me a bike at a hefty discount.

My friends and family came through, donating all the money I needed in a few short weeks. There was a small amount of money over, which went to myaware.org a myasthenia awareness organisation. I took the train to Havant and came back with a shiny new Byocycles Chameleon LS, 36V 10Ah 250W, pedelec, folding bicycle.

Early days.

My first big trip was back home from Victoria Station on the day I collected the bike. I’ve written about that trip before, so suffice to say I was impressed; arriving home relatively swiftly and not out of breath or over-fatigued, but very mentally taxed by the intense concentration needed for negotiating London road traffic.

I almost immediately took the bike to the towpaths, riding a few miles up to Ferry Lane in Tottenham with my daughter for a pub lunch. She rode an ordinary road bike, but found it hard going keeping up with my electrically energised pace.

I also rode a few miles further down into Docklands to talk with the Canal and River Trust about becoming a towpath ranger volunteer - someone who regularly visits local towpaths to interact with other towpath users to help them enjoy and ‘share the space’ and also act as a sort of trouble spotter looking for issues that need reporting to bring them to the Canal and River Trust’s attention. Doing this was something I hadn’t even considered before having the bike, a ride of that distance would have laid me out flat for days. Now it was something I could do without breaking a sweat.

I also began shopping. Previously, I would have to walk a couple of miles to the supermarket, fill a bag and then take a bus home, and that was me - done for the day. It had to be very much planned. Now I had some panniers from my days cycling before MG, so I added them to the new bike and began to take trips to the local supermarkets. Suddenly going out and getting two panniers full of shopping was a half-hour round trip. This was very liberating, I could pop to the shops and come back with heavy stuff, and not be knackered!

Battery Life.

Every person I meet who asks about the bike asks about this, so let’s do the maths:

The bike has a 10.5Ah 36V battery, which is theoretically 378Wh  (36V x 10.5Ah) which, powering a 250W motor for 1.512 (378Wh / 250W) hours at the bike’s electronically imposed limit of 15.5mph, should work out to a theoretical range of 23.436 (1.512h x 15.5mph) miles if using all 250W of power all that time. The manufacturer's claimed range of thirty five miles must therefore imply typically using just 167.4W of the full power of the motor over that range (because 15.5 Mph x 378Wh / 167.4W = 35M). I am not an electrical engineer, and although these figures seem okay to me, please read them as my limited interpretation of what's going on.

In practice, when I’m out and about as a towpath ranger, I ride out about ten miles in the morning, then come back slowly, doing a total of about twenty miles. I lean heavily on the battery keeping the assist setting at 3 out of 5, higher when going uphill or cycling in foul weather. By the time I get home I’m usually on just one or two bars of battery power remaining (out of four shown when fully charged), so I’ll say I’ve used about 62.5% of the battery charge (2.5bars / 4bars). 62.5% of the battery gets me twenty miles, so a full charge should get me a range of thirty two miles (20 miles x 100 / 62.5).

That’s pretty close to the thirty five miles range claimed, given that I probably lean harder on the battery than most people would.

The ‘mode’ or ‘assist setting’, which ranges from one to five, seems to be based on adjusting the speed limit at which the motor will no longer provide assistance. So a setting of ‘one’ appears to provide power up to 5kph, whereas a setting of ‘five’ will provide power up to the (electronically limited) top speed of 25kph (15.5Mph). I tend to set the mode according to the terrain and type of riding I’m doing. If I’m patrolling a towpath at close to walking speed I keep it at ‘one’, if I’m riding comfortably on the road I have it at ‘three’, if I’m in a hurry I go all the way to ‘five’.

Ware, I've been.

Places I’ve been.

The bike is foldable and just about lightweight enough for me to manage getting it onto and off trains.

My partner lives in North Wales so I took it on the train to Chester, and then cycled from Chester to Connah's Quay in North Wales along a lovely abandoned railway track that provided an excellent ride.

Along the towpaths I've cycled as far as Hertford in the East and Brentford in the West and all the Old Fords through the middle.

Things that have gone wrong.

The front wheel was knocked out of position after journeying on a train with the bike in its folded position, and I didn’t notice until I’d cycled about thirty miles on an increasingly wobbly front wheel. I had to put the retaining washer back into place and tightened the nuts a lot.

A week or two after I got the bike the bike rattled a bit as a lot of nuts needed retightening. I recommend going over the bike and fastidiously checking every fastener regularly during the first couple of months with it - and perhaps once a month after that.

I did fall off of the bike once: I was showing off the bike to a lady friend on a dry field and over-estimated the grip the tyres had on dry grass at speed. I did a quick flip off the bike as it slid out from under me and landed hard on my back. The bike was undamaged, but I bruised my ribs. I’m glad I wear a helmet!

London’s variable quality towpaths are hard on the chassis, especially wherever steel meets aluminium. After three months the left-hand crank lost the aluminium thread that held the steel and plastic folding pedal in place. That had to be resolved by asking Byocycles to send out a replacement crank.

Crank with damaged thread.

Things I’ve bought.

A really good lock (Pitbull, Gold standard 300mm U lock) and a cable for the seat and battery.

I added a second pannier of the type I prefer.

I also bought the tools I needed to replace the damaged crank and a few other tools, including cable cutters and crimps for when I made larger adjustments to the brakes and gear cables. A good quality chain lubricant and oil are a good investment, as is vehicle electrical contact cleaner for the battery connectors. Carrying a short throw bike tool and a pair of folding pliers is sensible.

After a puncture, I replaced the standard tyres with Schwalbe Marathon Plus road tyres. They're a bit skinnier, and less grippy than the knobbly ones supplied with the bike, but I've ridden these tyres on previous bikes and I know they are essentially puncture-proof. Which is important considering the assault London's towpaths makes on bike tyres.

Every day now.

I ride out three or four days out of seven - more than I ever did even before I was diagnosed with MG. My rôle as a volunteer with the Canal and River Trust has expanded, and I'm enjoying every minute of it, even the soggy ones.

My electric bike has been the key to a whole new lease of life.