Second bike issues?

[peterb]

Thinking of purchasing another e-road bike, a blingy 'summer bike' as it were. As it's difficult to ride two bikes at the same time, at some times of the year one of them is likely to see a lot less use than the other, and may spend a considerable time unused. Having suffered a loss of battery capacity on the existing Orbea Gain as, due to sudden onset of illness, it was left fully charged for a number of weeks last year, I am wondering if there is a fool proof way to deal with this - other than riding both bikes more, of course

[DevonDamo]

The ideal solution would be to get a second bike which takes the same battery as your first. Then you can double your range by taking both batteries on each trip, and you can keep using/cycling both batteries, regardless of which bike you're using.

Other than that, eBike batteries are typically just big boxes full of lithium ion laptop (18650) batteries connected together in whatever combination of series and parallel connections you need to give the required voltage and current. So a Google search on 'prolong life lithium ion batteries' will bring up loads of info. Here's a page specifically aimed at eBike batteries:

https://www.bikinguniverse.com/how-long-do-ebike-batteries-last/#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20best%20ways,ranges%20to%20store%20your%20battery.

[peterb]

Same battery advice impractical as the bike I have - Orbea Gain - has a difficult to remove battery in the down tube. I now charge to no more than 80% unless a long ride is planned when I top up to 100% just before. If one follows the 20% min, 80% max rule isn't your potential range severely restricted? The bike manufacturers don't advertise this advice very loudly - so if a 100km range is quoted if you want to prolong battery life what we are really talking about is only 60km - not so impressive.

[DevonDamo]

Same battery advice impractical as the bike I have - Orbea Gain - has a difficult to remove battery in the down tube. I now charge to no more than 80% unless a long ride is planned when I top up to 100% just before. If one follows the 20% min, 80% max rule isn't your potential range severely restricted? The bike manufacturers don't advertise this advice very loudly - so if a 100km range is quoted if you want to prolong battery life what we are really talking about is only 60km - not so impressive.

Yep. no doubt about it - there's a compromise being made between maximising your battery's lifespan and maximising your range per charge - the same as with your phone and laptop batteries. However, as I understand it, the issue to be avoided is keeping them at maximum charge over long periods of time (especially at warm temperatures) so your practice of topping up to 100% just before the ride sounds like the best approach to maximise your range without severely affecting the longevity. With a second bike, you'd just need to work out how frequently you need to top it up to keep it from dropping below 20%.

All a bit of a faff, I agree. Maybe having two ebikes isn't a good idea if one only comes out on rare occasions.

[richtea99]

Oh, that's a blow. How bad is the battery?

A Fazua-based bike allows transfer from bike to bike (as mentioned above). They're a similar weight to an Orbea - maybe 0.5-1 Kg more I'd estimate.
However, it's a bit late now.

(We have one of each type. We were planning to have two Fazua-based bikes and then buy one spare battery to share between us. Then a cheap Orbea turned up and messed up the plan.)