Cycling UK Forum

I'm just wondering if anyone has done this. A moving on ride of a few hundred miles.
I don't have an e-bike so this is (at the moment) pure just curiosity.
Presumably a spare battery would be a necessity.

On the EV 15 last year we met a couple who were touring on eBikes. They recharged each night wherever they were staying, weren't carrying spare batteries and said that range wasn't a problem for them.

Jonathan

I haven't done one as I don't ride an e-bike, but I have seen a few doing it. For example:

A female on tour in France last year. Heavily loaded with full touring gear. She surprised me as to how fast she went up hill until she stopped for a photo and I saw it was electric, we didn't speak. The year before, I chatted to a young Belgian guy who was doing the WW1 route. He said he had no problems and did carry a spare battery.

I also saw an old guy in Burma touring on an e-bike. He was speeding along the opposite way and I didn't get a chance to chat.

Don't forget that it is impossible (or very nearly) to fly with an e-bike.

About 8 years ago I met a British couple touring in France with electric assist added to their machines. They had been doing this for some years. More recently I have met German couples on electric assist tandems.

On tour, we'd bring the bike into the hotel room and charge it.
If we couldn't bring the bike in the room, we take the battery off,
and charge it in the room. Battery could be charged off bike and
had a 3 step light, to show it was charging or fully charged.
So only 1 battery. The on bike controller had a detailed charge display.

A few summers ago when my wife and I were touring the eurovelo 6 route and camping, we were surprised how often we were asked by campground office people if we wanted an electric site if we had e bikes.
We also saw numerous older folks on e bikes, like lots and lots of them.

I suspect France is especially good for having electric sites, but of course using hotels or b+b's would be easier for charging.

You certainly would have to plan ahead more, and also I suspect spare batteries are expensive.

I have toured with my E bike , I charged the battery up each night in the hotel room. Range is dependant on terrain, starting in the mornings indicated range was about 65 miles after 30 miles stopping for lunch the indicated range would be 60 miles. A spare battery 500 ah is about £500 and weighs 5 kg. This is a lot of additional weight to carry just in case you needed it. To charge a flat battery takes 6 hours .How would you charge 2 batteries with one charger?

On our group tours over the last couple of years we have had a two Cube e-bikes with 500Wh batteries that were charged in the hotel each night. No problem loaded in hilly terrain - we did about 60 miles a day maximum and plenty reserve in the batteries at the end of the day. However, as you can't fly with the e-bike batteries, so for one of the tours we had to drive to Germany with the bikes.

On an earlier tour from Innsbruck to Verona, one of the group had a bad back and he hired an e-bike in Innsbruck for the tour. It only had a 400Wh battery and on one day the battery gave out about 54 miles in, although that was not a hilly day.

It depends on the type of ebike you're using. Something like an Orbea Gain weighs less than a Dawes Galaxy and can comfortably ridden power off. Okay if you're touring you got the additional weight of carrying the charger to take into account but my D20 Gain only weighs 13.5kg, add in the mudguards & rack that the Dawes comes ready fitted with and that's going pretty dammed close to the 15kg an Ultra Galaxy currently weighs in at. Nobody would bat an eyelid if you said you were going off touring on a Dawes Galaxy, say you're doing it on an ebike and they would.

With a bit of care you'll get fifty to sixty miles of power assistance out of the Gain, pushing ninety if you have the range extender, that's 'naked', probably a bit less loaded up. That might not be many miles a day for die-hards of this world, but for most, a comfortable power assisted 75 miles would be more than adequate.

In Germany a couple of years ago we met an "older than us" couple touring on their e-bikes, complete with camping gear. As we were stopped at a nice riverside biergarten, and they could speak good English we chatted for a while about the practicalities of touring on e-bikes. They reported never having issues, they charged up each night on campsites, either from the caravan hookup supply, or just taking batteries to the office and getting them to recharge them. If they ran a bit low during the day they would just stop at a bar and ask for a charge while they drank a beer. They were in their early 70s, and seemed completely chilled about it.

Of course touring with an e bike could have issues of if a plug gets accidentally pulled out and not noticed, with a surprise in morning, that sort of very rare thing.

While not the case at this point, but a real factor in the future is battery degradation over time. We all know how batteries start to behave strangely with time, holding less charge and doing sudden drops when they get older.
Not a factor with things being new, but will be in the near ish future with a lot of these bikes as they age, and important to be aware of , especially with being away from home.

And then we get into proprietory battery issues, again down the road.

wait for better battery tech then will be the way to do it?

The following comments are based on my 3 year's experience of commuting on my 'leccy Brompton.
First, be pretty clear what your battery discharge is over a day, ie have carried out enough real-world (fully-loaded) trips to know how long one lasts, how far you are likely to go in a day, and thus whether you'll need a spare battery.
Two, be pretty clear what your re-charge arrangments will be - B&B vs camp sites vs wild camping, for example. This choice affects how sure you can be that your batteries will be recharged.
Three, be pretty clear about how you will cope when / if your battery capacity ends, short of your day's destination.
If all three are in your favour, I see no reason why you shouldn't carry on indefinitely.
Thinking about me and my Brompton, and my liking for nothern France, I would be happy travelling light, taking 2 x 4 amp hour batteries, doing up to a max. of 50 miles a day, staying at chambre d'hotes each night, and expecting both batteries to be fully charged each morning. I would also be happy that I can cycle my Brompton readily without electric assistance - if both batteries conked out 5 miles short of my destination, it wouldn't be a problem, however some e-bikes are much heavier than a 'leccy Brompton and dial in a full load of camping gear, and I think flat batteries could be a problem for some folk...

You might think that my previous post is stating the bloomin' obvious, but there is a stark difference between electric-assisted touring & unassisted. The former depends fairly strictly on physics - the batteries will only last so far, depending on the factors referred to. Traditional touring is more flexible - you can keep going for as long as you have the determination to.

simonineaston wrote:You might think that my previous post is stating the bloomin' obvious, but there is a stark difference between electric-assisted touring & unassisted. The former depends fairly strictly on physics - the batteries will only last so far, depending on the factors referred to. Traditional touring is more flexible - you can keep going for as long as you have the determination to.

Thanks to all for the information - I've always done traditional touring and sometimes things don't always go to plan -which for me is where your determination comes in Simon.
I've had nudges by well meaning others to try electric - but I've been reluctant to try it as long as I can manage the hills.
I last did a multi day ride in 2018 when I was 77.
I was hoping to do a multi day ride this year,(Brest to Dieppe since you didn't ask), but events may prevent this although I'd still attempt it in September if it's possible.
I'm sure there are many more mature than me able to complete such a ride - but I suppose that some time in the future I'm going to have to consider the e-bike.
I remember about fifty years ago on the way to Perpignan, encountering an elderly ( maybe not) Priest who was on one of the old Velox motor driving front tyre bikes. I think they were limited to about 15mph
We passed and repassed over a couple of days. I suppose range wasn't a problem for him.