Sun finally smiled at us Sunday evening after three days of continuous rain. So I could take the trike out for a ride.
After reaching the tar road, I rode three round trips on a 6 km stretch so that total distance covered was about 36 km in about two hours. It was a good experience as I gradually became aware of strengths and limitations of power assist systems.
After about 20 km my distance data suddenly got reset and so I couldn’t say exact total distance covered today. Luckily other data was intact and not lost. I used two third capacity of one battery to cover about 40 km. Power consumption was about 6.2 Wh / km which is pretty good figure. Total power consumption was about 250 Wh and my battery capacity is 370 Wh. That mean I can easily do 50 to 60 km per battery charge. This confirmation is very helpful to look ahead.
Dogs chasing me was a frequent irritant today and I have to work out a strategy to encounter them.
My max speed today was 31 km and average was about 18 km.
Today I had to go to Puttur to drop children to their schools and it was about 1130 when I reached home. I immediately installed charged batteries and got trike ready.
I pedaled about one hour, covered 20 km and consumed about 4 Ah battery power. At one, I decided to come home for lunch.
Afternoon I started @ 2.50 PM and took National Highway towards Uppinangady and covered about 15.5 km one way which took me 43 minutes. I was scared of bus and trucks. Luckily they were giving me wide berth and gradually I became more comfortable. I was pedaling at around 20 kmph on an average and on some downhill speed touched 40 km too. It was very thrilling ride and bit scary too if the road surface was rough.
It consumed 10 Ah battery power covering about 50 km in the afternoon session. More average speed means more battery consumption. I happened to meet Anilkumar on the way & he took some photographs. I could have made another ten to fifteen km if I had continued with pedaling. It looked like it is going to rain too and so I decided to come back.
I am quite comfortable now with twisting throttle on left hand that also has to control front shifter. I could be one of few who feels left hand controls tolerable as normally vehicles are having throttle on right hand or right leg.
People on the road were giving me amazed look most of the way. Many wanted to stop me ands ask dumb questions which I had to refuse with a smile.
So totally I had covered 70 km today. If I had started early instead of 11.30 AM I would have crossed 100 km mark. Sun was shining most part of the day. Same problem about kilometer reading reset did repeat today also but I was frequently noting the readings and so it did not harm too much. Total km covered maybe a km more or less, that is all. Luckily more crucial power monitoring was not affected.
