HadesOmega's Stonyford Memorial Day Ride

[HadesOmega]

Stonyford is so open! Did the THill track day and headed to Stonyford and did some electro dirtbiking action with the Sur Ron Light Bee on Memorial Day. When I was driving down the M10 I looked down below and there were HELLA people camping. Everyone popped smoke when the heat rolled in during memorial day though. It's almost as if Shelter in Place is non existant here!

I know there was a big fire at Stony a while back like last year but all the trails I rode (I didn't ride all of them) were open and in good shape. All I have to say electric bike + hot weather + stonyford hillclimbs = controller overheat (thermal cutback). Best to come when temps aren't in triple digits. I did exactly what I said rode in the morning. Came back to camp and charged the bike and tried to chill out till it got cooler then went for another ride. It was so hot but depending where you were it would be cooler like on Potato Hill it was cooler because it's higher up and more canopy up there.

First Ride was Potato Hill

Potato Hill

About 85% up the crest of Potato Hill the controller overheated so I had to take a break

Turns out it overheated at almost top, a constant 2000ft climb = hot controller

Singletrack at the top of Potato Hill

 

[HadesOmega]

Back down the hill

No shortage of great views up here

Before I head down 2000 feet let's go do the steepest section, I took the more gentle one up. I think I nearly made it to the top but I decided to turn around as my state of charge was around 24%. You'd think you'd want to turn around around 50%, but remember what the mountain taketh away on the climb it will giveth it back on the way down.

Had to take a break here and cool the controller down. The nice thing about this climb is it goes up in steps. It turns out according to the Google Earth map it looks like I made it to the very last step and turned around. Bummer but I was running out of juice and the last step was the steepest one and the controller was overheating again. Now I suppose if I did get stuck I might be able to just push the bike up it.

 

[HadesOmega]

Time to head back down

On the way down I noticed this trail was lined by these little purple flowers

It's been awhile since I have seen these amazing views

So check this out. This shows you just how much altitude you gain and loose riding on Potato Hill. It just got up one way and goes down the other for 2000ish feet. I started off with 24% on the battery and I was working the regen on the way down and I noticed hey I gained a percent back 1% bringing the SOC to 25%! That's the first time I had noticed the battery was actually getting a significant charge back! Generally when you go down a hill you pretty much don't gain or lose any SOC (state of charge) it'll generally be the same but this is the first time I saw it going up! By the time I got back to the floor at 1600ft I had gained about 3%! It went from 24% to 27%! Pretty amazing the climb/descent and the regen on the Light Bee was pretty amazing.

And back to camp. It was great up top Potato Hill, the weather was nice and there was a canopy. Down here it already 80F+, I fired up the generator and charged the Light Bee. Eventually the temps go to 100F it was soooo hot!

I rode my Empulse up the M10 for a while. It wound up turning into an adventure ride because I forgot half the road going to Lett's Lake was dirt. Got to do some electric scrambler action. But yeah the parts near Lett's Lake was where all the burned stuff is. I couldn't even get to the Lake everything was closed in the end.

 

[banshee01]

Really cool man thanks for sharing

 

[budman]

Even your pictures look hot!!

Good stuff Merlin.. as always

 

[HadesOmega]

Charging Light Bee took roughly 3 hours to charge it back up. I had a fan for the track day also to keep the battery cool.

I camped at Mill Creek Campground. I literally took the first campsite I found. The good thing about is yep there's a creek right next to it. So I able to periodically walk down here and take a dip in the water cool off When the temps were at the peak I wish I coulda gone swimming in it. There nothing more refreshing after coming back from a ride and wading through the creek.

Battle Crocs

Ah Mill Creek was nice to have it right next to my camp.

 

[Cabrito]

Good stuff Merlin! Is the controller ok with repeated shutdowns? Are you worried about it totally failing at some point?

 

[HadesOmega]

In theory it should be fine. That's the reason it starts dialing back the power to protect the electronics. But it was super hot, I put my hand on the heatsink and you didn't want to hold it there long. This is the first time I had experienced this also I've ridden this bike pretty hard and it's usually the battery that overheats first. So Stony was pretty rough on it. But yeah I was worried about frying the controller so I made sure and took breaks whenever it got too hot, you can definitely feel the power come back after it cools down. Haha this is the first time I've had to stop to give the bike a break usually it's the other way around!

 

[byke]

The only acceptable use for crocs.

How far does it let you run the battery down on the Sur-Ron, percentage wise? And I assume the voltage is displayed somewhere? Do you happen to know about what the voltage reads at the lowest percentage it will let you run it down?

 

[jolo9534]

cool, definatly gonna check it out next month. i was actually pitted right next to ya at t-hill. orange tacoma.

 

[HadesOmega]

The only acceptable use for crocs.

How far does it let you run the battery down on the Sur-Ron, percentage wise? And I assume the voltage is displayed somewhere? Do you happen to know about what the voltage reads at the lowest percentage it will let you run it down?

I don't have the stock controller I'm running a ASI BAC2000, but it will let you run it to like 3% pretty low. The battery itself has a SOC gauge on it. The controller is programmed to protect the battery from over discharge. The battery also has a BMS to protect it from overdischarge, overheat, and over errr cooling.

I have ran it all the way dead and the lowest voltage I will see it sag is 49volts. It's a 60 volt battery so you don't want to discharge it lower than 50 volts. The controller is pretty good at dialing back the power to prevent overdischarge also I've watched it.

Stonyford is a strange place to ride an electric bike because it's not very flat at all. It will eat up power like crazy climbing but going downhill it will actually gain charge, so I knew if I discharged it to like 20% I could still make it back because it's all downhill. Generally I will turn around at around 50% like when I was on the Rubicon.

 

[byke]

Was just kind of curious where they set zero, because we know zero isn't truly zero, or else the battery would be one time use. That pack is 16s and if you've seen 49v at "zero", then the controller is set to ~3.065v/cell cutoff, which is an understandable tradeoff. Tough to tell what the capacity is at zero because I think you'd need to know the average discharge rate for those PF cells, per this chart. I'd guess you're using 65-75% of those 32ah's. A fun project would be to make a battery generator that could get a full recharge in, plus of course it'd be useful for all sorts of stuff, phones, music, etc. You could get one of these and like 30 of these (6s/5p) and that should do it. There's a yo-dawg in there somewhere, e-charge your e-charge.

 

[HadesOmega]

Was just kind of curious where they set zero, because we know zero isn't truly zero, or else the battery would be one time use. That pack is 16s and if you've seen 49v at "zero", then the controller is set to ~3.065v/cell cutoff, which is an understandable tradeoff. Tough to tell what the capacity is at zero because I think you'd need to know the average discharge rate for those PF cells, per this chart. I'd guess you're using 65-75% of those 32ah's. A fun project would be to make a battery generator that could get a full recharge in, plus of course it'd be useful for all sorts of stuff, phones, music, etc. You could get one of these and like 30 of these (6s/5p) and that should do it. There's a yo-dawg in there somewhere, e-charge your e-charge.

Actually haha now that you mention it, I was watching this video the other day and it got my head scratching. That's a lotta cells. I used to build batteries back in the day for RC cars but that was like 6 or 7 cells. This is a bit more complicated. But if I could build something like this I could recharge this in day and recharge my bike at the end of the day. It'd be quieter also =P


youtu.be/PVnQ87Fvsk4

 

[HadesOmega]

I rode my Empulse up the M10 for a while. I had it with me and charged up to about 65% when I left the track. It wound up turning into an adventure ride because I forgot half the road going to Lett's Lake was dirt. Got to do some electric scrambler action. But yeah the parts near Lett's Lake was where all the burned stuff is. I couldn't even get to the Lake everything was closed in the end.

Great views before the Empulse got dirty

Pictures from the top of Potato Hill. You can start seeing signs of burnt forest.

 

[James]

Ha! I saw you, but I was a passenger on a husky 501. A buddy gave me a ride to the top of potato hill to launch my paraglider. I was carrying a bag about the size of me, and he was riding like I wasnt on the back....

James

*edit - I posted a quick clip in the paragliding thread in non-moto.

 

[HadesOmega]

Oh haha I remember you, I was WTH? These dudes are riding 2up and one has this huge backpack on. Cool I'll check out your video.

Forgot to add some pictures of the rest of the Empulse ride. I did make it to Lett's lake however this was where the a major forest fire was. I couldn't actually make it to the lake because the lake access was closed It was cooler up here though.

Still some great views out here

More burnt forest, you can see Lett's Lake in the back there somewhere, this is the closest I got

Some pictures from the return trip

 

[HadesOmega]

OK the heat is starting to subside and the Light Bee has a full charge let's go riding. It's about 6pm it's just hella hot today not enough wind also. This is the last ride because I can't take another day of this heat I decided on to ride the trails that go towards the opening of the park. I pass by it all the time when driving to Stonyford OHV and always wonder what the trails are like on this side of the park. Let's just say HILLCLIMB MANIA!

The first section of the ride is to take the Trail 39 called Mill Creek Parallel. This my favorite trail in the park. It is pretty much a single track. It's near the camping area, it's not that difficult but it flows really well. You can also make a loop out of it. The Light Bee rips through it pretty easily so much fun like a rollercoaster.

 

[byke]

Haha that's awesome you two crossed paths out there in the middle of nowhere.

 

[HadesOmega]

Ok time for a hillclimb warm up because there are going to be several hillclimbs up ahead! On the M5 it branches off to Trail 30 which we will be taking down to the Wolf Creek staging area. Before we go down there are these 2 fairly steep climbs and the Light Bee makes quick work of them. The 2nd one it struggles a little bit at the top. Those Kenda Trakmaster and Shinko F456 tires help with the traction department. Also it's kinda hard to tell in the Google Earth pictures but a lot of the climbs or downhills in the park are stepped. What I mean is it will go up then level off then start climbing again. I don't know if this helps or not because everytime I fly off one of those steps I loose momentum and if I try not to jump them I lose momentun by rolling off a bit. The hillclimbs don't just go straight up the hill is what I'm saying, so the good thing is if the bike does overheat I can take a brake at one of the steps rather than trying to go down and back up or ride it out.

This is looking down the first Climb

The second climb is even steeper as it gets closer to the top. Light Bee struggles a bit but makes it up there.

From here you get a great view of Fouts Springs/Davis Flats area down below where I'm camping. If you look at the mountain straight ahead you see Potato Hill where we were riding earlier in the day.

 

[HadesOmega]

Ok next section is TRAIL 30. This goes down all the way to the main road that goes into the park. It's all down hill all the way to the road. Some pretty steep. The regen throttle works fantastic going down this hill. Sometimes a little too much braking it locks the tire up. I have the controller programmed to give 65% of the motor's power used to regen when I have the throttle full depressed. Better have a rim lock here! I was afraid such a long downhill will overheat the battery because I've had it before, so I use some front brake also. I have to say 65% and the 60tooth rear sprocket is too much braking it just locks up in the dirt. But that's the beauty of the regen throttle if I can precisely adjust the amount of regen. So I had a kind of hill decent control on the way down. I'm sure I gain a percent of two of charge on the way down like when I went down Potato Hill. That's how steep and long this downhill was.

Here we go! BTW I'm not the best downhill rider, I rather just cruise down the hill.

From here we can see the town of Stonyford. It is also getting pretty rocky here. I think this is rockiest trail I rode while I was out here. Good thing it's on the downhill.

And we we've made it down the hill to the road. There is a stop sign here and you cross over to the other side. It's one of dem OHV crossings.