The Overnighter Tour Test

Heading South on Hwy CO. 115 up one of the several long up hill grades!​

We decided that with the help our our low level rear wheel hub motor, e-assist set up's that maybe we could "tour" again a bit, (LOL, when & IF, we figure out how to FUND these tours in the future!)

We decided that we'd see if we could do back to back 50 miles days so we headed south of Colorado Springs to Canon City, CO. to spend the night then head back home the next day. We headed out to get over to CO. Hwy. 115 S., this is the back way to highway 50 E or W. Our goal was to get to a little hamlet called Penrose, CO. for lunch, then hook up with CO. Hwy. 50 W into Canon City. Well it worked pretty well, it took us 5 hrs. and a bit, (2,400 ft. of altitude gain) but Hwy. 115 has a lot of HILLS and some long uphill grades with the assist it made it possible to do this ride and not be totally wiped out when we got there. Our systems have Level 1-5 assist settings and even on the longest uphill grade or steepest short hill, we never had to use above Level 3! Not bad for a couple of 65 year old's, that usually only ride between 15 and 25 miles a ride!! Here's the funny part, I decided that my 10 year old snapshot camera was "toast" and decided that since my little Vivaitar HD Video Camera can also take still photos I'd only use one camera and just take photos and NO VIDEO. Only problem is kept forgetting about a extra button push to go from Vid to Photo and ended up a video anyway, LOL! Well kinda, what I didn't know is that my camera MOUNT was slowly breaking (cracking) and so between the RPIA Rumble Strips and even larger Rumble PATCHES (3x5 FEET!!), they've installed on a lot of Hwy. CO. 115, (which will shake your teeth out of your head if you run over them!!) It would make the camera very unstable so the video is a bit wobbly in several places, sorry.

We got back to Colorado Springs 4:30 PM (3,117 ft. of altitude gain) on Friday June 12 and although we were a bit fried (90F temps and very little SHADE) we enjoyed the ride. Now are trying to workout at least a "once a month" over nighter or week
endear tour for the rest of the summer. Hopefully the next video will be MUCH better! Note: I have LOW speed internet thru my phone and had to compress the video from 1080p to 360p and with my FREE program I only get 1/3rd. of the actual video to be able to upload to my you tube channel! Enjoy!

 

We used 2 out of 4 bars according to the display in 50 miles, we stayed the night in a motel in Canon City, (pronounced CANYON), we charged the batteries, it took about 3 hrs per battery, we only brought 1 charger, next time we will bring BOTH! I'd say we could get 80 miles before it's down to 20% charge and they say that's as LOW as you should ever go! So if we show 3-bars used, it's time to NOT use the E-assist. We only really used it going up steep short hills and longer up hill grades, we did a lot of pedaling other wise it would have not lasted more than 20-25 miles. The problem with solar panels is yes, to expensive for our meger budget and to do any rear charging they'd have to become like a "canopy" overhead from what I've been reading about them. Maybe some day they will figure out how to build a SMALL but very powerful solar panel, that would be GREAT!!

 

Power hubs are in my future!!!!

 

LOL, well I'll have to admit, I wasn't really thrilled with the idea having the "expense" of E-assist, at least for ME! Still, after seeing the improvements JoLynn was making and having her have to WAIT FOR ME at the top of hills, changed my mind and now I don't regret the money to buy and install our E-assist set up's!!