Lay My Hat

Ok, we've talked about how to deal with charging 'electric' cars, now what about bikes?
I see they are becoming more popular in our area which has a lot of cycling routes but also a lot of hills. Firms are renting them out by the week so they will need charging.
Should owners worry about the cost of guests using their electricity to charge bikes?
A quick google told me an 'average' full charge would cost around 25p/0,30€ but obviously this will depend on the type of power pack and how much your electricity costs you.
One thing which would worry me from a safety point of view would be guests arriving with their own bike(s) with foreign plugs on them using a basic adaptor to plug in. Cheap adaptors are not meant for anything more than low loads such as iPods & hairdriers.
Has anybody got any factual info to share?

I took a quick look and the batteries for bikes i came across took around 1.6kws, a hairdrier is around 2.2kws, but if 3 or 4 are charging at the same time that would overload a 16 amp sockets.

Hello Circé

I own and almost daily use an electric bike since 2012 (52 km per day).
The cost of charging the battery is about 1 euro/ 1000 km and the "amperage" (sorry, I do not know the English word) to charge it is about 2 amperes/hour. Meaning less than a LCD TV.

Therefore, I suggest you to provide a few power adaptors to your foreign guests: they will appreciate and you will remain quiet.

Regards,

François

Circé and Francois where are you both based?

I am warming to this idea of offering guests charging facilities both for cars and for bikes. Would they use the same kind of charging point?

Our house is in mountain area and our villa 400m above the coast. Do you think these bikes could be practical for commuting to our beaches and nearby towns?

Also, 1 euro a charge, exactly how much range would one have in a very hilly area?

Hello Cleanforum,

I am based in Savoie (but the flat that I am proposing as holiday rental is located in Haute-Savoie, at Megève).

I do not know the technical specifications of electric car-charging.
About bikes, what ever being the system (Bosch, Panasonic, Yamaha...) no specific installation is needed: the charger is plugged to any house power connector. The battery can be removed from the bike, meaning that bikes can be stored outside.

I think that electric bikes could perfectly be used in your case. I leave at 400 m above the see and use my bike to go at work. The return travel is 52 km and the total positive elevation is 1000 m. You can see the profile of my itinerary on the below image.
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About the cost of the charge, it is 1 Euro per 1000 km (not per charge). The range of one charge depends of multiple factors: the battery capacity, the percentage of assistance (low means more autonomy; high assistance means less km), the weight of the cyclist and bike, the age of the battery, the outside temperature... In my case (total weight 100kg; 400 Wh; low to mid assistance), I am able to make the return travel with 1 single charge.

I hope that this information will be useful.
Regards,

François

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Thanks Francois for that informative reply. Thinking about buying one myself now.

I have a Matra electric bike and I use it regularly to travel to local towns - around 40kms round trips.

It's excellent for this but the land around here is relatively flat, it's a heavy bike and the few hills we have need a fair bit of effort to climb, even with the power assist. Nothing that a relatively fit person couldn't handle but, if you have major hills (like we had in the Dordogne), you might find the bike spending more time in the shed than on the road!