Battery charge options
 

I am out riding my electric bike when I notice the battery charge is too low to get me back home.
Assuming I have the charger with me what are my options for plugging in to recharge the battery enough to get me back home?

IMHO, any outlet you find will belong to someone else and your using it is essentially theft unless you have permission. For example, any contractors at my house ask before using these. As far as I know there are no publicly available outlets for this service.

Our peddle assist e bikes will easily get 60 miles on a full charge riding in the Village’s where there aren’t any hills. I can’t see us ever needing a charge until we get home. Up north, in the hill towns, it’s a different story, on some rides we can blow through a full charge in 25 miles using turbo mode on the steep hills.

Been there, done that. I live between 466A and Brownwood. I took off with 3/4 green lights and rode to Fenney. It was then I realized that the first green light lasts for 50% of the ride while the last 3 lights last for the final 50%. It’s not a linear discharge. I rode it home sans the electric over both bridges and after a few liters of IV fluids (not really), the last green light came back on in Brownwood and I made it home. What a workout! I learned to ALWAYS recharge the battery to full after each ride regardless of the remaining charge. Can also carry a second battery for around $500.

Maybe not so practical but if you're going to carry your charger you could add something like this to extended the range at a lower cost than a second battery?

https://a.co/d/bLxF9Br

I have a pedal assist e-bike and it is on the lighter side at 28 pounds. Even with the motor off I can pretty much maintain 16-19 mph, but I like to regularly use my motor especially when the pace picks up or we hit hills. If you have a throttle controlled e-bike they are much heavier and might be hard to ride without the motor on. You can tell these bikes as they have balloon tires and the riders can be going 20 mph without pedaling. If I stop pedaling my bike slows down to a stop. I have an additional battery on my bike that charges and discharges in sync with the main bike battery. I can usually get three rides or 125 miles out of that set up. No way would I carry my heavy charger with all the cords and plug ins on my bike. My bike takes 3 hours to charge plus where are you going to plug it in? Get to know your bike and then you can figure out how far you can go. My bike syncs with my Garmin bike computer and I know exactly how much charge I have. I have never run out of charge in over 10,000 miles of riding. (But there was that one 60 mile ride where I had not charged it properly and when I turned it on at the start of the ride it read 36% charge! I had the motor mostly off and rode with slower riders and used it only when I hit hills or got tired. I had 17% left when I got back but I was very worried at the beginning of the ride. Some of those hills were steep and I am getting old!)

Peddle, it will make it a learning experience so you never forget to charge it. I wouldn’t carry my charger with me. What happens if you get caught in the rain, I wouldn’t want the charger to get wet. If this isn’t the 1st time you forgot to charge your bike before an outing, I wouldn’t get a backup battery and have that fully charged. I just got a couple at $100 off during the Black Friday/Christmas sales.

Rec centers have outside outlets by the front doors. Ask permission first, of course

As a former peddler (salesperson) who now rides a pedal (foot control or powered by feet on pedals) bicycle I would like to say how much fun it is to ride a bike and have the wind in your hair. If you get an e-bike you can ride well into your eighties. (I hope!)

A couple of thoughts:

Carrying a charger - I’m too impatient to wait for a 2 or 3 amp charger.

Range - An e-bikes range is always a guessing game. Study how far you can go on different battery levels. Write them down. The display showing the percentage remaining is usually wrong. If your display shows voltage remains, use that to ESTIMATE your range, and as someone else pointed out, battery discharge is not linear. You go farther on a volt at a higher charge level than you will a lower one. The battery manufacturers usually publish a chart correlating remaining voltage to the ACTUAL percentage of remaining battery.

Recharging your battery - This advice came from a respected e-bike engineer! Maximize battery life, discharge the battery to 20% (do not drain it to the low-voltage cut off) then charge it to only 80%. He does recommend a workaround, if you want to charge to 100% be sure to drain off at least one volt within 12 hours or so of when the battery is finished charging.

Cheers

Go to a tennis court. Most of them have ac receptacles.

Same as golf carts............Just as Tink say, theft.

The question ask been asked about Rec Centers and the answer was "not available for public use".

Permission from who? Is the person at the desk authorized to allow the taking of electricity? I agree with some of the others. Why ask for free electric supply when proper planning would eliminate the need for it. I don't let my gas tank go empty, and if I did, I would not ask for a free fill up.

Promoting theft?

People use power inside the rec centers all the time for many things.

Seems bringing your bike battery pack inside to recharge would be no different than plugging in a notebook computer, crock pot, hobby tools, music system, etc.

Maybe prohibiting the use of exterior outlets is a partly safety issues such as devices not rated for outside use.