The eBike Rant Thread
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As I mentioned elsewhere, I purchased an electric bike last december. A great bike, I should say here, but of course there are some things to rant about.
Because, this site’s motto is
, and we want to have 
.An electric car ranting thread exists already
in the 
, but I assume that this thread might be not so garagey.
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USB Device Charging
Bernie travels into far away regions with the bike, so there is a Garmin Oregon GPS unit mounted on the
stirringsteering bar. That thingy sucks a pair of AA batteries empty within 4.5 to 6 hours, which means that during a day tour, the batteries need to be replaced.Since the ebike comes with a really large battery (750 mWh), it has lots of electrons available. Is there some USB port to get some juice for my GPS?
No, there isn’t.
More
still: the Bosch Kiox 300 item does not have that. But its predecessor had.
Thank you, Bosch
!, said several people on other for a in the internetz.Now I could buy a €50 smartphone holder which would allow for inductive charging…
Two points: the Garmin Oregon form factor is not compatible. And my smartphone does not support inductive charging.
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@BernieTheBernie said in The eBike Rant Thread:
Bernie travels into far away regions with the bike, so there is a Garmin Oregon GPS
Apparently Kiox has apps. What's the platform? Enlightenment?
I guess it's the same situation as with @Tsaukpaetra's not-very-smartwatch.
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It all sounds like Smart Devices designed to carefully not integrate with other manufacturer's Smart Devices. Or older versions of the same manufacturer's devices.
The Internet of
thread is
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Bosch Ebike App
Bosch offers a smartphone application to connect to the bike, and read out some data, do navigation, trace tours, etc (that’s the Kiox app: it runs on the phone, connects with the bike, and routing can be shown on the Kiox display). Let me try that.
After downloading it from Google Playstore (which again requests my payment data for a free app – but I do not give them to Google
), it walks you through an assistant. “Of course”, I have to set up an account at Bosch. Give them my email address (bastards!), my first name (well, they do not check it), then they send a security code to my email address to enter in the app.Next step: connect to the bike. The app reports failure after failure, while the bike shows “connected”. Bluetooth, as bluetoothy as it can be. After restarting the app, it works. Yeah!
Now I can really get data which I cannot see on the bike’s display: the distances driven at the different engine levels. 339 km turbo, 799 km emtb, 188 km tour+, 964 km eco, 2642 km off.
And I can adjust the engine support at those levels. Well, not all parameters, and the parameters shown are not well described. Somewhere in the internetz I read that e.g. “tour+” starts at 60% engine support (the bike measures your pedaling power and adds that additional engine power); but it may reach 340% when you do really powerful pedaling. I would like to set the start point for that power increase at 100W pedaling power, it seems to be rather 150W now. How to do that? I do not understand it at all.
The app can trace my tours. It needs to access the “location services” (GPS), of course. But where would the data be stored? I did not read through their TC yet, let me assume … And: the trace would not include pedaling power at place/time or motor power which would be interesting extras. And it cannot connect to my heart rate sensor. Wow!
Pft, I do not need that: I have the Garmin anyway. And when I need the phone after a long tour, its battery will not have been sucked empty…
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@BernieTheBernie That's the nice thing about my VanMoof S5 - it's got a USB-C port at the front along with an SP Connect mount.
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@Rhywden I am looking forward to some manufacturers showing Bosch the
for their bad design decision.
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@BernieTheBernie said in The eBike Rant Thread:
Give them my email address (bastards!), my first name (well, they do not check it), then they send a security code to my email address to enter in the app.
Warum, kurwa? It's an Android app downloaded from Google play. Getting that information from the Google account through which it was downloaded would have been much simpler.
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@Bulb said in The eBike Rant Thread:
Warum, kurwa? It's an Android app downloaded from Google play. Getting that information from the Google account through which it was downloaded would have been much simpler.
Incompetence. A failure to understand the first tutorial on OpenID as it applies to these sorts things (tutorials are almost always for Google's or Facebook's ID systems, as people widely have accounts there already).
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Firmware Update
The app allows for a firmware update of the bike. Of course, it showed that a new firmware is available immediately after connection. Let’s do it.
Frist, it downloads the new firmware to the phone. Does not take too long.
Secnod, it shows “transferring firmware to bike. This may take 20 min” 20 minutes?
So I walk to my computer and read the most interesting messages of all times. WDTWTF.3th, I can now start the update proper. “4 min”… After that the bike is re-started – without a failure message.
During that time my poor mobile got quite warm. And its battery was sucked severely (see above).
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@BernieTheBernie said in The eBike Rant Thread:
WDTWTF.
What Does This Waterwheel Turn For?
Why Don’t The Warthogs Try Foraging?
Weasels Doing The Waltz Till Friday?
When Does This Wasteful Thread Finish?
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@Gurth What Dhe Taily What The Fu
nck.
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@BernieTheBernie said in The eBike Rant Thread:
Since the ebike comes with a really large battery (750 mWh),
This assessment of a 750 mWh battery as "really large" has been bothering me ever since I first saw the post. And, well, I looked it up. A typical alkaline AA battery has 1800-ish to 2800-ish mAh, which is approximately 2700-4200 mWh at 1.5V, so I think maybe you might have meant 750 Wh...
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@Steve_The_Cynic
kWh- oh, wait, no, ratherMWh. Ah, no better:GWh.TWh. arrggghhhh
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@BernieTheBernie said in The eBike Rant Thread:
TWh
Yeah, wouldn't want to be around when that battery catches fire.
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@cvi
But me!
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@cvi said in The eBike Rant Thread:
@BernieTheBernie said in The eBike Rant Thread:
TWh
Yeah, wouldn't want to be around when that battery catches fire.
I wouldn't want to be in the same country with that, TBQH. Apparently, according to the Internet's repository of useless conversions:
1 Terawatt Hour = 860.4206500956 Kilotons Of TNT
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@dkf I mean ... no need to be that dramatic; I think it's on the scale of a mid-sized nuke.
Of course, if the country is Lichtenstein, then yes, you wouldn't want to be in the same country.
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Sadly, El Reg’s standards converter doesn’t have energy as a unit.
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@cvi said in The eBike Rant Thread:
I think it's on the scale of a mid-sized nuke.
I'm not too keen on being in the same country as a ground-level mid-sized nuke detonation either.
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@dkf said in The eBike Rant Thread:
@cvi said in The eBike Rant Thread:
I think it's on the scale of a mid-sized nuke.
I'm not too keen on being in the same country as a ground-level mid-sized nuke detonation either.
Depends on the size of the country. I'm in
; if it detonated in DC or Hollyweird, it wouldn't bother me a bit.
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@cvi said in The eBike Rant Thread:
@BernieTheBernie said in The eBike Rant Thread:
TWh
Yeah, wouldn't want to be around when that battery catches fire.
Especially since we're talking about 750 of whatever unit suffix, suggesting ... a lot. (At 860 Kt per TWh, that's almost as much as 13 Tsar Bombas.)
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@Steve_The_Cynic said in The eBike Rant Thread:
@cvi said in The eBike Rant Thread:
@BernieTheBernie said in The eBike Rant Thread:
TWh
Yeah, wouldn't want to be around when that battery catches fire.
Especially since we're talking about 750 of whatever unit suffix, suggesting ... a lot. (At 860 Kt per TWh, that's almost as much as 13 Tsar Bombas.)
Would probably be a light show you could see on the other side of the globe.
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@dkf said in The eBike Rant Thread:
I'm not too keen on being in the same country as a ground-level mid-sized nuke detonation either.
I'd focus more on the actual distance regardless. For example, that detonation taking place in Baarle-Hertog and you being in Baarle-Nassau would technically put you in a different country, but I'd still think you'd be having a 0 out of 10 experience overall.
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@cvi It might or might put you in a different country, depending on which house you were in.
Really, dudes and dudettes, look closely at a map of that area. It's one of the very few places on the planet where there's an exclave of country A inside an exclave of country B that's inside country A.
EDIT: and those exclaves are smaller than the town they are in...
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@Steve_The_Cynic
It would probably solve all border questions for that area
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@Rhywden said in The eBike Rant Thread:
@Steve_The_Cynic said in The eBike Rant Thread:
@cvi said in The eBike Rant Thread:
@BernieTheBernie said in The eBike Rant Thread:
TWh
Yeah, wouldn't want to be around when that battery catches fire.
Especially since we're talking about 750 of whatever unit suffix, suggesting ... a lot. (At 860 Kt per TWh, that's almost as much as 13 Tsar Bombas.)
Would probably be a light show you could see on the other side of the globe.
I forget which part of the series it's in but The Expanse has a fun few chapters on the aftermath of something like this.
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Counting Calories
Since the engine power is determined by your pedaling power, the bike comes with a sensor for that. It can show your current power on the display – I do typically 70-100 Watts. And next, it is possible to sum it up (actually an “integration” in mathematical terms, or a Riemann Sum
), and viola, it shows “Calories” with the unit of “kcal”.As I mentioned in a different thread, the number displayed there is actually kilo-Joules. That’s just off by a factor of 4.something…
But there’s more fun. While rolling downhill without pedaling, I had the screen showing the view with the total distance and the trip’s calories. And … not only the total distance was increasing (well, that’s expected to happen), but also calories.
How can that happen?
Do you remember the Volkswagen Clean Diesel software? It was not developed by Volkswagen themselves. They had a different company developing it for them – Bosch.
See: with their creative capabilities, they can also create perfect software for the keen sportive electric biker. You’ll burn lots of calories without too much strain.
This is
BEST PRACTISE
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While I normally start my tours on bike a little uphill before going downhill, curiosity led me to passivley roll down the hill. Without absofuckinglutely any pedaling, I managed to spend
8 kcalfor2.4 kmin just over5 min.I haven't yet further investigated of they add
1 kcalfor every300 m(eter), or assume30 Wfor sitting on the moving bike (at least, it does not add extra calories when the bike is switched on but not moving ).Yes, sitting on a moving bike is a really hard workout.
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@BernieTheBernie said in The eBike Rant Thread:
Yes, sitting on a moving bike is a really hard workout.
Depends, I've had rides where the going down was almost as straining as going up. Climbing over a road and going down offroad
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@Luhmann Oh, you haven't yet had to carry your bike (with your holiday luggage on it) a stony road downhill?
That's where the real fun starts!
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@Luhmann said in The eBike Rant Thread:
@BernieTheBernie said in The eBike Rant Thread:
Yes, sitting on a moving bike is a really hard workout.
Depends, I've had rides where the going down was almost as straining as going up. Climbing over a road and going down offroad
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@dcon
#whatIthinkIlooklike
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@BernieTheBernie said in The eBike Rant Thread:
it shows “Calories” with the unit of “kcal”.
That's actually correct, since a Calorie is the same thing as a kilocalorie, 1000 calories. Note capitalisation.
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@Steve_The_Cynic because that's never going to get confusing or anything.
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@Arantor said in The eBike Rant Thread:
@Steve_The_Cynic because that's never going to get confusing or anything.
They should have called it the
\large{calorie}, as opposed to the\Large{calorie}and the\LARGE{calorie}which are obviouslylargerLARGER.
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@Arantor Hey, I'm just the messenger...
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@Arantor said in The eBike Rant Thread:
@Steve_The_Cynic because that's never going to get confusing or anything.
I wonder how they put that in an all-caps sentence …
BURN 200 cALORIES THE EASY WAY!
?
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@Gurth said in The eBike Rant Thread:
@Arantor said in The eBike Rant Thread:
@Steve_The_Cynic because that's never going to get confusing or anything.
I wonder how they put that in an all-caps sentence …
BURN 200 cALORIES THE EASY WAY!
?
Bᴜʀɴ 200 Cᴀʟᴏʀɪᴇs ᴛʜᴇ Eᴀsʏ Wᴀʏ!Shitty typography, shitty results.
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Had a short break during todays tour. After switching the bike on again, I see that the trip's odometer ("STRECKE") does not display a value:
is that? Well, the total distance is still available, also todays average speed, and todays cycling time. So, actually, how can the thing calculate average speed without the tour's distance? After a steep ride downhill, average speed has gone up a little, hence it was not a cached value.
: Have you tried switching it off and on again?
Spooky!
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@Zerosquare I see: you are a real TDWTF sportsman!
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@BernieTheBernie said in The eBike Rant Thread:
I wonder why they felt the need to abbreviate ‘Geschwindigkeit.’
Filed under: Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung
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@kazitor Simple: that's because of
Einzelwortlängenbegrenzungsüberschreitung(exceeding the length limit of a single word).
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@Luhmann said in The eBike Rant Thread:
@BernieTheBernie said in The eBike Rant Thread:
Yes, sitting on a moving bike is a really hard workout.
Depends, I've had rides where the going down was almost as straining as going up. Climbing over a road and going down offroad
On a steep and winding road downhill with some 60 km/h (that's 10885.529 nautical miles / fortnight for our imperial unitists), my heart rate was in the range of 90-100 beats per minute.
That's not high, but not restful either...
