Opportunity Knocks

In the Spring of 2014, a green-friendly colleague of mine, Doug Davis, founder of TumblTrak, said he was going to get a booth at the Consumer Electronics Show and asked me if I had any ideas.

I told him an electric bike that could easily transition to a stationary bike generator would be a cool project. He immediately said, “Let’s do it!” and we began building a couple prototypes.

I knew this was doable, because I had been using electric bike components to build the UpCycle Ecocharger for a couple years, with fantastic results.

Improving Two Great Products by Combining Them

The Ecocharger is great if you want to have a stationary bike and generate electricity, but would’t it be even better if you could also ride it around?

And an electric bike is great to zip around town with a little help, but wouldn’t it be even better if it also could be used to generate electricity?

Prototyping

So, we got to work! For the prototype, I wanted to build something as eye-catching and cool looking as possible, so it would be unmistakable and something that would turn heads and make people say, “What the (bleep) is that?”

I found the longest, coolest cruiser bike around, the Urban Cruiser from Firmstrong.

I then bought an ebike conversion kit from Jason Kraft’s company, Electric Bike Technologies. Jason has been helping me with the UpCycle Ecocharger for over a year, giving feedback and supplying generators. I knew an ebike kit from Electric Bike Technologies would be top of the line.

I had Mike at OK Welding in Oregon City do some work to put on brakes, since the cruiser was set up to have a pedal brake, but it turned into a freewheel bike when I replaced the rear wheel with the hub motor/generator.

The Most Important Component

After first experimenting with a separate stand that you would put the Chopper Charger on when you got home for the charging aspect, I soon realized it would be ideal to have a kickstand that would do the same job. I found a touring motorcycle kickstand and had Mike weld it on. It’s total overkill, and we will end up with something less bulky, but I wanted to go big first, and then scale back. It’s an awesome beast of a ride-off kickstand!

A custom rear rack, panniers, and the battery and controller in the back of the bike, and it was almost done!

Testing Time

I took it on a road trip to Ellensburg, Washington (where I was spending the day as an extra for my friend Michael Cross’ first feature film, Second Nature), and went about 20 miles on a full charge, mostly at full throttle (20 miles per hour).

I also rode it to and from the store a bunch of times, and on the jogging trails at Mary S. Young Park close to our house.

It was a complete blast to ride. Fast, smooth, and comfortable!

Final Step

There was one more part that really brings it all together. Instead of putting the battery in the panniers, Doug commissioned my dad to build a custom wooden battery housing to go up front. It came out incredibly nice, which was no surprise since my dad is a master woodworker.

And that’s really all there is to it! Overall, it’s a simple setup. It’s a cruiser bike, an electric bike, and a stationary bike generator.

Some numbers:

Length: 7 feet

Weight: 80 lbs

Top Speed (downhill full throttle, pedaling hard): 25 MPH

Cruising Speed: 20 MPH

Driving Range: 20+ miles at 15-20MPH

Price to fully charge the battery: $0.07

Energy Cost to go 1000 miles: $3.00

Battery: 48 V, 11 Amphour

Motor: 750 watt rear drive gearless

Pedal Generator Output when pedaling easy: 40-60 watts

Pedal Generator Output when pedaling for a workout: 75-150 watts

Pedal Generator Output at an all-out sprint: 400 to 550 watts

Pedaling time to make enough electricity to fully charge a phone: 20 minutes easy pedaling

Pedaling time to make enough electricity to power a laptop for 2 hours: 45 minutes to an hour easy pedaling

Pedaling time to keep the lights on in your living room: 1 hour of easy pedaling would power 3 LEDs for 3 hours, or 1 LED for 9 hours.