First major ride

[flar]

I didn't get much riding in yesterday - got the bike late in the afternoon and spent some time with friends afterward and then it was dark.

So today I decided to see what it could do in the mountains (Santa Cruz range) - my goal being to get to Alice's Restaurant and then see where I might be able to go from there.

I took off from Sign Hill here in SSF (near that big sign on the hill looking over SFO) with 100% SoC.

At the bottom of the hill I was at 99% getting on to El Camino Real South.
I got to 380 at around 98% charge (186 watt hours to go see movies at Tanforan - woohoo!)
I decided to take El Camino the entire way down to Highway 92 to keep as much charge as I could for the mountains.  I finally got to 92 at 90%.
92 climbs a lot heading to the mountains from there - I was at 80% just past 280.
I got to Skyline at around 77%.
From there to Alice's took me down to 57%.  3/4 of the way there I felt the bike slide just a little in a corner and noticed that it had been graveled recently so I slowed down quite a bit the rest of the way.
I pulled into Alice's and looked for that stray socket that Richard230 has found.  I plugged in, but there was no power.  Since I was at 57% I wasn't desparate so I let it go rather than figure out how to reset it.
I decided to repark across the road where there were more motorcycles hanging out.  I then spent about half an hour non-stop answering questions and finally had to excuse myself to go get a bottle of water to quench my hoarse voice.  Now I understand why they include 6 brochures in the welcome packet.    There was a lot of misinformation out there - people confusing Zero and Brammo - "No, I'm sure that other guy was on a Zero, but it was manufactured in Ashland Oregon" - hmmm...
I then headed down 84 and across on Sand Hill to go visit the Tesla dealer in Menlo Park to bug them about more info on the Model X.  I was at 48% charge when I got there.  No new info on Model X, but the salesperson picked up on the fact that I quoted kWh for my bike and realized it was electric - another 15 minutes answering her questions, showing off the bike and discussing the various technologies (Tesla tends to hire engineers as salespeople so they know the technical side of the industry).
I then headed North on El Camino through San Carlos and did some errands there at REI where I discovered that the Clipper charger in my backpack sets off merchandise alarms. D'oh!  I think I was at 34% when I left REI.
I got on the highway there to see if I could make it home via highway, found a bus and tucked in and made it back to 380 at around 10 or 11% charge and on the Low Battery warnings (13 miles / .23% == 56 mile range, and there was a lot of (mostly head) wind on 101 today which is why I trailed a bus).  I took 380 to El Camino and back home and used about 3% more charge (compared to 2% at the beginning of the trip to get from here to there), but I had to go up a mountain coming home compared to going down it when I left.

A few hours of recreational riding, 63.1 miles, some fiddling around at some of the stops a fair bit of it at 50 MPH or higher and a bunch of stop and go for the rest - 94% battery consumption.

(And then I get home, reset the GFI circuit for the garage, plug in the bike and it trips again immediately.  D'oh!  Where's an electrician when you need one!  At least I got to 100% last night before it tripped some time this morning...)

[LGHTCYCL]

Nice post. It's good to learn how other people are doing with their new bikes! 3 stops sounds like a decent ride (for this bike).  Find a solution to your charging problem yet?

[flar]

I posted on facebook and a friend who has had to debug electrical problems threw me a couple of suggestions.  I'm basically now charging off of the garage door opener circuit which has its own circuit breaker.  The outlet on the wall allegedly also has its own circuit breaker and should carry enough current, but it just wasn't working.  The opener circuit has been stable for half an hour and taken me from 6-13% so it is looking good (knocking on wood).  I'll have to have an electrician come out and take a look at the plug on the wall and the circuit breaker marked GFI and see if they are wired up right.

Note that when I moved in here there were 3 switches on one of the stairwell lights and out of the 8 positions they could be in, only 2 would turn the light on.  I have personally rewired half this house to codes that you can research yourself in 5 seconds on the internet, but I'll balk at checking a GFI circuit.  Still, the builders missed such basic stuff that it makes me wonder how they were ever licensed...?

[FreepZ]

Following your description, it looks to me that this is the path that you followed.

(I've no idea where the "big sign on the hill" is.)

[flar]

Incredibly close enough given that I don't want to post my home address on a public forum. 

It did choose a different route to get from El Camino to REI, though (I used Howard and scouted the Best Buy lot thinking for sure they'd have charging stations since they used to sell electric vehicles there, but sadly no...)

Oh, and why didn't I think of taking all 3 cloverleafs at ECR/92 like that??!?  I'll have to do it again!

OK, how about ?

[ttxgpfan]

Nice post!  151wH/mile but basic math.  Hmmm.  But range is suppose to increase with initial use right?  I wonder if the bike gets more efficient or if more capacity become available.

[Shinysideup]

Nice ride! Since I live very close to you, this is useful data. My thoughts were that you wouldn't have cut it so close if you had taken Woodside Rd. back to El Camino, but I guess you went further south to take in the Tesla dealer. Also, I looked on my ChargePoint app on the iPhone, and there's quite a few stations around Redwood City area. 240V of of juice (5 miles in 10 minutes) is a good thing! At least I know I can easily make it to Alice's. We'll need to petition them to put in a ChargePoint charger or 4!

[Richard230]

Hello Flar.  That plug at Alice's restaurant has a GFI that is turned off and on with a switch on the plug.  The last time I used it I turned it off because that was the way I found it.  Alice's also has a 240 outlet on the side of the gas station.  The owner of the restaurant told me that they would let someone plug into their 240 outlet to recharge their motorcycle.  All you have to do is to ask - and likely order something to eat while your bike is charging.

I haven't taken your route on my Zero, but I can just about make it from Pacifica to 280, to Woodside and 84 (via Canada Road), to Alice's, west on 84 to Highway 1 and back to Pacifica, keeping to the speed limit or a little below.  I have also be able to make it to California BMW in Mountain View, via El Camino Real and back to Pacifica via 280 frontage roads, a distance of 80 miles, with about 20% battery charge remaining.

I might add that I grew up in South San Francisco and worked at the City's Engineering Division for 35 years reviewing every private development built during that time.  I know a lot about Sign Hill and Franklin Avenue, including the house that was pushed into the street during the big 100-year storm of January of 1983.  We got rid of the house by giving it a parking ticket and towing it away (in pieces, unfortunately).  The lot has never been built on since then due to stability and drainage issues on the hill above the home. If there is anything that you would like to know about the City or its development history, just PM me. Prior to coming to work at SSF, I designed the subdivisions in Westborough, west of Westborough Blvd., and during the early 1960's I worked at the Linden Avenue Post Office for a year delivering mail to Franklin Avenue, using my Vespa motor scooter to carry the mail - until the Postmaster saw me.   

[protomech]

How many amps does the Empulse charger pull at the wall? Is there any way to force it to a lower amp limit to avoid tripping a weak breaker (or if a circuit is already partly loaded)?

9.3 kWh nominal battery * 0.94 / 63.1 miles = 139 Wh/mile at the battery. Wall consumption will be higher due to charging losses.

I record all of my usage at the wall, as I don't currently have a way to record pack consumption. I typically see ~125 Wh/mile at the wall, or 105-110 Wh/mile at the pack .. but that's at typically 40-50 mph not 60-70 mph.

[flar]

I'm usually very detail oriented about gas consumption (recording every fill-up) and I do have a Kill-a-Watt meter, but I haven't yet set up any system to track my charges. 

Note that the breaker tripped while the bike was booting.  It takes it about 4 or 5 seconds after booting before it draws any charging current, but the sequence went like this:

- Reset the breaker
- Plug in the charger, wait for green light
- Plug the J1772 into the bike - click, dead, the display hadn't even turned on
- I can't find a single other thing in the house that has lost power so literally that charger was the only thing plugged in on that circuit.

Also note that the wiring in the house was done by a gang of vandals - I've already rewired a dozen outlets that were so badly done I wonder how the electrician ever got a license.  I think it's time to have an electrician with good references come out and inspect that circuit...