They use the same concept (solar panels providing shade) for certain plants! I think tomatoes are the first it was done with. The leaves and vines can spread out and get enough sunlight, while the panels keep the edible part in the shade! It increases the amount of tomatoes while using less water. So theoretically, I'd expect to see the same thing with this bike! Obviously you can go farther with electric, but with this bike you could ride even farther (sweat less, and not run out of water) due to the shade than you could ride if you were sweating in direct sunlight
From Denmark: Thank you so much for this excellent, very descriptive and instructive video. I have been following your Sun Tours and enjoyed them a lot. Congratulations for your endeavours. I am 80 years old and avid of long haul Biking and triking. No EL Assist. Until 4 years ago I used to ride a KOGA bike + a ZIFLEX trailer for my camping gear. Then I shifted an ICE SPRINT FS Trike 20" wheels + the ZIFLEX TRAILER in tow... Last year I triked from from Ebeltoft (Jutland-DK) to Frederikshavn (N-E coast of DK)-Ferry to Gothenburg- Triked to Stockholm -Ferry to Turku (Finland) -Triked to Helsinki - Ferry back to Stockholm -Triked along the East Coast of Sweden to Nynäshamn - Ferry to Visby/Island of Gotland - Ferry from Visby to Oskarshamn - Triking to Ystad (South of Sweden - Ferry to the Danish Bornholm Island - Ferry from Rønne (Bornholm) to Køge (South of Copenhagen) - Triking again and Ferrying to Falster-Loland-Langeland-Ærø and Back over Sjælland Odde to Ebeltoft. I carry 65 kg of gear + my own weight (starting with 112 kg, finishing at 94 kg...). I am thinking about getting EL Assist for a coming trip to Turkiye (Turkey). Will be immensely grateful for the names, eventually web sites of the companies that produced the parts for your rig. 🙏
@@libraryofpapel Thank you for the good words. The secret is NEVER stopping being active, having a POSITIVE attitude toward life and living in harmony with yourself and your surroundings, be it plants, animals or human beings. I have never owned a TV. I read a lot of books, do not spend time on social media, except Biking-Sailing-Triking-Blues Guitar channels to keep me updated. When I was 40, I stopped working, sold my apartment in Copenhagen and went on a 12 & 1/2 years trip, solo sailing the high seas with my 45 foot centre cockpit, cutter rigged sailing yacht So my advice is: Know what you want and be disciplined to get it, do not stop exercising, follow your heart and enjoy every moment of life... Tomorrow I am starting on my 5 months tour around Denmark, will be back at the end of October. All the best.🙏
it creates a massive amount of drag which more than cancels out any beneficial cooling effects. Guess the solar panel is pretty much non-negotiable for this rig though.
this is a super neat build. Having regenerative brakes on a bike is great I imagine. Less wear and tear and weather resistant braking + you get some of the effort back you put in that stupid hill. And the rest is awesome too
Thanks for sharing the technology! I have been following your travels since the first video you shared many years ago. A lot has happened since then... Interesting to see that you have now chosen to use a recumbent bike. Hope more people start to understand the benefits of these bikes. Congratulations for first place in the competition! Cheers!
Congratulations Jack, all your previous experience with the China trip came in very handy. Great choice of panel with tilt mechanism and recumbent layout. I missed your race episodes and didn't want to jump in half way through, but will binge them when I get some time!
I have 8.5kw of Solar panels on my house so I know a bit about panels. My best ever FTP was around 280W (and I can still remember the pain of my 20minute test at 301W). To think that 1 panel can put out my FTP power is quite extraordinary. To think that that power came all the way from the Sun, onto a couple of square metres of panel, is even more extraordinary.
A 280w solar panel will probably output around 1400wh on a nice day. Which is only 140w for 10 hours. Quite achievable for a human. But yes for instantaneous power it's much higher
ah ah that's a fantastic idea. I have a recumbent style tandem with a direct drive motor and the regen is much higher going downhill with 2 people rather than myself :)
You should try just mounting a bike brake to the solar roof to keep it from spinning. Then you could get rid of that entire contraption and just have 1 brake cable going to maybe a disc brake mounted to the roof. The brake would of course need tk be inverted, but i think that would weight a lot less.
Didn't hesitate. I subscribed. Brilliant that you are having such fun. Thanks for sharing. I would have thought side fairings for the solar panels would have reduced drag and made the bike a little easier to handle. If you wanted to get an extra charge when stopping you can get rollup solar panels. You must have had a lot of courage to do that. I ride a vendetta cruzbike and I love the aerodynamics of that bike. Happy cruzing 💫
That's a great set-up Jack and well done for developing it over time. I guess it's a continuous process. I would have thought that the solar panel would be susceptible to be affected by the wind, but i never saw you struggling for balance. So the question is whether to consider a larger panel (and maybe battery). The gearbox looks great! I'm loving your videos. Keep them coming!
It's not that bad in the wind. It feels like being on a road bike as they are light, i have a lot of mass. Of course with the panel flat. If you are full tilt, you can feel the wind. For a summer suntrip a larger panel would be good. Making the battery bigger would just add weight. I'm spending the energy as it comes in anyway
woot, super. btw theoretically also wind sail powered bike would work. ie you can rise up the solar panel as a bike sail and tilt it. thats a motorbike, kinda heavy bicycle. if any. half off the bicycle weight with light construction. what punctures, with airless solid or flexible wheels. also consider top-cut tires with clips for fast swap.
Mech engineer here, no planetary gear hub will beat chain and casette. You have good 95% efficiency on single speed sprocket, then multiply that with hub efficiency with is 80% ish. Lets assume 85%, which its not. 0.95 x 0.85 equals 80.8% But I agree, machine is overall excellent and efficient, love it. Have a safe journey.
Check out the long blog post from rohloff on their measured efficiency. Of course you can't beat a very clean and oiled chain. But their point was that it won't be and the hub is protected. Thanks
German mech engineer here, really look into those measurements, you will be surprised how this competes to a derailleur system. It even beats the derailleur in gear 11 for obvious reasons. Straight chain line and no moving parts in the hub.
@@johgude5045 Just the man I want to speak to, my cars failing the MOT on exhaust emissions test, do you have any tips and tricks to get around this problem.
He said in the video gear 11 is direct drive (meaning the same as single speed.) ALL other gears besides 11 are between 85-90 ish efficient. So in practice he would use less efficient gears when necessary then go back to 11 ideally. I have the exact same setup on my recumbent with a mid drive. Gear 11 is where its at. So glad he called it out I was just going by feel.
I think I saw you some weeks ago on a back road in Portugal. There was another biker with you, you were heading south. Filmed you while overtaking you, you felt so relaxed going down hill :)
Loved 10:55 internal geared hubs and 7:15 mid drive vs hub drives. Vvolt mid drive e-bikes incorporate these two systems in their e-bikes and its gates belt driven!
@JackButlerVideos which exact model of rohloff was it? Maybe i will find slightly used. I saw there are some carbon belts that can be split to put on regular bikes. Mine is titanium frame so splitting can't be done easily (someone in poland does this on aluminium and steel bikes) I would take that 98% efficiency anyday for a bit extra weight.
Put a third solar crossbar in between the other two. Put a tilt-locking mechanism where it joins the center shaft. A simple spring-return release mechanism out on the right end of that crossbar will make it easy to reach up, release and adjust the angle. No cables, chains, gears, etc. Unless you lose too much mechanical advantage.
Nice set up. I imagine that a Cruzbike with an UL trailer/solar panel might work better (more aerodynamic, and the Cruzbike has more efficient torque transfer), though the downside would be that you don't get that nice shade. As for the "trailer", it could be something like foam reinforced with S glass fiberglass cloth and lamination epoxy, or the like.
Ok I know minor detail but that rear mirror is the same one I got and after telling a lot of mirrors was the only good I found, that gave you a great view of everything behind you, while being one of the cheapest too. funny to see it here.
That hub 😍 I want one, was thinking the other day solving the sun trip for around 25kph is correct. So glad to see how the bike and strategy side comes together.
I'm really happy with the hub. I think it's nice for the race. It seems a little bit annoying to service. I think you have to delace the wheel to change the bearings but no problem for one race.
again a great video Jack. Thx you so much. A lot of interresting things to learn... I'm building my 1st solar bike to be able to make longer trips. Most probably ready by end of June. Your bike really looks incredible. Thx Seb
Thanks for the video Jack. I’ve followed you from the start and glad you came across the line first. I was questioning throughout a few things, I’m guessing the system has the ability to charge and discharge (ie power the motor) at the same time? Also I was thinking, is he saving his battery power for hills or is the motor constantly ’ticking over’? You must have been keeping an eye on the next days weather to be confident that you can use ‘todays’ power knowing that you can/cant recharge the next day. Your determination (physical and mental) combined with your ability to estimate power conservation/ consumption vs weather and terrain clearly paid off. Once again, massive congratulations Jack. Look forward to the Czech video! Gareth
Yes exactly. Think of the battery like a bucket of water with energy flowing in and out at different speeds. I would like to make a video showing this at some point. Yea it's a game of prediction like you said. I love it, it's quite fun. Don't forget it's just a bike so it doesn't actually matter if i run out of energy, I'm not pushing any more or less with o witout the motor. My average speed is just less without
Interesting video and build. I've read that solar panels make better power when kept cool, so just wanted to suggest maybe a misting system to mist water onto the panel? I know nothing about solar though.. Also, wanted to suggest the Berd flexible spokes - maybe still too pricey but they look good and recently won on a mountain bike downhill race..
I'm thinking of saving for a while a doing a full gin build. I like the little things they make that can make a huge difference. I wonder do they still make hookworm tires, there good. actually the Maxxis Velocita EXO would be good if they make it in your size, Maxxis is affordable, but they make some great tires.
congrats on the win. 1 how many daytime hours did you spend for mechanical issues? 2 would spray cooling panels from the underside be a worthwhile thing to do? maybe 10 millilitres every minute, so 6 deciliters an hour? 3 is there no working repellent device for stray dogs? a mechanical device with blank explosive cartridge under a firing pin? i know you said you don't need advice for this, but then we don't have a proper solution either. there must be something that works, surely. 4 is that 406 or 451 on the 20" front wheel? i've seen some nice panaracer tyres for the latter, although only 28 mm wide. (451 is the bmx racing one, 406 is for the people doing tricks) 5 would having someone on the motorcyclist doing shopping for you hours ahead, while in constant communication, be outside the spirit of the rules of this being self-supported? this would make it possible to make every day 13 hours and 55 minutes long. no bathroom breaks, wizz out the side like grand tour racers do. 6 does anybody carry an entire spare wheel? mid drive motor, standard wheels, and maybe even making the front and rear wheel on the same rear hub like surly used to do on their ridiculous adventure bikes with a custom wide fork, would make it possible to just swap an entire wheel out and do puncture repair after hours. maybe even 2 spare wheels. if they're in a tight lycra bag they don't drag on very much and can be put in the wake of the bike, almost lengthening the tail end, which could even possibly improve aerodynamics?
I spent no time in a day repairing something. The panels are already closer to ambient air temperature than usual beacuse of the air cooling of the bike moving forward. You can't carry explosives across an international border into Morocco. 406mm is the wheel size. You are not permitted to have someone follow you on the trip, but for sure that would be faster. I'm not sure it would be worth the weight for me. Most people want to use hubs motors and not as light as mine so you would be carrying and extra 4 to 6kg that you probably wouldn't use. Nice ideas thanks a lot for commenting!
Not too unick bike. In Kazakhstan is one similar. Александр Велосипетый youtube channel. But he had a middrive engine, not inside the wheel. Because you not rotate motor when using pedals and it easier to ride.
Amazing video Jack, great design. Sure you can always improve but what you have seems to be a perfect compromise between efficiency and simplicity. You don’t want parts which are too difficult to fix. Yeah I’m really impressed with the 100W power consumption for the motor, on my RH212 (direct hub drive), I would need to go to 150 or 200W to feel a “real” push, 100W seems to do close to nothing, at least at 25Km/h, but that might be due to motor “winding” speed (rpm / v). I’ll have to investigate. which Hub motor is it? Being relatively small, you didn’t get regen heat issues on the long slopes down? You mentioned 25Km/h, but on a standard flat road with no wind, were you not around 30-32? Did you have variable regen? No throttle for quick dog escapes? Last questions: the solar charge controller, which one was it? Thanks and very much looking forward to this Azub tour guide!!!
Yes, you don't feel much around 100 W, but it's there and your average speed will show it over the day. Over 30 km per hour is too fast. You are just fighting wind for no reason better to go slower And cycle slightly longer. Of course if you are not racing do whatever you like to do! My average. Speed for the full trip was twenty four point five or something. I should have mentioned the solar charge controller good point! It is a genasun
How hard is it to ride in a cross wind? How do you stay upright when the drag causes tilt, creating even more drag from the solar panel? Amazing kit since obviously it works!
Wow, this really is one efficient piece of kit. Nice work Jack. I guess a very efficient mid drive would save some watts, but on the other hand brakes would suffer more and there'd be no regen and all wheel drive. Do you have a guesstimate of how many watts you've regened during the Sun Trip? A very light aero tail and front fairing is what also comes to mind for squeezing out the last efficiency. I guess cutting and gluing XPS foam to add a teardrop tail to the poles and anything else exposed to the wind would also work. Anything counts in such a long race where going 1% faster would save you almost 3 hours haha.
I'm not sure you could make a mid DriveMode to more efficient than a direct drive. On a very mountainous route, then yes. But on this trip we spent 3 or 4 days on the flat going down Morocco. Some of the best day. S I'm not a 100% sure, but I think I'd like 250 to 300 W/h of regen. When there is no sun. It can be a 100% of your energy for the day. Yes, I think a lightweight tail would be a fantastic upgrade. More cautious on the front, as it's hard to get it right and also you're affecting the cooling of the rider.
Congratulations Jack!!, I have followed the Sun Trip 2024 and it has been exciting. I would like to know how much energy in kWh you have recharged with the module during the entire trip, thank you.The bike setup is very good.
Hi Jack, many thanks for the breathtaking videos of your Sun Trip challenge and the sharing of the tech side of your e-Bike set up. I really enjoyed it as much as every of your followers! In one of your comment, you mention a pedal sensor to control the power of the electric motor. Is it a sensor added to the normam crankset of your AZUB bike or did you had to replace the crankset by an special one fitted with this 'torque' sensor? Many thanks for your reply
I am always thinking why car company can't make such a car which roof is a solar plate...who produce electricity for a running car???? But you did such a great thing 😮
Your prior bike used a BBSHD. Now that you used a direct hub motor, which did you prefer? Which did you find as more efficient? Also was the 310W solar panel enough to stay self sufficient?
Cool video. I recently did a 8 day tour about 30% gravel roads and by day 7 I was so tired. Day 8 I could only get like 125bpm, I couldn't push myself any harder it was really weird. What kind of training did you do for the suntrip?
Yes without being trained or pacing properly thats guaranteed to happen. I trained for six months working up to around 20 hours of cycling a week. Mostly zone 2 teaining and some intervals.
It'd be cool if the chinese came up with some aerofairing 5k€ bike with solar plastered all over it. Could easily do like 40km/h with solar alone. Might not even make sense to add pedaling drivetrain as that would affect aero too much.
Very interesting. However, I am uncertain if directing the panel helps really so much. Having it horizontal all the time gives already 85% of the maximal collection of sun energy (calculated for a all year round solar system, in summertime probably more). This would also save considerable weight and costs and result in less mechanical failures. However, during winter a tilting system is probably considerably better.
2 things made the tilting worth it for me on this sun trip., it's earlier in the year like you said. And it's also a North to South sun trip for the first time.
Wow thanks for the videos. Only came across your channel a couple of days ago and didn’t know anything about the sun race or these types of bicycles until then. Very interesting. Do you recharge your battery at night if possible? Is this allowed? Do you have to limit your power usage depending on the amount of sun? Would it be possible to just go full power on a very sunny day? Sorry I’ve got lots of questions. It would be great to see a video talking about the solar/motor tech aspects - maybe giving tips to anyone interested in doing this for themselves. TIA
For the race, you cannot recharge only from the sun. Of course, if you are touring by yourself, you can do whatever you like. Ultimately it is a bicycle so I don't actually need any power. I can still just cycle. The more sun you get, the further you go in a day. I hope to make a video. About the numbers at some point soon. But unfortunately I didn't keep a good record. I was too busy during the race.
@@JackButlerVideos thanks for getting back to me. My wife is away for a few days so I'm binge watching/listening to your vids whilst I can lol. I'm on day 14 now. All I can say is what am amazing adventure and well done.
😊hey super Jack!! Always a great day when you post a new video!! So cool to go through your fighter aircraft finally!! I do have one question: maybe you said but didn't catch it, is the motor controller from grin? I am looking for an inverter capable of modular regen, using a lever to module it, and I think grin it's the only one doing it. One question/suggestion, don't you think that a front aero shield like the one that Killian and Jonas are using, might help your aerodynamic? Thank you for sharing your weapon😊
Hey! Thanks! Those front Shields are very expensive and they compromise the cooling of the rider, it's okay if you are not riding hard. It's easier to make aerodynamic gains at the back with a tail. But yes they would improve things. The controller is from grintech, a baserunner. I really like it
@@JackButlerVideos it would be like being into the velomobile more or less, so. I know in velomobile they have air ducts to bring air to the rider, and close them down if needed, maybe that would be a good compromise. Regarding the cost I don't know, in the past I did carved lexan with a heat gun, it was pretty hard but I got the job done, btw I don't know if that shape it's achievable without a proper thermo forming mold. The idea of the cover came up while I was watching your videos, and you were filming, you can clearly hear the cadence of your pedaling true the noise of the air. Thank you for the info on the controller ☺️
100 EUR for a 310W flexible panel! I'm very jealous - in the US similar products, if you can find them, are around 1,000 USD. (200W and below panels are more reasonable, I think the big jump is due to freight and warehousing costs, as well as tariffs on Chinese-manufactured panels.)
Would be great to know a bit about the training you did to get your amazing fitness level Was it all on recumbents as it’s well known that they use some different muscles to an upright?
6 months of build up around 15 to 20 hours per week. No it was all on upright bike indoors but yes it takes a couple days to get the recumbent legs back
Well done on winning the Subtrip, Jack. Do you know how many calories you were burning per day? Also, do you have and are you planning to publish detailed stats of your journey? Cheers
Is the riding position on a recumbent confortable for the neck? I see your head is always at an angle. (Perharps not worst than road bike handlebars...)
Great construction!Would be interested in the wh/km stat. Seems like you got very little support from the motor - impressive cycling performance! Where did you get those black parts that connect the fibre glass tubes and the panel?
I need to make a numbers video yep. They are 3d designed and sent to a company to cnc and send. Sorry i don't remember the company it was in 2019 in Belgium. Thanks a lot!
@@JackButlerVideos Very impressive that you managed to finish the bike before the race (compared to Raf who didn’t!) Didn‘t know that all these parts were custome made.Dis you construct them on the computer yourself?
Very informative , thanks I am still puzzled by the legal side of things as obviously it exceeds EU e- bike limits . Wouldn’t you have needed number plates / insurance etc.. for road use? Did the Spanish police who stopped you not question the power if the motor etc…? Did you have any balance issues from having that canopy/ roof swaying around above you? Recumbents inherently a bit harder to balance at best if times
I've had that question about the legality as well, especially with the past editions going through Germany where the police has started putting obviously tricked out e-bike race mashines on test stands to get evidence about the actual speed/power/torque of the assist motors. But then the whole "continous nominal 250W output" thing is a huge grey area and major OEMs are putting out systems that will help you up that hill with something close to 700W peak while somehow being classified as compliant to the EU guideline. The best bet to not arouse suspicion certainly is to have a pedal sensor and some sticker on the motor that says "250W". I wrote about this some time ago to the SunTrip and the main take away was that participants do all this at their own risk. This is not to say that I don't fully support The Sun Trip and all it's mashines in its current form. Maybe the whole innovative experimental side of it detracts from asking these legal questions.
technicly yes, practicly no, as long as your not a hooligan or interfearing with normal car and bike traffic no one is going to pull over a solar powered vehicle. it would be bad look for them in the paper: "lead rider in solar race pulled over by cop for using too much sun."
Best thing about the solar panel is it gives you a very needed shade
Yes indeed !!!
Yea really!!
I was thinking exactly the same!
They use the same concept (solar panels providing shade) for certain plants! I think tomatoes are the first it was done with. The leaves and vines can spread out and get enough sunlight, while the panels keep the edible part in the shade! It increases the amount of tomatoes while using less water.
So theoretically, I'd expect to see the same thing with this bike! Obviously you can go farther with electric, but with this bike you could ride even farther (sweat less, and not run out of water) due to the shade than you could ride if you were sweating in direct sunlight
You sound like someone who has never grown tomatoes before @@cyleleghorn246
From Denmark: Thank you so much for this excellent, very descriptive and instructive video. I have been following your Sun Tours and enjoyed them a lot. Congratulations for your endeavours. I am 80 years old and avid of long haul Biking and triking. No EL Assist. Until 4 years ago I used to ride a KOGA bike + a ZIFLEX trailer for my camping gear. Then I shifted an ICE SPRINT FS Trike 20" wheels + the ZIFLEX TRAILER in tow... Last year I triked from from Ebeltoft (Jutland-DK) to Frederikshavn (N-E coast of DK)-Ferry to Gothenburg- Triked to Stockholm -Ferry to Turku (Finland) -Triked to Helsinki - Ferry back to Stockholm -Triked along the East Coast of Sweden to Nynäshamn - Ferry to Visby/Island of Gotland - Ferry from Visby to Oskarshamn - Triking to Ystad (South of Sweden - Ferry to the Danish Bornholm Island - Ferry from Rønne (Bornholm) to Køge (South of Copenhagen) - Triking again and Ferrying to Falster-Loland-Langeland-Ærø and Back over Sjælland Odde to Ebeltoft. I carry 65 kg of gear + my own weight (starting with 112 kg, finishing at 94 kg...). I am thinking about getting EL Assist for a coming trip to Turkiye (Turkey). Will be immensely grateful for the names, eventually web sites of the companies that produced the parts for your rig. 🙏
Sounds like a mega trip! The motor is made by crystallite. The battery by EM3EV the controller by grintech. And thanks for watching!
What a legend you are Sir, I hope to be that active in my 80’s.
@@libraryofpapel Thank you for the good words. The secret is NEVER stopping being active, having a POSITIVE attitude toward life and living in harmony with yourself and your surroundings, be it plants, animals or human beings. I have never owned a TV. I read a lot of books, do not spend time on social media, except Biking-Sailing-Triking-Blues Guitar channels to keep me updated. When I was 40, I stopped working, sold my apartment in Copenhagen and went on a 12 & 1/2 years trip, solo sailing the high seas with my 45 foot centre cockpit, cutter rigged sailing yacht So my advice is: Know what you want and be disciplined to get it, do not stop exercising, follow your heart and enjoy every moment of life... Tomorrow I am starting on my 5 months tour around Denmark, will be back at the end of October. All the best.🙏
Respekt !
@@ebikeuzerine296 🙏🙏🙏 Wish you all the best in life.
It gives you some shade aswell which is an added bonus 👌
Yes! A great bonus!
that alone is a good feature haha
it creates a massive amount of drag which more than cancels out any beneficial cooling effects. Guess the solar panel is pretty much non-negotiable for this rig though.
this is a super neat build. Having regenerative brakes on a bike is great I imagine. Less wear and tear and weather resistant braking + you get some of the effort back you put in that stupid hill. And the rest is awesome too
Thanks for the tour of your bike, Jack. I was so interested in the bits and pieces you shared before, I'm glad to see it all in one piece.
Well Done Jack. I followed the 24 trip - each morning checking in to see how you were progressing was a highlight in my morning !
Thanks for sharing the technology! I have been following your travels since the first video you shared many years ago. A lot has happened since then... Interesting to see that you have now chosen to use a recumbent bike. Hope more people start to understand the benefits of these bikes. Congratulations for first place in the competition! Cheers!
Congratulations Jack, all your previous experience with the China trip came in very handy. Great choice of panel with tilt mechanism and recumbent layout.
I missed your race episodes and didn't want to jump in half way through, but will binge them when I get some time!
Really interesting thanks for the walkthrough. I like the tilting mechanism with brake lever, very elegant!
Always love your videos on your solar bike builds, there's never enough info on building solar e-bikes
Congrats on your victory. Great job with your engineering on your solar bike. Enjoy your videos. Thanks from Seattle.
That's an incredible piece of engineering. A credit to you. Wow! 😊
I have 8.5kw of Solar panels on my house so I know a bit about panels.
My best ever FTP was around 280W (and I can still remember the pain of my 20minute test at 301W).
To think that 1 panel can put out my FTP power is quite extraordinary. To think that that power came all the way from the Sun, onto a couple of square metres of panel, is even more extraordinary.
You would have a much higher voltage. Each panel would be equal or better so don’t worry. Cheers
A 280w solar panel will probably output around 1400wh on a nice day. Which is only 140w for 10 hours. Quite achievable for a human. But yes for instantaneous power it's much higher
If you add your own 140W e.g. 280W in total to that though... With a road race bike setup can do almost 40km/h average speed with such power
@@rkan2 definitely! But the panel will add drag and weight. And the bike wouldn't be strong e ough for suntrip luggage
Awesome rig!!!
I got an azub 6 recently and was v happy to notice early on in the video that thats what youve got.
When you got to the top of the mountain, you should have filled up your bags with some rocks to get some extra regen 🤣🤣
Not a bad idea! I did the maths on it once and unfortunately it doesn't add that much.
ah ah that's a fantastic idea. I have a recumbent style tandem with a direct drive motor and the regen is much higher going downhill with 2 people rather than myself :)
Thank you for the tour of you bike. Nice job! 👍
You should try just mounting a bike brake to the solar roof to keep it from spinning. Then you could get rid of that entire contraption and just have 1 brake cable going to maybe a disc brake mounted to the roof. The brake would of course need tk be inverted, but i think that would weight a lot less.
Yes i thought about this, i didn't have time to experiment with it this time unfortunately. The cool thing as well is stepless angles!
Really interesting. Thanks for going through that. I might one day get a recumbent.
Thanks to you for watching! It was quite interesting for me too, to take a step back and think about it all again like at the beginning.
I like the tilting mechanism. I did my own solar tilting system for my solar powered kayak. It is tilted by a cable operated linear actuator I made.
Fascinating. A very cool touring bike.
Simple and impressive package. Good engineering, I must say!
Thank you very much! It worked out well for me.
Just randomly stumbled over this and absolutely got my brains blasted. What a wet dream of an ebike.
Didn't hesitate. I subscribed. Brilliant that you are having such fun. Thanks for sharing. I would have thought side fairings for the solar panels would have reduced drag and made the bike a little easier to handle. If you wanted to get an extra charge when stopping you can get rollup solar panels. You must have had a lot of courage to do that. I ride a vendetta cruzbike and I love the aerodynamics of that bike. Happy cruzing 💫
Great video and such a exciting tour and 25 km is a good speed.😊
That's a great set-up Jack and well done for developing it over time. I guess it's a continuous process. I would have thought that the solar panel would be susceptible to be affected by the wind, but i never saw you struggling for balance. So the question is whether to consider a larger panel (and maybe battery). The gearbox looks great! I'm loving your videos. Keep them coming!
It's not that bad in the wind. It feels like being on a road bike as they are light, i have a lot of mass. Of course with the panel flat. If you are full tilt, you can feel the wind. For a summer suntrip a larger panel would be good. Making the battery bigger would just add weight. I'm spending the energy as it comes in anyway
You really have an independent life and love what you have, OK, persevere, wish you success
Congratulations on your solar bike design and win of the Sun Trip 2024.
Nice to see the regen motor setup. Got to save a bit of energy.
woot, super. btw theoretically also wind sail powered bike would work. ie you can rise up the solar panel as a bike sail and tilt it. thats a motorbike, kinda heavy bicycle. if any. half off the bicycle weight with light construction. what punctures, with airless solid or flexible wheels. also consider top-cut tires with clips for fast swap.
Mech engineer here, no planetary gear hub will beat chain and casette.
You have good 95% efficiency on single speed sprocket, then multiply that with hub efficiency with is 80% ish.
Lets assume 85%, which its not.
0.95 x 0.85 equals 80.8%
But I agree, machine is overall excellent and efficient, love it. Have a safe journey.
Check out the long blog post from rohloff on their measured efficiency. Of course you can't beat a very clean and oiled chain. But their point was that it won't be and the hub is protected. Thanks
German mech engineer here, really look into those measurements, you will be surprised how this competes to a derailleur system. It even beats the derailleur in gear 11 for obvious reasons. Straight chain line and no moving parts in the hub.
Well, INEOS rode Classified hub in the time trials so it must be quite efficient, in fact 99% according to Classified's peer reviewed paper.
@@johgude5045 Just the man I want to speak to, my cars failing the MOT on exhaust emissions test, do you have any tips and tricks to get around this problem.
He said in the video gear 11 is direct drive (meaning the same as single speed.) ALL other gears besides 11 are between 85-90 ish efficient. So in practice he would use less efficient gears when necessary then go back to 11 ideally. I have the exact same setup on my recumbent with a mid drive. Gear 11 is where its at. So glad he called it out I was just going by feel.
I think I saw you some weeks ago on a back road in Portugal. There was another biker with you, you were heading south. Filmed you while overtaking you, you felt so relaxed going down hill :)
Loved 10:55 internal geared hubs and 7:15 mid drive vs hub drives. Vvolt mid drive e-bikes incorporate these two systems in their e-bikes and its gates belt driven!
Awesome setup, i hope to participate one day, didnt know about gear 11 on rohloff, pretty smart to optimize for that specific gear
Look on the rolhoff website. They have a really cool chart. That shows the measured efficiency of each gear and a really interesting blog post.
@JackButlerVideos which exact model of rohloff was it? Maybe i will find slightly used. I saw there are some carbon belts that can be split to put on regular bikes. Mine is titanium frame so splitting can't be done easily (someone in poland does this on aluminium and steel bikes) I would take that 98% efficiency anyday for a bit extra weight.
Put a third solar crossbar in between the other two. Put a tilt-locking mechanism where it joins the center shaft. A simple spring-return release mechanism out on the right end of that crossbar will make it easy to reach up, release and adjust the angle. No cables, chains, gears, etc. Unless you lose too much mechanical advantage.
Nice set up.
I imagine that a Cruzbike with an UL trailer/solar panel might work better (more aerodynamic, and the Cruzbike has more efficient torque transfer), though the downside would be that you don't get that nice shade.
As for the "trailer", it could be something like foam reinforced with S glass fiberglass cloth and lamination epoxy, or the like.
This is smart , touring, while exercising with the most environmentally friendly vehicle
Man you really inspire my channel, got 423 subscribers in 1 weeek
Ok I know minor detail but that rear mirror is the same one I got and after telling a lot of mirrors was the only good I found, that gave you a great view of everything behind you, while being one of the cheapest too. funny to see it here.
That hub 😍 I want one, was thinking the other day solving the sun trip for around 25kph is correct. So glad to see how the bike and strategy side comes together.
I'm really happy with the hub. I think it's nice for the race. It seems a little bit annoying to service. I think you have to delace the wheel to change the bearings but no problem for one race.
Nice Hubby
again a great video Jack. Thx you so much. A lot of interresting things to learn...
I'm building my 1st solar bike to be able to make longer trips. Most probably ready by end of June.
Your bike really looks incredible.
Thx
Seb
Thanks, that is an amazing bike.
This is so incredibly cool.
VERY informative and interesting !!
Excellent explanation.
Keep it coming 🌈🎈🇺🇸
Thanks for the video Jack. I’ve followed you from the start and glad you came across the line first.
I was questioning throughout a few things, I’m guessing the system has the ability to charge and discharge (ie power the motor) at the same time?
Also I was thinking, is he saving his battery power for hills or is the motor constantly ’ticking over’?
You must have been keeping an eye on the next days weather to be confident that you can use ‘todays’ power knowing that you can/cant recharge the next day.
Your determination (physical and mental) combined with your ability to estimate power conservation/ consumption vs weather and terrain clearly paid off.
Once again, massive congratulations Jack. Look forward to the Czech video!
Gareth
Yes exactly. Think of the battery like a bucket of water with energy flowing in and out at different speeds. I would like to make a video showing this at some point. Yea it's a game of prediction like you said. I love it, it's quite fun. Don't forget it's just a bike so it doesn't actually matter if i run out of energy, I'm not pushing any more or less with o witout the motor. My average speed is just less without
Amazing and congratulations.
that's a very interesting video bike idea thank you
excellent build
nice with the rohloff! Rob;)
I have a ti minivelo 2000 watt 52v, huge fan! I've tried to catch you guys. Admire the speed.
Nice work dude
Interesting video and build. I've read that solar panels make better power when kept cool, so just wanted to suggest maybe a misting system to mist water onto the panel? I know nothing about solar though.. Also, wanted to suggest the Berd flexible spokes - maybe still too pricey but they look good and recently won on a mountain bike downhill race..
Great video...
I'm thinking of saving for a while a doing a full gin build. I like the little things they make that can make a huge difference. I wonder do they still make hookworm tires, there good. actually the Maxxis Velocita EXO would be good if they make it in your size, Maxxis is affordable, but they make some great tires.
Thanks for this. Looking forward to the next video on the technical side eg how many Wh you got out of that panel each day on average etc
I need to check, i hope to make a video about it soon. Thanks!
Cheers Jack, perhaps you could do a cost video as it's something I would love to do. Links to how to get started.
Good idea. Would be hard for me to do as i uave accumulated things over time. Let's see
That's awesome.
Awesome & Thanks :)
Super-cool!
congrats on the win.
1 how many daytime hours did you spend for mechanical issues?
2 would spray cooling panels from the underside be a worthwhile thing to do? maybe 10 millilitres every minute, so 6 deciliters an hour?
3 is there no working repellent device for stray dogs? a mechanical device with blank explosive cartridge under a firing pin? i know you said you don't need advice for this, but then we don't have a proper solution either. there must be something that works, surely.
4 is that 406 or 451 on the 20" front wheel? i've seen some nice panaracer tyres for the latter, although only 28 mm wide. (451 is the bmx racing one, 406 is for the people doing tricks)
5 would having someone on the motorcyclist doing shopping for you hours ahead, while in constant communication, be outside the spirit of the rules of this being self-supported? this would make it possible to make every day 13 hours and 55 minutes long. no bathroom breaks, wizz out the side like grand tour racers do.
6 does anybody carry an entire spare wheel? mid drive motor, standard wheels, and maybe even making the front and rear wheel on the same rear hub like surly used to do on their ridiculous adventure bikes with a custom wide fork, would make it possible to just swap an entire wheel out and do puncture repair after hours. maybe even 2 spare wheels. if they're in a tight lycra bag they don't drag on very much and can be put in the wake of the bike, almost lengthening the tail end, which could even possibly improve aerodynamics?
I spent no time in a day repairing something. The panels are already closer to ambient air temperature than usual beacuse of the air cooling of the bike moving forward. You can't carry explosives across an international border into Morocco. 406mm is the wheel size. You are not permitted to have someone follow you on the trip, but for sure that would be faster. I'm not sure it would be worth the weight for me. Most people want to use hubs motors and not as light as mine so you would be carrying and extra 4 to 6kg that you probably wouldn't use. Nice ideas thanks a lot for commenting!
Not too unick bike. In Kazakhstan is one similar. Александр Велосипетый youtube channel. But he had a middrive engine, not inside the wheel. Because you not rotate motor when using pedals and it easier to ride.
This is great. I am interested because I would love to do the North American Continental divide trail on an E-bike if I can figure it out.
Me too! That would be a great adventure
Amazing video Jack, great design. Sure you can always improve but what you have seems to be a perfect compromise between efficiency and simplicity. You don’t want parts which are too difficult to fix.
Yeah I’m really impressed with the 100W power consumption for the motor, on my RH212 (direct hub drive), I would need to go to 150 or 200W to feel a “real” push, 100W seems to do close to nothing, at least at 25Km/h, but that might be due to motor “winding” speed (rpm / v). I’ll have to investigate.
which Hub motor is it? Being relatively small, you didn’t get regen heat issues on the long slopes down?
You mentioned 25Km/h, but on a standard flat road with no wind, were you not around 30-32?
Did you have variable regen? No throttle for quick dog escapes?
Last questions: the solar charge controller, which one was it?
Thanks and very much looking forward to this Azub tour guide!!!
Yes, you don't feel much around 100 W, but it's there and your average speed will show it over the day. Over 30 km per hour is too fast. You are just fighting wind for no reason better to go slower And cycle slightly longer. Of course if you are not racing do whatever you like to do! My average.
Speed for the full trip was twenty four point five or something. I should have mentioned the solar charge controller good point! It is a genasun
How hard is it to ride in a cross wind? How do you stay upright when the drag causes tilt, creating even more drag from the solar panel? Amazing kit since obviously it works!
Wow, this really is one efficient piece of kit. Nice work Jack.
I guess a very efficient mid drive would save some watts, but on the other hand brakes would suffer more and there'd be no regen and all wheel drive.
Do you have a guesstimate of how many watts you've regened during the Sun Trip?
A very light aero tail and front fairing is what also comes to mind for squeezing out the last efficiency.
I guess cutting and gluing XPS foam to add a teardrop tail to the poles and anything else exposed to the wind would also work. Anything counts in such a long race where going 1% faster would save you almost 3 hours haha.
I'm not sure you could make a mid DriveMode to more efficient than a direct drive. On a very mountainous route, then yes. But on this trip we spent 3 or 4 days on the flat going down Morocco. Some of the best day.
S I'm not a 100% sure, but I think I'd like 250 to 300 W/h of regen. When there is no sun.
It can be a 100% of your energy for the day. Yes, I think a lightweight tail would be a fantastic upgrade. More cautious on the front, as it's hard to get it right and also you're affecting the cooling of the rider.
The enhanced aerodynamic tail sounds great!
The Grin all axle front motor, as you said, is likely an excellent upgrade also :-)
Congratulations Jack!!, I have followed the Sun Trip 2024 and it has been exciting. I would like to know how much energy in kWh you have recharged with the module during the entire trip, thank you.The bike setup is very good.
Yes, I need to check this.I should make another video with these kind of numbers.
How do you charge the battery from the solar panel? I have an ecoflow and use the 220 volt charger, but I'm with a car. Thanks for the video
Nice machine.
Hi Jack, many thanks for the breathtaking videos of your Sun Trip challenge and the sharing of the tech side of your e-Bike set up. I really enjoyed it as much as every of your followers!
In one of your comment, you mention a pedal sensor to control the power of the electric motor. Is it a sensor added to the normam crankset of your AZUB bike or did you had to replace the crankset by an special one fitted with this 'torque' sensor?
Many thanks for your reply
The torque sensor is inside the bottom bracket you just have to replace the bottom bracket with a suitable sensor ine and that's it
interesting choice for going 2 chains and cassettes for the panel tilts. Light paracord pulley system would probably drop a few hundreds grams?
Yes i think so, i was time stretched to change it unfortunately, next time maybe
I am always thinking why car company can't make such a car which roof is a solar plate...who produce electricity for a running car???? But you did such a great thing 😮
Love that hub
Yea i was really happy with it too!
Your prior bike used a BBSHD. Now that you used a direct hub motor, which did you prefer? Which did you find as more efficient? Also was the 310W solar panel enough to stay self sufficient?
nice bike. i want one
Cool video. I recently did a 8 day tour about 30% gravel roads and by day 7 I was so tired. Day 8 I could only get like 125bpm, I couldn't push myself any harder it was really weird. What kind of training did you do for the suntrip?
Yes without being trained or pacing properly thats guaranteed to happen. I trained for six months working up to around 20 hours of cycling a week. Mostly zone 2 teaining and some intervals.
Well done on the sun trip. Post a video with links to the bits used on the bike. Where did you get the shapes cut for the solar panel mounts?
That was with a friend in 2019 from a company in Belgium. Sorry I didn't remember what it was.
You should add more solar panels!
*Dream bike for Indians* 🤩🤩👌
Solar sensor please atteched.. automatically rotated..sun side😊😊🎉🎉
This needs to be a kickstarted project
It'd be cool if the chinese came up with some aerofairing 5k€ bike with solar plastered all over it. Could easily do like 40km/h with solar alone. Might not even make sense to add pedaling drivetrain as that would affect aero too much.
Very interesting. However, I am uncertain if directing the panel helps really so much. Having it horizontal all the time gives already 85% of the maximal collection of sun energy (calculated for a all year round solar system, in summertime probably more). This would also save considerable weight and costs and result in less mechanical failures. However, during winter a tilting system is probably considerably better.
2 things made the tilting worth it for me on this sun trip., it's earlier in the year like you said. And it's also a North to South sun trip for the first time.
@@JackButlerVideos Ok, I understand. What's the maximal velocity the motor supports? 25km/h or faster than that?
cool 😊
Very nice👍👍👍👍👍
Hi Jack, would you increase the solar panel ? Thanks for this really excited to look at your bike.
For a sun trip in the middle of summer like normal. I think so. I took a gamble on bad spring weather and actually kind of lost it, maybe.
Good luck on a windy day
Wow thanks for the videos. Only came across your channel a couple of days ago and didn’t know anything about the sun race or these types of bicycles until then. Very interesting. Do you recharge your battery at night if possible? Is this allowed? Do you have to limit your power usage depending on the amount of sun? Would it be possible to just go full power on a very sunny day? Sorry I’ve got lots of questions. It would be great to see a video talking about the solar/motor tech aspects - maybe giving tips to anyone interested in doing this for themselves. TIA
For the race, you cannot recharge only from the sun. Of course, if you are touring by yourself, you can do whatever you like. Ultimately it is a bicycle so I don't actually need any power. I can still just cycle. The more sun you get, the further you go in a day. I hope to make a video.
About the numbers at some point soon. But unfortunately I didn't keep a good record. I was too busy during the race.
@@JackButlerVideos thanks for getting back to me. My wife is away for a few days so I'm binge watching/listening to your vids whilst I can lol. I'm on day 14 now. All I can say is what am amazing adventure and well done.
😊hey super Jack!! Always a great day when you post a new video!! So cool to go through your fighter aircraft finally!! I do have one question: maybe you said but didn't catch it, is the motor controller from grin? I am looking for an inverter capable of modular regen, using a lever to module it, and I think grin it's the only one doing it. One question/suggestion, don't you think that a front aero shield like the one that Killian and Jonas are using, might help your aerodynamic? Thank you for sharing your weapon😊
Hey! Thanks! Those front Shields are very expensive and they compromise the cooling of the rider, it's okay if you are not riding hard. It's easier to make aerodynamic gains at the back with a tail. But yes they would improve things. The controller is from grintech, a baserunner. I really like it
@@JackButlerVideos it would be like being into the velomobile more or less, so. I know in velomobile they have air ducts to bring air to the rider, and close them down if needed, maybe that would be a good compromise. Regarding the cost I don't know, in the past I did carved lexan with a heat gun, it was pretty hard but I got the job done, btw I don't know if that shape it's achievable without a proper thermo forming mold. The idea of the cover came up while I was watching your videos, and you were filming, you can clearly hear the cadence of your pedaling true the noise of the air. Thank you for the info on the controller ☺️
Excellent looking bike. Just one question; does the solar panel act like a sail in moderate to strong breezes, or can it be compensated for?
It's not bad, feels like riding a light road bike in the wind
Just a strong wind to fly😮.
Looks great! What is motor controller? Looks slim and small. Thanks!
Grintech baserunner. It works great!
100 EUR for a 310W flexible panel! I'm very jealous - in the US similar products, if you can find them, are around 1,000 USD. (200W and below panels are more reasonable, I think the big jump is due to freight and warehousing costs, as well as tariffs on Chinese-manufactured panels.)
Woah that's insane!!
@@JackButlerVideos Do you have a link to the panel? I can't seem to find it. Thanks!
@@JackButlerVideos Oh and a link to the company that custom made the parts (like for supporting the panel?) would be awesome too, thanks!
Telemetry would be nice to see: Input from solar, consumption of motor, power from pedals, speed, battery capacity,...
Would be great to know a bit about the training you did to get your amazing fitness level
Was it all on recumbents as it’s well known that they use some different muscles to an upright?
6 months of build up around 15 to 20 hours per week. No it was all on upright bike indoors but yes it takes a couple days to get the recumbent legs back
buena maquina,saluda en la republica checa ya ire mas tarde😅😅
super interesting, how much do you end up pedaling vs ebiking? Going to have to try and build me one!!
For this race much more pedal power. But if you were just cruising you could use change the balance however
Well done on winning the Subtrip, Jack. Do you know how many calories you were burning per day? Also, do you have and are you planning to publish detailed stats of your journey? Cheers
6 to 7 thousand i think. Sometimes less or more. I will try to yes. Thanks
Is the riding position on a recumbent confortable for the neck? I see your head is always at an angle. (Perharps not worst than road bike handlebars...)
My recumbent is actually very upright compared to others. I've never noticed anything or a need for a head rest.
Great construction!Would be interested in the wh/km stat. Seems like you got very little support from the motor - impressive cycling performance! Where did you get those black parts that connect the fibre glass tubes and the panel?
I need to make a numbers video yep. They are 3d designed and sent to a company to cnc and send. Sorry i don't remember the company it was in 2019 in Belgium. Thanks a lot!
@@JackButlerVideos Very impressive that you managed to finish the bike before the race (compared to Raf who didn’t!) Didn‘t know that all these parts were custome made.Dis you construct them on the computer yourself?
@@JackButlerVideos hello Jack, I suppose this is aluminium ?
Thx
Seb
Very informative , thanks
I am still puzzled by the legal side of things as obviously it exceeds EU e- bike limits . Wouldn’t you have needed number plates / insurance etc.. for road use? Did the Spanish police who stopped you not question the power if the motor etc…?
Did you have any balance issues from having that canopy/ roof swaying around above you?
Recumbents inherently a bit harder to balance at best if times
I've had that question about the legality as well, especially with the past editions going through Germany where the police has started putting obviously tricked out e-bike race mashines on test stands to get evidence about the actual speed/power/torque of the assist motors.
But then the whole "continous nominal 250W output" thing is a huge grey area and major OEMs are putting out systems that will help you up that hill with something close to 700W peak while somehow being classified as compliant to the EU guideline.
The best bet to not arouse suspicion certainly is to have a pedal sensor and some sticker on the motor that says "250W".
I wrote about this some time ago to the SunTrip and the main take away was that participants do all this at their own risk.
This is not to say that I don't fully support The Sun Trip and all it's mashines in its current form. Maybe the whole innovative experimental side of it detracts from asking these legal questions.
technicly yes, practicly no, as long as your not a hooligan or interfearing with normal car and bike traffic no one is going to pull over a solar powered vehicle. it would be bad look for them in the paper: "lead rider in solar race pulled over by cop for using too much sun."
Hey Jack. What charge controller. I can only find genasun that looks reliable
Yes i had the genasun! They are expensive but great