Being a bank holiday Easter weekend, i couldn’t wait to make the most of the glorious weather and take out our 36v demo bike to do some more range testing. With a fully charged battery & sunshine awaiting a quick route was planned from our shop in Aylesbury, heading out on the Oxford road over to Bishopstone to get away from the busy main roads and stick with the more scenic country lanes. I’d been changing the settings on the LCD display to get a nice balance of pedal assistance but still allowing me to get a work out although not to strenuous, it was already early afternoon and temperatures were nearing 25 degrees, I settled on level 3 ( out of the 5 levels ) that seemed to give a nice balance although at times when it was dead flat or slightly down hill i was dropping down to level 2 and still easily able to hover around the 15/16 mph mark which is a nice pace for most situations.
Around owlswick i noticed the sign for Longwick which i new would take me most of the way into Thame as my idea was to jump on to the Phoenix trail Located between Thame and Princess Risborough on National Cycle Network Route 57, The Phoenix Trail has something to suit everyone cyclist /dog walkers etc and spans over 7 miles across the Chilterns countryside. Reaching the start of the trail I’d already clocked up 14 miles & to my surprise only used up 17% of the battery. With this in mind an seeing i was now off the public highway i thought id take the opportunity to remove the speed limiter an, option available via the lcd smart display, then if there were some quiet sections along the trail I could open her up abit! Luckily it wasn’t to busy & with loads of battery left I had a few fast runs along the trail touching 25 mph on level 5 with the pedal assist! Very impressive considering this is the smaller voltage of our two VS7 models .
At this point I was nearing the end of the trail, battery percentage was saying about 28% used and 21 miles covered & I was now in Princess Risborough heading past Jamiroqua’s house ( the singer for those who may not know ). Unfortunately I couldn’t see any sight of him as I breezed down the road looking over the wall at his amazing property & grounds. That’s another one of the great things the e-bikes gives you and that’s the chance to get out and explore areas you perhaps wouldn’t have ventured out to with a normal bike. Into Risborough high street now and across to the A4010 towards Little kimble battery now sitting at 33% used, I’m back in the restricted mode but there’s quite a steep hill ahead so level 5 assistance selected (full power & torque ) but restricted to 15.5mph to stay road legal & the bike makes very light work of it with me only needing to lightly pedal .
I’m about a further 8 miles from the shop now and will shortly be retracing my early tracks to the Oxford road and back to base.
All in all total distance for the ride out was 31.6miles and 38% battery used
(62% remaining)
The weather being warm helps the battery perform at its best but even so that’s impressive range & up about 10% on a similar ride i did over winter in temperatures around 5 degrees .
It just goes to show these LG batteries found in the two VS7 models really do perform especially well.
