Riding with Shreddie McSkate, YouTube video out now

[Altema]

I was supposed to go on a group ride memorial day weekend, but it got postponed, and it was too late to cancel the hotel. So I went anyway, and when the weather cleared on Monday, I had a group ride with Shreddie and some friends. The RadMini did very well, and actually turned out to be the second fastest bike there, beating the Super73's in drag racing and top speed. I was able to do 36mph on level ground, and on the Indian River Inlet bridge in Delaware, the RadMini hit 41 mph. The YouTube video on this ride should be coming out soon, and the long overdue video from Rusty Roads should be out soon as well.

It was a blast and we all had fun, only problem is my new battery gave up early, dying after 64 miles. I'm contacting the company to see about replacing that battery, after I do more testing on it. I had gotten 73 miles of throttle only from the old battery, so only 64 miles on pedal assist indicates something is wrong. I'll post some pictures later on.

[Altema]

The YouTube video came out tonight, the link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osW5yK9RLx0.
The ride was a blast but they obviously couldn't show the whole thing. Shreddie challenged the Rad to a race on his Super73 RX, and if you want to cut to that, the race action begins at 9:52. I was doing ok on battery range, but there were a few settings that were not optimal, made worse when I "turned it up". I did hit 41 mph coming over the bridge, but the power issue (and possible battery issue) meant I was running on the dregs when we finished. The bike never shut off though.

[Tony]

I enjoyed that, thanks for the link. Good to see the Mini performing so well.

[Ryan]

Wow, that is something....

[Altema]

I enjoyed that, thanks for the link. Good to see the Mini performing so well.

Yes, I was pleased with the performance. If I have to pick one or the other, I prefer torque to top speed, but the Phaserunner lets me gain a little top end without giving up the torque.

[Altema]

Wow, that is something....

It was fun. I almost missed out completely, as the original ride was postponed. However, they made the postponement official at 5:30 pm, and my deadline for cancelling the $400 hotel room was at 3pm. Rather than throw away the money, I made the trip anyways and planned to relax for the couple days. I was still in town for memorial day itself, so Shreddie got a couple of friends and we made a day of it.

On the positives, the Mini throttle is buttery smooth and very accurate. When negotiating challenging terrain, the throttle control is like a scalpel. The torque is wonderful, peaking at 104nm and able to push me over pretty much everything. The ride is comfortable, and although I know it could be better with a more expensive suspension post, I was not shifting to weird positions trying to get more comfortable like some of the other guys. Handling was excellent, and the only area that was sketchy was DEEP coarse sand. The Crosscurrent bike did ok in some parts, but had to be walked on the way back. The Black lightning handled it well, but Marv is an exceptional rider and I'm sure that contributed. The Super73 handled ok, but didn't have enough torque to keep going. The Mini had plenty of torque to power through the sand, but was difficult to steer.

The brakes were good, but I think the pads met their match when I came to a fork in the bike path... at 41 mph! I stopped ok, but there was fade.

The only negative was battery range. The batteries were exhausted at 64 miles, which was shorter than expected. There were a few factors here. One was a couple of non-optimal controller settings. Another was flat out racing. And another was that our average speed was high, above 20mph most of the trip. And then the last factor was a 14AH battery which gave out early, and dragged my good 20AH battery down with it.

The Cycle Analyst measures just about everything, and my power usage was 29 watt hours per mile, which is really bad. Marv was getting 19 watt hours per mile, so his bike was pretty efficient, while mine was just burning power.  After I got home, I optimized the setting more until I got about 20 to 21 WH/H, so I was happy with that. The battery issue I could not fix though. The battery in question is a 52v 14 AH downtube battery, which I bought to replace a supposedly lower quality 52v 13AH battery.
Using the two older batteries, I got 73 miles of throttle only range. So, I expected the better battery to get me about 80 miles, but it didn't. The most the battery could deliver was 12AH, and I'm going back and forth with the company, who gave me permission to disassemble the battery and test individual cells. I'm looking at upgrading the questionable battery to a 17AH unit anyways, so we shall see!

[vudude]

Your Mini is rock'in

[JimInPT]

That's a pretty cool video; my Mini StepThru is envious of that torque.  Maybe post-warranty I'll be thinking of an upgrade............

[Altema]

That's a pretty cool video; my Mini StepThru is envious of that torque.  Maybe post-warranty I'll be thinking of an upgrade............

If you need only the torque, then you only need to upgrade the controller. The original Rad motor has lots of torque to offer.

[JimInPT]

If you need only the torque, then you only need to upgrade the controller. The original Rad motor has lots of torque to offer.

Good point; I can get by just fine with the stock config, but once she's out of warranty next March I'll take a look at controller upgrades.  Hopefully by then there will be drop-in options for the ST version of the Mini; I can still tinker, I just don't want to so much anymore.