4 ms·

Does peddling really generate enough watts to fully power the rear wheel at comparable speed/torque level?

• messe 4y ago
  I don’t see how it couldn’t. I mean, the wheels spin when you pedal on a normal bike, don’t they?
• nradov 4y ago
  No it's obviously less efficient than a mechanical drive. The point is that it gives more flexibility in design and energy management, and may be more mechanically robust. So the benefits can be worth the loss of efficiency for certain applications.
  • germinalphrase 4y ago
    Fair enough. It’s certainly interesting.
  • Tostino 4y ago
    The applications where additional batteries are not preferable to this complicated system are vanishingly slim IMO. I've seen this proposed over the years over and over, with people designing similar systems, and i've always ended up disappointed in the objective performance characteristics of them.
• user32489318 4y ago
  I would say that will depend on the rider and the level of pain they want to go through. Some ballpark figures: A pro-level male athlete can comfortable put out 200W without breaking a sweat. All-out effort for an elite rider (male) is upwards of 400W for 20+ min effort. (According to Strava records Van der Poel has put out 450W for 20min) A pro-level female rider can put out 300-350W continuously for an hour (and longer) in all-out effort. A semi-untrained (male) individual can put out ~150-200W on average for an hour of all-out effort. 180W is ~30km/h for an amateur rider in a comfort position on a endurance geometry racing bike with system weight of 80kg. A semi-untrained rider would consider 90-130W acceptable for a leisure ride. These figures are quite less useless, you've to put them in perspective with the system weight (bike + rider), just can't escape physics.