Electric bike quandry

[vinceprince]

Heres a question, while i was sat at a section on my electric trials bike a rider pulled up alongside me and said, do i know if his lad could ride one of the electric bikes in the youth class! interesting point i didnt have the answer but the bike has a power switch each position is equivalent to 80cc. 125cc, 250cc and 300cc so in theory it covers all classes but i still dont know the answer to the question and i wonder if the ACU has ever thought about it

[lemur]

Don't know how it is where you ride, but around here youth class is a support class and not a championship class, you can ride almost anything in a support class because it counts for almost nothing.  From my riding on electric trials bikes so far I set the power switch in the lowest power position and don't move that up until I actually find the thing to be underpowered, which so far has never happened.  

[konrad]

The 2021 EM Race has a "schoolboy" mode.  The Map switch then gives three very low-power settings.  But from 2022 onward, this feature was eliminated so EM could use that input to activate TKO.

[overdale]

If youths are riding in an ACU event they have to comply with Trials Standing Regulations TSR1 under Engine capacity /wheel size for age groups - with power at back wheel limited depending on what class they ride.  10 bhp for A & B Class, 7 for C & D and 2bhp for E class.

[vinceprince]

I think its very easy to set the bhp to any setting you desire on these bikes so that could be good news for my inquisitive dad and i would think the system can be locked out in some way the same as on an EMTB and then one bike coould be used right through the classes, i guess the only issue is how would the trial organisers know if the bike was set to the required bhp limit unless the ACU have a plan for that. He said to me that because his lad had grown up on Osets then it was a natural progression on to a bigger e bike.

[konrad]

7 hours ago, vinceprince said:

I think its very easy to set the bhp to any setting you desire on these bikes....

Yes, in theory.  But, so far, EM Connect's programmability is only relative to the maximum permitted settings.  The is no reference to any absolute power or torque numbers.  (I suspect the Dragonfly's U-Mapp will be similar.)   Edit: just saw that Dragonfly shows power in watts.

And even if there were, the meaning would be open to debate.  Is it the peak power or the continuous rating?  And what happens when the controller decides to limit output based on its internal temperature?

There's also the whole question of how having a single gear affects the situation.  I've tried to address some of that starting here: https://www.electricmotiontech.com/home/what-makes-a-good-trials-motor

But it's far from complete.  The bottom line is that driving force at the rear wheel is what really matters.

Edited Friday at 11:19 PM by konrad
Dragonfly