But you cant pedal a motorcycle or car when it breaks down either, so you should ride only up and down your driveway so you don't to have to walk it home?
We weren't talking about making a bike that breaks down on a 100 mile ride and needs to be pedalled home anyway. We are just chatting about what features we would all individually like to have on our bike for longer rides.
We never need to cause bother to anyone with our little petrol engine, and that is another fun and valid way to ride your bike.
It is too easy to make a 100 mile
capable bike to even need a discussion lol, but its harder and much more interesting and specific and individual and interesting (again) to make it for your needs and tastes, and be comfortable for your body and your specific terrain like decent roads or long distance cross country routes.
Do you have any needs and tastes, beyond the compulsion to always have the correct permissions and paperwork on your person, or is that the biggest pleasure of cycling?
Comfort came up and was discussed in the various ways that it can possibly be achieved, like fat tyres on rigid bikes, or narrow tyres and suspended, or keeping the chassis rigid and only suspending the contact points.
Some examples were shown of the parts we have to hand.
Yes it is true that you dont need a 9" travel downhill frame or 4"+ fat tyres for riding roads on any bicycle for any distance, but we
are carrying significant extra mass attached to the bike frame and
usually not trying to spend all day getting there. Adding up the extra weight we need extra heft to carry it, all te way through the build it's just getting bigger and heavier and more rigid as we bolt all these extras in/on there.
Whether it is huge batteries for the whole way, or a wide 79cc 4 stroke, or a cute light 69cc 2 stroke with a front wheel geared hub motor and smaller batteries on the fork there is still a bunch of heavy stuff that needs supporting and carrying safely. Remember snapping your pannier racks and using some bungee or straw bale string to fix them mid ride?
We can reduce our motor weight to reduce the mounting parts weight, and reduce the power we need.
We can also use mixed technologies like to 30% of the way on stealthy eleccy where necessary, 65 on petrol and the rest we just pedal and coast, and make it in a few hours. A much reduced weight bike should not need as much suspension.
All of these are valid options but all also need some thought about how to carry them in a practical arrangement that is safe from inertial forces during 100 miles of vertical shocks.
All-electric is the heaviest option
by far and that is somewhat impractical because of the inertia and exponential heft growth thing. It doesn't mean there is no middle ground, or moderate level, or mixtures of these elements.
You want to be confident of not breaking your bike or battery or motor or cargo mounts literally from the strain. So you add
more weight in the form of stronger frame and strong battery mounts and strong wheels and thicker tyres to support a traffic extra weight. Then it keeps on expanding exponentially to support itself, just like the water/food/fuel/clothes did when you were the only motor on the bike.. then the extra rigidity of the frame and cargo mounts and stuff can add up and ruin the comfort too.
Go too slowly and your butt gets tired of all the saddle time.
So consider the soft suspension to really cushion the vertical forces as you mount kerbs, rumble down rocky roads and traverse farmyards on your winding way. Its only going to make it easier to carry the enormous frame-straining loads without slowing to a crawl.
It used to be a problem to have long travel suspension on a road touring bike because of pedalling inefficiently for hours, and weight compared with "real" touring bicycles.
It used to cost £6000+ for a serious DH bike anyway;
but now you're motorised and now those bike parts are affordable because they are really old tech now. The bouncy pedalling inefficiency is not even a problem with the motor/s doing all the work.
Trendy fatbikes and "expedition" tourers are the current boutique bikes for the upper class with the image and stupid price. I'm sure they're just the thing for a credit card carrying gap year Himalayas vacation silk road explorer, pedalling it entirely by himself and spending his evenings blogging trendily lol, but once you add things like engine mounts and battery carriers into them they're going to ride just as dead and arse numbing as anything we can build for half the cost and with plenty of true long distance assistance.
We can build "normal looking" bikes for riding less than 50 miies in reasonable comfort and quick enough to not miss dinner or get
too sore, even using all-electric which I think is fantastic! I would rather it felt like feather bed though.