Germany's Superhighway for Bikes Offers Hope for 'Transformative' Transportation
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/01/06/germanys-superhighway-bikes-offers-hope-transformative-transportationWhile the United States closed 2015 with a record high number of auto sales, Germany offered a potentially "transformative" transportation alternative by opening a stretch of a highway for bikes that is slated to take tens of thousands of cars off the road every day.
The stretch of the Radschnellweg RS1 open now, thanks to funding from the EU, the North Rhine-Westphalia state, and regional development group RVR, spans roughly 3 miles (5 kilometers).
The full length of the highway—which still needs funding—will be 62 miles (100 kilometers.)Fast Company reports: "The RS1 will be continuous, running not just between cities, but right through city centers." Agence France-Presse adds that the highway's "paths are lit and cleared of snow in winter," and that it will connect 10 western cities including Duisburg, Bochum and Hamm and four universities, running largely along disused railroad tracks in the crumbling Ruhr industrial region.
Almost two million people live within two kilometers of the route and will be able to use sections for their daily commutes, said Martin Toennes of regional development group RVR.
Aided by booming demand for electric bikes, which take the sting out of uphill sections, the new track should take 50,000 cars off the roads every day, an RVR study predicts.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Already have most of the parts, including a front and rear suspension, wheels, brushless motor, lithium batteries and one of the two solar panels I'm going to use. Something rather similar to this actually but with only one rider and considerably more on board cargo capacity. My single biggest hurdle was finding an inexpensive way to solar charge a 52V battery from a 12 or 24V panel and I think I have that under control now, should know in another week or so when my latest parts order is due to arrive.
The biggest physical barrier to bike use in the USA is probably distance and after that climate, things are too far away and it's either enervatingly hot/humid or bone chillingly cold in much of the country for a considerable part of the year. Of course bikes are seen as either kids toys or playthings for rich yuppies in the USA, very few people consider them for actual day to day transportation.
Integrated-into-the-design panels are just there, on the bike I posted the panels are a slightly flexible sheet of plastic about the thickness of say the cardboard a shoe box is made from and they don't weigh anything like the glass and metal panels you are used to seeing.
Panels of the size on the bike produce enough energy in bright sun to move you on the bike maybe ten to fifteen mph on the flat on a calm day, they won't take you up hills or into a headwind at any appreciable speed so the idea is to charge onboard batteries with the panels when you aren't riding which will be most of the time. Then when you ride the panels are supplemented by the stored energy in the batteries. Lithium cells border on 99% charge/discharge efficiency so you don't lose much by storing the energy to use later and the bike will be a lot more perky and practical when you do ride. Leave the bike in the sunlight when you aren't riding and it stores up range and speed. Two hours in the light may give you a brisk ten minute ride to the store and back. Parked in the sunlight during the day while you work and it stores store range and speed for your commute.
There are already a few solar charged ebikes and more will be coming, here is an example of a commercial product.
Yeah, it's cheaper to just plug in and charge, cheaper by a lot, but the idea of solar powered transportation is just too geeky for some of us to resist now that it's finally becoming practically possible at the individual level if you roll your own system. People climb mountains because they are there, people build solar powered vehicles because they can.
This is the winner of the 2015 Suntrip solar race on a very specialized solar powered competition machine, you can't buy one but all the parts to create one are commercially available and the costs are lowering quickly for the technology.
