Electric fatbike for extended remote trips

[Tronbaby]

G'day all,
As the topic suggests, I'm wondering if anyone has come across any E-Fatbikes and more important, has anyone used one? Particularly for remote, extended durations. Any insight to the problems and possibilities would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

[Lentamentalisk]

It would seem that anything battery powered would be particularly bad for extended adventures. They are great for getting around town or short day ventures, but without a way to recharge them, you are left with another 20-30lb to lug around once the batteries die in the first 20 miles.

Maybe if you were to go gas powered you could bring enough fuel to make it worth your while, but then you might as well be riding a motor bike...

[Tronbaby]

Thanks for the reply.
That has crossed my mind, but I've also been looking at solar recharging whilst in transit. I've seen some flexible fairly robust solar panels.

The E-bikes would be for my children ( 8-10yo ) particularly for one of my kids as she is unable to sweat. So having the option for her to continue moving without exerting herself when before she begins to overheat is a big priority.

The plan is for my wife and I to haul trailers so the kids don't have any extra weight, and to place the solar panels on top of the trailers. What I'm trying to find out is peoples personal experience with E-Fatbikes and what technical problems they might have. My wife and I are looking at all possibilities at the moment so as to include the kids in a once of a lifetime adventure, and for them to enjoy it!

[Lentamentalisk]

Sweet. That sounds like a bunch of fun! If you are only going distances that children can ride (as opposed to the insane things some people here do) then you are a lot better off. I think you'll be surprised however, at how many solar panels you'll need. You can do the math to figure out exactly how many charging for how many hours it will take to get the bike to go how many miles. Solar generally is reserved for charging phones, tablets, cameras and such. Actually moving people is a lot more work.

You may also want to look into some sort of shadow bike sort of thing. I have never seen a shadow fat bike, but my god that would be epic, and I'm sure some custom frame builder would do it.

[bmike-vt]

Tandem Fat... Probably makes more sense than trying to solar charge a battery...

[Glissader]

...particularly for remote, extended durations
...

Welcome to the forum and congrats on your first post. I am not a frequent poster myself.

One issue, depending on where you
intend to ride the electric motorcycle is that it my violate the local rules/laws. It would cause family distress to be "pulled" over for land access violation. It is illegal to ride "motorized" vehicle in my state on "multi-use" trails. A motor is a motor is a motor per the law here. There is no handicap access provision on multiuser trails. Hopefully, it is legal where you intend to travel? If it is not legal, be aware, many human powered bicyclist "self-police" access rules/laws because they fear trail access loss. That can lead to stress you and your family don't desire. Europe seems to be farther down the electric powered motorcycle road then the USA.

Don't be surprised when you aren't made to feel welcome to travel on US trails, no matter the physical challenges the individual riders of an electric "fat" motorcycle face.

Best of luck in your search to have a fun filled experience with your family.

[nepbug]

Share a little more on what your planned trip is, that will help with any recommendations.

Solar charging will likely be difficult as most e-bikes run between 24 and 72 volts so they require some pretty high charging voltages.

Maybe you can work something out where you run a dynamo charging hub on your bike (or trailer, or both!) and you can charge a battery with your pedaling, while the kids are consuming another battery. 

[Tronbaby]

It had never crossed my mind that an Ebike might be illegal in another country. My wife has and electric assisted bike ( no throttle ) and I think as long as it does not exceed 50km while assisted then it can be used anywhere.

 As for the trip. Mongolia? Tibet and Nepal post monsoon season for approx 4-5 months then Europe for spring, riding to Northern Europe for summer.
 As I've mentioned in an earlier post my daughter has a genetic condition and cannot sweat, so we are attempting to plan an adventure where she is not limited by the elements ( following milder weather ) or held back by her genetic condition.
 We are still in the very early stages of planing and finding what's going to work for the kids will probably take a long time.

Thanks for all of the comments, info and suggestions so far.

[bikeny]

That sounds like an amazing trip that you and your family are planning! I think in those parts of the world, nobody will care if someone is riding an electric assisted bike. I think the comments were more about riding them in the US, where they are illegal on trails and roads in many places. I think your biggest issue will be recharging of the battery pack, as mentioned. It will likely take many square meters of solar panels to recharge and Ebike battery. I would suggest reading up on the topic and doing the calculations for yourself. If you are able to recharge the battery each day, your next concern would be battery life. Recharging and draining a battery every day for many months will cause it's capacity to decline and it will eventually fail. That will of course depend on the quality of the batteries which is often hard to determine.

I agree with bmike-vt, a tandem fatbike may be a better solution. Your daughter can pedal when appropriate or just let you do all the work!

Best of luck with your adventure, and please post up what  you decide.

Mark

[bmike-vt]

If you look at tandems.. make sure you get one that has a differential so that the stoker can pedal a different cadence than the pilot. Otherwise you'll end up working her when you were trying not to!

[Sparkyga]

Honestly for short trips the electric bike for your kid is a great idea, but for an extended trip its not feasible unless you want to carry a rather huge array of solar panels, gas generator or sticking to areas where you can charge the bike at night (places plentiful guesthouses/hotels). 

Just something to consider with the Ebike and charging with solar panels. Your riding during daylight hours, camping at night. Unless your camping above the Arctic Circle in the summer, your never going to have enough daylight hours to charge the bike. You would need to build a setup that allows you to charge during daylight hours, which your probably not going to have enough surface area on a bike that would keep the battery charged.

Build yourself a family solar vehicle. That would be an epic adventure and doable!