In November I went on a group ride with just over 20 ICE motorcycles I had never met before. I only “knew” some of them from a Belgium specific motorcycle reddit group. Turned out to be a very fun event, no incidents and zero regrets.

I did go on rides with ICE motorcycles before but never with that many at once. When I just ride with 1 or 2 friends we plan our stops to be somewhere around a charger and that fixes my “charging problem”. See for example the link below of such an event.

But this time would be totally different as the route was planned by others up front and shared in the reddit group. So I knew where they would be riding and that the planned route was around 235 km long. I informed them I would join on my electric bike and that I shouldn’t need any charge stops. How brave of me 😁. I just looked up a charger near the start of the route and that’s it in terms of preparation.

The day itself I started on a full charge, rode around 50 km on highway to the charger near the starting point. Charged back up to 100%, or at least there was an attempt. I usually don’t charge over 80% on the road but this time was different and I rather had as much of a charge as possible. After 80% the speed kept dropping and dropping. Above 95% I was already at only 3 kW and it even dropped below 3 kW. In other conditions this would be a total waste of time. I was early so I left it on the charger.

Then we met at the starting point. I managed to get like 98% charge and was confident I would make it. Once we were complete te group ride began. I had seen the route up front and I was using an app to follow the GPX route by myself so I knew what the remaining distance was all the time. I’ve said it before but the way Energica has the consumption and range numbers so accurately on the screen is really helpful.

To be fair this was a 235 km planned route of lots of small roads, plus we were in a group so I knew average speed wouldn’t be over 60 kph and I should be OK on range. In the end we had to take some deviations due to roadwork and the total distance of the route itself turned out to be 240 km. I had 10% charge left when we arrived at the end.

There was a fast charger at 8 km from where we stopped so I said goodbye to the group and plugged in at the fast charger for the second charge of the day. Below is an image showing all my public charges and total costs of that day.

Per usual I charged too much on that stop so I could’ve have gone home a bit sooner. I just feel better having some reserve just in case. It should also help with battery lifespan if you don’t use it on the limit all the time. Not that I was that day, cause I was either riding it or charging.

Conclusion? Group rides are no issue on electric motorcycles. If I really wanted to I’m sure I could have convinced the group to plan one of the stops near a charger and then we could’ve doubled the distance. But honestly we were already on the road for a full day the way it was now.

Oh and afterwards I learned that my DVision HUD also has (beta) support now for riding GPX routes. The App I was using on my phone, BikeGPX, did great and is free. And somehow I managed to forget my HUD at home :D. Despite all my intentions to bring it that day. So for next time I’ll try again to bring the HUD and use that instead for navigation instructions.

Update: My second group ride just happened. This time it was 200 km planned but cold outside so I shortened it to 150 km. Again charging only was done near the starting point. Left there with 90% charge and got home with 40% left. During the group ride average consumption was 70 Wh/km. Once I’ve left the group that jumped to my usual 90 Wh/km.