[dkw12002]

Yesterday at 3:45 PM I got the urge to go riding, so I took my Trek with the Hill Topper out for a ride and just kept going. In fact I rode from New Braunfels via River Road (one of the most scenic roads in Texas) over to Canyon Lake Dam. This is Hill Country so naturally we have hills. The HT performed very nicely. I ran out of battery though about 8 miles out on the return trip and soon after that ran out of daylight. I made it home at 7:00 PM. Average speed for the 24 miles was 7.4 mph. That includes walking up a couple of really steep hills and 4 short rests. At least now I have a better idea of the range of my battery. When I do the trip again, I know exactly what to change, namely, I won't press that red button so much on straight roads just to go a little faster and save it for actual hills. One thing I've already learned is if I have a really steep hill, which I do near my home, I just walk the bike up that one to save the battery. I think the battery will last me the entire trip the next River Road trip. For now, I will be riding my scooters the next couple of days until my tail bone recovers.

I would never have attempted this ride without electric assistance, and look forward to another ride maybe next weekend to test out my theory about how best to use the battery for this road. When I was younger I enjoyed long bike rides and now that I am older, it is nice to know I can still do it. I intend to top a lot of hills over the next couple of months. Happy riding, dkw

[dkw12002]

So today was another beautiful day..high of 77 F, and my tail bone is still too sore to ride a bicycle, so I went scooter riding instead. This time I took the same route over to Canyon Lake to check the mileage from my last bike ride, and discovered I had underestimated the distance. It was actually 18.2 miles out, so double that makes 36.4 miles. That makes my av. speed much higher at 11.2 mph. It also means my battery lasted for 28 miles. I was right about it being depleted 8 miles from home though. I guess I can't complain about getting 28 miles from my Li battery with the Hill Topper, even if I did do a fair amount of pedaling. That's still a very long trip, 36.4 miles. I have only done one longer trip ever. Several years ago (1977) I bought a bicycle at the PX in Augsburg and drove it by back roads back to my Army duty station in New Ulm, Germany. That trip was 50 miles or so. As I recall, it took me 5 hours, but I stopped for un bier.

That reminds me of a friend I worked with in Germany who always bought the best of everything...Porsche, Bang and Oleson turntable, Bose speakers, a huge diamond for his girlfriend. Anyway, he invited me over to hear his state of the art stereo and it was great except he had this converter humming like crazy in the background because of the different German electrical current. That humming drove him nuts. He also had a new $400 Motobecane bicycle that was so light you could pick it up with two fingers. I rode out to a gasthaus with him and as I parked my $35 PX bike, he began swearing. I asked what was wrong and he said he had no kickstand and when he bought the bike, the saleman "assured" him he wouldn't need a kickstand cause there would always be a tree or building to lean it against.

[Mike]

Hey DKW,

Fantastic story! I'll pass it around the team here and make sure everyone gets it. We always love hearing back from customers on their Hill Topper adventures.

Cheers,

Mike