Stark Electric Bikes needed for 'Arctic Sea Ice Monitoring Terminal Deployment' programme.

[icesteinX]

Hello, I am looking for recommendations for any companies with electric bikes that would be suitable for travelling across the Arctic Sea Ice so we can pull our sledges with lower atmospheric monitoring terminals, and carry our SAR drones for Sea Ice Analysis. Whilst this is 'electric dirt riders' I'm living in the hope that enough of the wonderful people here, know of an electric bike company that could work well for our science work in the Arctic Sea Ice environment.

Thanks in advance all you awesome people

Best Wishes
Donald Banks
Arctic Sea Ice Science and Earth System Observation Monitoring SAR and Hyperspectral Small Satellites

 

[Torqu3]

How far do you need to go, what temps will you be riding in, and are you sure electric is the right type of bike for this?

 

[Number Six]

Electric bikes & their lithium ion batteries dont like cold. Wrong tool entirely. Yikes !
You'd do better to look at other successful arctic expeditions & see what type of equipment has proved worthy in those conditions.
As you're surely aware ; your life may depend on the equipment choices made.

 

[bluefxstc]

Hello, I am looking for recommendations for any companies with electric bikes that would be suitable for travelling across the Arctic Sea Ice so we can pull our sledges with lower atmospheric monitoring terminals, and carry our SAR drones for Sea Ice Analysis. Whilst this is 'electric dirt riders' I'm living in the hope that enough of the wonderful people here, know of an electric bike company that could work well for our science work in the Arctic Sea Ice environment.

Thanks in advance all you awesome people

Best Wishes
Donald Banks
Arctic Sea Ice Science and Earth System Observation Monitoring SAR and Hyperspectral Small Satellites

Are you sure a motorcycle is best for this application? Maybe 4 wheels are better for driving on ice with people who may not be the best riders. Polaris makes a 4 wheel drive electric UTV. It is expensive, but has an 80 mile range so seems like a pretty capable platform. I am sure there are other options that are cheaper, depending on your projects needs.

 

[icesteinX]

How far do you need to go, what temps will you be riding in, and are you sure electric is the right type of bike for this?

Hi Torqu3 thanks for your reply. The total range we are travelling is 450 miles -its between Greenland and the Geographic North Pole, but we are planning to start a testing run this September from the Svalbard Islands to see how we the battery run down times will be. It has to be electric bike because it's pulling our sledges with payloads of monitoring terminals, and with the distance we have to travel every year to deploy the terminals of 450 miles, we need the torque of the battery to be our mule. It doesn't matter if what we end up with is 50 miles max runs before batteries die, because we have to stop and stagger anyway to deploy the terminals on the sea ice every 100 miles, and in between (every 50ish) we are stopping to drill into the ice to take samples, as well as use our UAV drones to capture imagery using synthetic aperture radar. And added, is that we know that we may need to do some modifications including some bespoke wrapping around the battery casing itself just maintain a warmer temperature within the battery in comparison to the natural atmospheric temperature. We are not looking at temps below -20c, as when we do the full run in the April period annually, the Arctic has already warmed up to be a little less hostile, and we do our September runs, its just towards the end of peak summer melt where temperatures are coming down from there peak in preparation for returning the Arctic to a place of darkness and coldness throughout the entire winter where the more aggressive negative temperatures and winds apply. We are pretty handed team (I was an ex Super G and Downhill skier before returning to science, and my friend is an extreme stand up paddle boarder, and one is RNLI so that we minimise finding ourselves in trouble in need of SAR. So to be clear, if we can fix a solution to be able to test for distances of 100 miles from this September that is really what we are needing, in the hope that we can work out how to create a charging programme structure for the bikes for the full 450 miles we need to do, so that we can get in and out of dodge. The job is to deploy the terminals, get across the ice as fast as we can, with some torque aid in the lightest transportation method possible to be able to over distances, hence again, it simply has to be electric bikes, and were ok with been Guinea pigs per se Thanks again, for your reply.

Best Wishes
Donald Banks

 

[icesteinX]

Electric bikes & their lithium ion batteries dont like cold. Wrong tool entirely. Yikes !
You'd do better to look at other successful arctic expeditions & see what type of equipment has proved worthy in those conditions.
As you're surely aware ; your life may depend on the equipment choices made.

Thanks Number Six, but needs must. Its for Discovery science Were pretty used to extreme environments (I was a professional Super G and Downhill skier spending years living on glaciers, and am pretty used to the fringe edges of the Arctic. We need the data to enhance the data available for sea ice modelling and also to validate using UAV the synthetic aperture radar payloads we are testing which will ultimately be fitted on small satellites to enhance already year round Arctic Sea Ice monitoring at High latitudes. Thank you again though for the heads up considerations

 

[icesteinX]

Are you sure a motorcycle is best for this application? Maybe 4 wheels are better for driving on ice with people who may not be the best riders. Polaris makes a 4 wheel drive electric UTV. It is expensive, but has an 80 mile range so seems like a pretty capable platform. I am sure there are other options that are cheaper, depending on your projects needs.

Thanks bluefxstc, its a strong electric bike frame that were really wanting to push with to keep the weight down but give us torque. Unfortunately, 4 wheels just won't cut it when are faced with deep thick walls of ice ridges forming as the result of the ice sheets that have collided together. Even some of that will be tricky for the two wheeler, but at least we can dismount and just use the torque of the electric bikes to slowly navigate over the mounds of the ice ridges till we hit clear flat ice sheets on the other side of the ice ridge wall. Thanks for your words though for real Donald

 

[rayivers]

Hello, I am looking for recommendations for any companies with electric bikes that would be suitable for travelling across the Arctic Sea Ice so we can pull our sledges with lower atmospheric monitoring terminals, and carry our SAR drones for Sea Ice Analysis. Whilst this is 'electric dirt riders' I'm living in the hope that enough of the wonderful people here, know of an electric bike company that could work well for our science work in the Arctic Sea Ice environment.

Thanks in advance all you awesome people

Best Wishes
Donald Banks
Arctic Sea Ice Science and Earth System Observation Monitoring SAR and Hyperspectral Small Satellites

Idk if it's available, but if so I'd consider heated wrapping run off the main battery, which would increase battery temps internally and externally using the same current flow. Range would take a hit of course, but the wrap need not generate a lot of heat so overall power drain should be low-ish with thermostatic control.

 

[Number Six]

Thanks Number Six, but needs must. Its for Discovery science Were pretty used to extreme environments (I was a professional Super G and Downhill skier spending years living on glaciers, and am pretty used to the fringe edges of the Arctic. We need the data to enhance the data available for sea ice modelling and also to validate using UAV the synthetic aperture radar payloads we are testing which will ultimately be fitted on small satellites to enhance already year round Arctic Sea Ice monitoring at High latitudes. Thank you again though for the heads up considerations

Given your mission parameters & operating conditions , a tracked electric would seem about the only viable option. On a conventional round wheel bike, those narrow-ish rolling wheels wont perform well even if fitted with studs when pulling a payload, it'll want to dig down more than forward. Hence the wider track arrangement - lots more forward motion than wheels.

Tracked electrics are quite new & thus lack any kind of operating history ; Reliability is an unknown, but it does appear to be a simple machine which could be of value for it's intended use.

Moonbike - electric tracked vehicle





Even more capable ; The Christini tracked bike drives from both the rear and the front which likely translates to far less pushing / pulling the machine over obstacles for the team.
It's gas powered though, but also a more proven reliable package than the newer electric offerings.

 

[Theo]

Hello, I am looking for recommendations for any companies with electric bikes that would be suitable for travelling across the Arctic Sea Ice

Hello and welcome.
If I have understood correctly, what you have in mind is to find a company which has experience in that kind of expeditions and which can provide you with suitable electric bikes, chargers and whatever you may need to run them on rental; is this correct? Unfortunately I know none.
Since you also mentioned the bespoke wrapping, are you also willing to buy, modify, test and validate electric bikes yourself for that use?

 

[Beagle]

Honestly you should just try to hit Stark with an email about that, maybe also on Instagram. Who knows, they could see this as something different, bold and exciting that would give them more coverage?

Might as well contact these crazy guys, though range could be significantly decreased maybe if you'd run low power setting it could fit your requirements?

 

[Philip]

Christini tracked bike drives from both the rear and the front which likely translates to far less pushing / pulling the machine over obstacles for the team.

Christini once made an AWD bicycle for some arctic explorer/tourist. One might think an electric AWD is a way to go, but I think a mechanical AWD would have more traction at low speeds, like in a crawl mode.

 

[C5tor]

Lithium batteries definitely do not work well below 0 degrees Celsius. They won’t really charge and they have almost no range.

You might want to check out the series “Long Way Up”, where Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman ride electric Harley Davidson Livewire motorcycles from the tip of South America all the way up to Los Angeles. They had serious problems just charging the bikes at near freezing temps. They didn’t really start acting normally until well above freezing.

Also, a dirt bike size battery isn’t going to get 50 miles of range in the snow, even in good conditions.

 

[F451]

UBCO has been selling their 2 wheel drive utility bikes for a few years now and they have a good reputation. I would contact them and see if they think their bikes would be suitable for your purposes.

UBCO 2x2 Electric Bike

They show batteries for sale (and lots of accessories) on their website but its not clear if those are "range extending" batteries, might be worth asking them if those are in fact range extending batteries:

Shop UBCO Products

Good luck with your project.

 

[HadesOmega]

oh that's a good one the Ubco 2x2 bike.

See if you can put a warmer blanket on the battery before setting out. Something like a tire warmer to help warm up the battery. The battery range will be reduced in cold weather and you can't charge the battery if they are frozen as well it damages the lithium batteries. You will have to bring the battery up to temp before charging. And yes having some kind of blanket over the battery would help.

If you need the best range look into an Energica Experia, they've got the largest batteries on an electric motorcycle like 21kwh. This bike is a beast though weighing in at 575lbs. Will have to get rid of those low fenders and put knobbies with studs on it. I read on electric motorcycle forum that in the owner's manual the bikes can be operated down to -20C. I think some electric motorcycles have built in warmers for the battery I know my Empulse TT did. When the battery is too cold you will also loose regen because you don't want to charge a freezing battery.

 

[bluefxstc]

Alta snow bike on the forum.

Snowbike build...?