Can You Ebike a 100 Mile Bikepacking Route?

Ebikes are great when it comes to allowing people to do things they don’t normally do. Look at all the 50+ people returning to mountain biking with the help of a little electricity and quite a bit of money. However, can an unfit 51 year old ebike around a two-day 100 mile bikepacking route?

But why?

As the organiser of the Kinesis Dorset Dirt Dash 50:50 bikepacking event I am obliged to pre ride the route for not just health and safety reasons, but also because it is a really bloody cool route. A weekend away with friends messing around in fields and forests before the hectic big event is a real joy. However, a year of old guy medical nonsense has not left me 100 mile fit, so the ebike challenge was on. How do you get 100 miles out of an ebike?

The Bike

I used an XL 2021 Specialized Levo SL. It has a 320Wh internal battery, and they also offer a 160Wh range extender water bottle battery. The SL is a half powered ebike, with the tunable eco setting adding only 30% additional power from the maximum 240 watts available. Benji has ridden and written about the new SL here.

Do the Maths

Don’t just set off and assume it will all be OK. It won’t. It is all going to go wrong unless you have a plan. I needed to figure out how far I ccould get on the main battery, and then work out how many range extender batteries I needed to cover the first day (55 miles). Then allow for the extra weight of my camping gear. I packed three extra range extender batteries. 

Fine Tune

With the SL you can fine tune the three power modes for both “support” and “peak power”. I set the eco mode to give 25% support. This is the extra power it gives when twiddling along. I then set the peak power to 100% to access everything it had when I needed it. This approach worked very well, and is now my default setting. I found it delivered extra power very naturally when required, whereas the stock eco setting limited the peak power to 35% which felt very weak, and consequently I almost never used it.

Packing the bike

Despite years of bikepacking experience this was not that simple. Being a full suspension bike with 150mm of travel meant that I needed 150mm of clearance between the rear tyre and the seatpack. It turns out I didn’t quite have that much and the rear tyre buzzed the bag a couple of times. You also need 150mm clearance at the front. I only just managed to get away with this on an XL bike. Small bikes will require smaller bags.

The extra baggage takes the rider and stuff overall weight up. It would be wise to increase the pressure in the shocks accordingly. I just flipped the levels for a firmer ride.

Again the full sus’ness meant there was not room for a framebag. This, plus having to carry a charger and two extra batteries meant the tent was left behind, and the small bivi bag went in. I prefer not to have anything on my back, but I had to use a camelbak for my water, food and waterproofs. I had the luxury of an ebike, but would be roughing it in a bivi bag.

Riding Style

The riding strategy is much the same as when you are on a normal bike covering a big distance. Slip stream the chubby guys and don’t pedal if you can freewheel. Try to be as efficient as possible. Beyond this, on an ebike you need to think about cadence. Ebikes don’t like you churning a low grinding cadence… keep it spinny for more range.

Extender Batteries

The Specialized 160Wh range extender batteries cost £340 each.  I managed to get three of these range extenders, and loaded the two extras in a bar bag. I was hauling over £1,000 of extra batteries. Luckily Singletrack Mark has a spare, as did my wife, which kept costs down. Top tip: sticker up the batteries so everyone gets their own battery back.

When the range extenders get towards the end of their tank, they eke out the last bit of power and the bike loses a lot of power. This seemed to only happen on hills, never on the flat. But it took less than 1 minute to swap batteries and spin on up the hill.

Midride Recharges + Auxiliary First

I did not require any midride recharging but I had a plan if I did. I adjusted the settings so that the range extended battery discharged before the internal battery. This would allow me to walk into a pub with a charger and small battery to get some juice. That has got to be way easier than convincing the staff that the hairy guy with cow poo in his beard should walk his muddy bike into their carpeted restaurant to plunder their expensive electricity.

Burning Brakes

Cooking your brakes is surprisingly common in bikepacking. The extra weight of your kit makes for a much weightier bike, and your brakes have to work much harder to slow you down. The 180mm SRAM Guide R rear hydraulic brake boiled itself on the last descent. The last blast into camp is steep, fast, loose and around 1km long. I think the fluid boiled, the disc changed colour, and you are then just squeezing bubbly fluid… so the lever came back to bars with the last corners handled with just a front brake. That’s great if you like high speed sketchy trail drama, not so good if your objective was a relaxing weekend in the countryside.

Day 1 Results

This was 55 miles with 4,000 feet of climbing, and it went well from an ebike perspective. I consumed all three range extenders and half the main battery, using 80% of my electricity stock at 640Wh approx. The bike was in my tuned eco mode (25% support – 100% peak power) almost all day. As the day got on, and I got weaker, the max turbo thrust button was pushed a couple of times. Finishing with half the main battery left was a good result. 

Overnight Recharge

Jules the farmer let me use a glamping shepherd’s hut for the night, so the bivi bag never got used… which was nice. I needed to recharge everything overnight which sounds easy. It is not. You have to wake up and move the lead onto the next battery every few hours, which is easy in shepherd’s huts, not so convenient if your charging point is a wet field away in an outbuilding. What’s more, the power lead would not reach the bike without the bike being half way into the hut. Maybe you should think about packing an extension lead.

Specialized Mission Control

In the Specialized Levo app they have a cunning bit of kit. Simply tell Mission Control how far, and how much climbing you have left on your route, and how much power you want at the end… and it will serve out as much power as it can whilst ensuring it delivers you to your destination with 5% left.

I tried this and it basically said you can have sod all power because it’s still bloody miles to the pub. It didn’t know I had more range extenders, how was it supposed to know that? Anyway… it didn’t work for me with so many miles to go. People have reported that it is a great feature, so I will try again another day.

Day 2 Results

This was shorter and less hilly at 43 miles and 2,200 feet of climbing. We had a lovely day spinning along. I already knew I could do 55+ miles with all the power I was packing, so a 43 mile day had zero range anxiety. Thumbing up to max turbo power even when it wasn’t needed kept me fresh and happy all day. I finished with 320Wh left, having used about 480Wh. That’s 60% of my batteries.

Don’t be an Ebike Dick.

My old bikepacking buddies were all on regular non electrical bikes. Obviously this meant I got the mick taken frequently. But as an ebiker life is much easier. In many ways it’s like being a privileged rich benevolent Lord, sat upon a fine stallion, riding amongst struggling peasants.  To offset my lordly ebike guilt I would spin off ahead and hold gates open, and place a hand on someone’s back and give them a helpful shove up the hill for a while. Share the power man!

Kinesis Dorset Dirt Dash

If you think this looks like fun, we still have a handful of places available in this years 50:50 overnight event, and the one-day 100 too. Singletrack Members get a £5.00 discount. Simply use ST2023 as a discount code when you sign up to the Dirt Dashes (you’ll have to enter the discount code in the questions section when you sign up).

Ebikes At Future Dirt Dash Events?

So, at this point I have proved one guy can ebike a 100 mile two-day route. When you think about the logistics of an ebike bikepacking route and recharging 100 ebikes, from different brands, with different auxiliary or no auxiliary options, removable and fixed batteries… it all gets rather complicated. What about security? 100 ebikes might have a total RRP of over half a million quid! Fire risk? And how inappropriate would it be to have a row of petrol generators charging up this green transport option? This will take some serious pondering… watch this space.