Today was the day of the annual 'Wirral Egg Run'. For those who don't know, it's a massive bike gathering and cruise around the Wirral coast to raise money for a local hospital. Many thousands of bikes, trikes and quads take part every year and when I don't have my own bike I still go down to watch.
This year I decided to take the C5 - not to take part in the run but rather to serve as a talking point at the side of the road.
The level of interest it received was amazing and overwhelmingly positive. People stopping me to ask about it, lots of positive comments, thumbs up etc. I parked it right at the roadside as many thousands of bikes cruised past. So many great comments from the bikers... 'Wow, a C5!', 'That's amazing', 'Wanna swap?', 'Come and join in', etc...
My daughter sat in it most of the time and had loads of sweets thrown at her.
Here's some pics:
Afterwards we headed up the coast a little way and I parked up by the sea for another couple of photos and lots more interest from passers by:
The only down point to the day was loss of electric drive on the way there. The journey is about 2.5 miles each way and roughly 2 miles into the trip I accidentally leaned on the power button while I was waiting at a junction. As I wasn't moving and had the brake on, the drive belt slipped with a loud rasping sound and popped off the motor.
I pedalled over to the side of the road to inspect the problem. Removed the boot and reattached the belt. Unfortunately there was still no power to the motor, only a buzzing noise from the control box (the pod & lights still worked fine). Needless to say the rest of the day was spent pedalling!
When I finally got it back to my garage, I consulted the oracle (C5alive website) and learned the buzzing noise from the control box must be the main relay. Got my multimeter on the battery: 12.7v which seemed good so I stripped the main board out of the CB. It looked perfect, all fuses were good and no signs of blown components. Then I connected the motor terminals directly to the battery and it struggled to turn a few revolutions before dying. No wonder the relay was having a fit. There mustn't have been enough juice to hold the contacts closed.
So... finally connected the multimeter again which showed a healthy voltage but as soon as I powered the motor and drew a few amps from the battery, the voltage collapsed to about 3v. Looks like the battery has had it's day. To be fair it was a cast off from a friend a few years back who was having problems with it too.
Going to have to wait till payday and go battery shopping then!
C.