Public Announcement! May 30 in Sebastapol

Happy Riders

The "Eco Hummer" heading for Sebastapol

The Vixen

Allergy and Elements Protection

On Saturday, the Blue Sky Showroom opened its doors to the public in an old Ford Dealership. Blue Sky is 4 companies under the same roof that share the electric vehicle vision. Michael has been working with Thunderstruck Motors (one of the 4) and they have been very helpful on the battery front as well as teaching us about electrics. Michael was invited to speak during the open house about his experiences with electric bikes and right before he spole he told me that he was going to introduce me so that I could talk about the Green Ride to Our White House. After we spoke, a small group of the people who had listened to us gathered around and the interest and excitement was fabulous. I gave out this blogsite and I hope to create relationships with some of the people who are interested in supporting this project.

To get to the event, Michael rode his "eco hummer" from his house to Sebastapol which is a trip of about 40 miles. I followed in the truck with a load of more electric bicycles. I gave him an hour lead time and he beat me by almost 15 minutes! He averaged a little over 20 miles per hour, pedalled along with the motor and used less than 2/3rds of his battery 48 volt 50 amp battery pack. Of course the batteries weight 65 pounds and he was pulling them in a trailer but the performance was impressive and as we learn more about this technology, we are discovering ways to maximize range and still average a good speed.

After our talk, we hung out and talked to people interested in electric bikes. It was a lot of fun and a preview of what I expect we will be doing a lot of on The Green Ride. It's such a gas to put people on the bikes and after about 2 loops around the parking lot, they are grinning ear to ear. Not only do they have fun but they immediately understand that electric bicycles increase the viability of using a bicycle by a lot!

On Friday, Michael and I went to look at the Vixen RV. They look better in the pictures. The owner had not cleaned it up but it was still obvious that making it work for our needs would be a huge and expensive project that neither of us want to tackle. It's a vehicle that has a loyal following and hopefully Brett will be able to find someone who needs a project who will buy it. We are now turning our sites onto a Dodge Sprinter that we can convert to a RV. For the same money we will have a very reliable vehicle that will have value once we are done with the Ride.

Time to hunt for a SAG vehicle!!