August 5, 2025
Solar Cycling
One goal of this 3500 mile cross country north to south journey is to use only solar energy to power the electric assist on a recumbent trike I’ll be riding. The solar assist will be used sparingly to help get up hills and simply extend the range of daily distances.
I have incorporated two 200 watt solar panels from the 2024 Green journey. Those panels and the mast hardware to support them have been installed on two Stein trikes. In addition, I’ve taken two Burley trailers and mounted additional Jackery solar panels on those to carry the Jackery generator batteries that will store the solar energy. Those generators will be used to charge the batteries every night as needed.
The first Green Journey back in 2024 by Megan Routbort and Thomas Polo did not include the trailers and relied on generating power on the go. There were some issues we understand with that kind of system so learning from their experience we’ve added the trailers to increase the capacity of the solar.
This is my first foray into solar power, so I am learning a lot along the way. I want to use a system that was relatively simple and I could use off the shelf solar gadgets that I could understand and use.
My wife and I had used the jackery generator system on our last cross country van camping trip and it worked fine. We use the solar power to keep our trike batteries charged for exploring national parks on our trikes. We also used solar to power, all our electronic gadgets, phones, lights, and our small electric kettle pot to prepare our meals. So we are just using that technology now on a big bike ride.
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The old classic Burley with the red tires is the one we used to pull our children when they were young, close to 30 years ago. In recent years, I’ve used the Burley to carry all kinds of stuff. The newer Nomad trailer was given to me by a friend who simply wasn’t using it much.
My wife will be joining me for at least the first three days of the journey starting in Angle Inlet, Minnesota.
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