Development of a complete data logging system for the muscular and electric torque duty cycle acquisition during mountain e-biking

Engineering of Sport 15 - Proceedings from the 15th International Conference on the Engineering of Sport (ISEA 2024)

Electric bicycles (e-bikes) experienced recently an impressive development, due to the availability of compact and performing electric engines and batteries, like other power twowheelers. This lead to the increase of bicycle users in mountain trails, as assisted pedalling enables less experienced users to afford mountain bike trails typically suitable only to well experienced muscular cyclists. On the other hand, e-bike manufacturers face the rapid raise of demand of electric motors of different power and size. The corresponding search of performing and reliable motors requires the knowledge of typical or massimal duty cycles corresponding to users in different trails. Commercial power meters only measure either the chain total torque or the muscular torque, but not their ratio. The present work reports the development of a complete data logging system applicable to e-bikes for field measurement of motor/muscular torque ratio with respect to assistance levels settings.