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BobAgain drove up from Naples on Saturday and we went sailing on my hybrid boat with the intent of setting a new personal record on fuel economy with my modified human/hybrid/sail Tandem Island. We were shooting for 150 mpg. He offered to bring his new glide mirages drives along for the run, my first chance to actually try them out. I have to admit the difference is like night and day between the new drives and my old 2012 drives with what seems like 5000 pedaling miles on them with severely stretched out fins and very loose (I have no clue how many actual miles I have on them, all I know for sure is I have never lifted a finger on them besides spraying them with WD40 once in a while). The effort is half the pedaling effort of my old drives. I went to the dealer today and ordered all the parts outlined by Drsteelheadcatchers thread about the upgrade, and will be putting new fins on (the red ones).
Now I'm a firm believer the upgrade is definately worthwhile.
Back to the new world record attempt (not really, we were just jacking around), but its fun just trying new things.
The plan was to circle Lido key (10 miles), recording our speed and distance then precisely measuring the amount of fuel used. I do the same route often and my best fuel economy to date was 110 mpg for that ten mile run solo.
The wind was from the south around 5-6 mph (a little slower than I was hoping for). Unfortunately the wind died down on us the last 4 miles to 4mph at best. The wind was from the south and we were sailing almost straight north offshore in front of Lido key.
Pedaling with the new drives was effortless and my legs were not tired at all after 9 miles, which I thought was awesome. We averaged around 6mph with a peak around 9mph. Total distance covered was 9 about miles, we ended using .66 of a quart of fuel (about $.35 cents in fuel for the day). Unfortunately that only works out to 60mpg. Unfortunately the upwind leg was almost directly upwind, and the offshore leg was almost dead downwind so we obviously picked the wrong day to try to set any records (lol). But we still had a blast. I suspect having a second passenger affected my fuel economy and speed (more weight), when solo I typically a average 8-10 mph speed in similar conditions running the same route. With both of us peddling even with the new glide drives we couldn't increase our speed, but I have proven previously that pedaling increases my fuel economy (less load on the engines).
Thumbs up on the Glide mirage drives.
FE
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