Shawn McCarty is no stranger to long-distance e-biking, range anxiety, and the importance of route planning. On his 10,000-mile, four-month loop around the perimeter of the United States, he meticulously avoided depleted e-bike batteries as he came across public electrical outlets, a lesser-known resource to e-bikers: “I wasn’t sure it would work out when I started. But after a few weeks, a routine emerged; I charged every time I stopped to eat or rest.”
Screenshot of public electrical outlets on ebikeanywhere.com
According to McCarty, “Public electrical outlets are essential for charging your e-bike on longer tours. Knowing there are places to charge will give e-bikers more confidence to take longer trips.”
He decided to share his knowledge with the e-biking community and reached out to E-bike Lovers with his latest initiative: A website and a smartphone app that provides access to an extensive, crowdsourced database of public outlets.
McCarty and EbikeAnyWhere Need Your Help
Although McCarty has built the technology free of charge for all to find and record the location of public electrical outlets, he needs help from the e-bike community to develop a comprehensive database.
He has started populating the data set in Maine and is actively looking for other e-bikers to add public outlets to the database. According to McCarty, “adding outlets as you find them is the plan, and it’s easy to do that.”
The Technology Behind the Database
The app is based on www.ebikeanywhere.com, a PWA (Progressive Web App) website that can reside on your phone screen like an app. The website doesn’t require the app to be installed through an app store.
Data Protection and Privacy
McCarty is transparent on data protection and collection. The database doesn’t collect personal information, and you don’t need to register or enter an email address or any other type of personal information. The only information required is a description and the location of the public electrical outlet.
E-bike Lovers’ Field Test
We tested the installation of the app while e-biking, and it is straightforward to use.
Installation
Step 1: Visit EbikeAnyWhere.com with your smartphone.
Step 2: Click on Install. This is optional, as you can use the website to find public outlets without installing the app.
Step 3: Enable location sharing (this allows the app to see your location). It needs GPS coordinates to record the precise location of the outlet.
Shawn
McCarty
e-bike explorer
Public electrical outlets are essential for charging your e-bike on longer tours. Knowing there are places to charge will give e-bikers more confidence to take longer trips.
Using the EbikeAnyWhere App
Step 1: Open the app. A purple bicycle is shown on the screen, which is your current location. You can add a more precise location by pressing a spot on the map. A red marker appears near the purple bicycle icon, indicating the nearest location of the new outlet.
Step 2: Add a title, description, and address of the public electrical outlet.
Step 3: Add a photo of the outlet (optional).
Step 4: Click on “Add marker” to submit the public outlet to the database.
Screenshots of the EbikeAnyWhere App
Navigating To an Outlet
The app also allows navigation to a public outlet by clicking on a green icon.
Screenshots of the EbikeAnyWhere App
This feature opens Google Maps with a route from your current location to the public electrical outlet.
You can contact Shawn McCarty at www.ebikeanywhere.com
