Hail Marys and Good Samaritans
I've gotten desperate in my effort to find a way to get to Emily and Nolan's wedding without taking a car. It's not looking good, and I'm rather depressed about it. Here's my latest hail Mary, an email to Amtrak:
How did I get here? Well, it's a long story, too long to tell I guess, and it's been occupying most of my thoughts the past few weeks, which is why I haven't taken the time to tell it. Here's the rub: I have to ride about 520 miles in two days, and arrive at the wedding this Saturday by 7 PM fresh enough to party. Preferably arrive a few hours early so I can wash up and change clothes and such. So it'd be best to get most of the mileage out of the way on Friday, and in order to do that, I'd need to start early and ride fast. BUT--I can't go too hard, because the round trip will involve four straight days of 12 hours on the bike. I've done as much as 17.5 hours of riding in a 24-hour period, but I didn't get out of bed the next day. That was with an average heart rate of about 130. So I figure I'd need to keep my heart rate around 110, and maybe I can pull off 48 hours of riding in four days.
Riding at walking intensity should be easy on an e-bike, right? Yeah, but to keep the speed up (to ride 520 miles in 24 hours means an average speed of just under 22 mph), something's gotta be working hard, and if it's not me, it's the bike. Using the most powerful assistance mode, "turbo" it's called, makes it pretty easy to cruise along between 20 and 28 mph, but it uses up the battery pretty quickly. The 500 watt-hour battery that came with the bike lasts about 24-25 miles in that mode, at least when I'm carrying the four or five spare batteries (5-6 lbs. each) I'd need to have with me to complete two 130-mile legs per day. The bike alone weighs 60 lbs., so with the spare batteries I'm riding an eighty-pound bike. It handles like one of the bikes here:
After mapping out the route suggested by google maps for bikes, I've found that the first leg from Rock Hill to the Trek Store in Greensboro would be manageable at 130 miles, as would the final stretch from Trek Store D.C. to Aberdeen, about 90 miles. What I'd have to do Friday evening and Saturday morning is where things get tricky. The distance from Greensboro to D.C. is about 300 miles. I probably couldn't leave Greensboro before 2 PM, because the batteries take about 3.5-4 hours to charge, and the store opens at 10 AM (I'd need to leave Rock Hill about 3 AM Friday morning to make it to Greensboro by then, incidentally). So I'd have from 2 PM Friday until 10 AM Saturday to ride 300 miles, with a stop at a hotel in the middle of nowhere (literally the only hotel I could find in the 40-miles or so window where I need to stop) to sleep a few hours and recharge the batteries.
In my latest long test ride, I got about 25 miles out of the 500 watt-hour battery I have, and 20 miles out of each of the four 400 watt-hour batteries I'm using. That means even if I can carry five extra batteries, which isn't certain yet, I'd have to stop and recharge to go farther than 125 miles. So I'd be looking at close to 7 hours of riding plus 45 minutes or an hour of charging, if I can find a restaurant kind enough to let me use some outlets while I eat. That puts me at the hotel in Dillwyn, VA at about 10 PM, if everything goes perfectly. To duplicate that Saturday morning and arrive at Trek Store D.C. by 10 AM, I'd need to roll out from Dillwyn at 2 AM. After waking up before 3 AM and riding 13ish hours and 280 miles, waking up at 2 AM just isn't going to happen. And all of this assumes that I can sustain a 22 mph average including stopping for battery changes and to eat and so forth, which I still haven't been able to do in spite of multiple attempts. See here, here, here, and here. Last night was the closest I'd come, but then this happened:
See those flatlines there (except for my heart rate)? That's where I stopped to make my first battery change. It's also where there was a lady named Kimberly with a flat tire on her car, who needed some help. I've never changed a tire on a car before, I told her, and am much more handy changing bike tires, and she answered that she could change it but couldn't get her spare off the bottom of her Suburban. I was able to figure that part out after consulting the car owner's manual, but it cost me 45 minutes or so and my average speed dropped from 35 kph (21.7 mph) to 20 kph (12.4 mph). I left the Garmin running because I figured I need a "real" test; if anything, more will "go wrong" when I'm actually on the trip than has gone wrong in testing.
And maybe that's the point. Maybe I'm wrong ever to expect a bicycle to be a replacement for a car in this sense. A bicycle will never be as fast as a car, and will never be as insulated from the challenges and difficulties of travel, and that's what makes it a bicycle. On a bicycle, I'm exposed to the elements, and I'm not moving fast enough to ignore the lady broken down on the side of the road or the turtle that's cowering in its shell and is about to be smashed like a dropped egg by the next car that comes along. I figure, even if I'd had another mile of battery and been riding along at full speed, I probably wouldn't have realized Kimberly was in need, at least not quickly enough to react and stop. That's part of what I love about traveling by bike. It's a more humane form of transportation; there's no metal and glass and airbags and upholstery and air conditioning to protect you from the elements and from the concerns of other people and creatures. I could even say that going by bike makes it harder be the priest or the Levite, but maybe I'm just trying to justify myself.
How strict is the 2-inch tire and 50-lb. weight limit for trainside checked bikes? I have an e-bike that weighs 60 lbs. and has 2.4" tires. Would it fit? Also, I need to travel from Durham, NC to Aberdeen, MD, and though the Carolinian isn't scheduled to stop in Aberdeen, could it stop long enough to let me and my bike off? Short of that, could it slow down enough to allow me to jump off safely with my bike? I would catch the NE Regional that leaves from DC to Aberdeen 50 minutes after the Carolinian arrives, but it doesn't take bikes on board. Or could an exception be made for me on that train? It's the 192 NE Regional that travels from DC to Aberdeen Saturday, 7/22 from 5:20 PM to 6:26 PM. Thanks for your consideration.I hope whoever at Amtrak reads that gets a kick out of it, and I hope they don't stop reading at the train-jumping part. Who knows? Maybe someone who's into alternative transportation as much as I am will read it and sympathize and I'll be able to make it to Maryland by bike and train.
How did I get here? Well, it's a long story, too long to tell I guess, and it's been occupying most of my thoughts the past few weeks, which is why I haven't taken the time to tell it. Here's the rub: I have to ride about 520 miles in two days, and arrive at the wedding this Saturday by 7 PM fresh enough to party. Preferably arrive a few hours early so I can wash up and change clothes and such. So it'd be best to get most of the mileage out of the way on Friday, and in order to do that, I'd need to start early and ride fast. BUT--I can't go too hard, because the round trip will involve four straight days of 12 hours on the bike. I've done as much as 17.5 hours of riding in a 24-hour period, but I didn't get out of bed the next day. That was with an average heart rate of about 130. So I figure I'd need to keep my heart rate around 110, and maybe I can pull off 48 hours of riding in four days.
Riding at walking intensity should be easy on an e-bike, right? Yeah, but to keep the speed up (to ride 520 miles in 24 hours means an average speed of just under 22 mph), something's gotta be working hard, and if it's not me, it's the bike. Using the most powerful assistance mode, "turbo" it's called, makes it pretty easy to cruise along between 20 and 28 mph, but it uses up the battery pretty quickly. The 500 watt-hour battery that came with the bike lasts about 24-25 miles in that mode, at least when I'm carrying the four or five spare batteries (5-6 lbs. each) I'd need to have with me to complete two 130-mile legs per day. The bike alone weighs 60 lbs., so with the spare batteries I'm riding an eighty-pound bike. It handles like one of the bikes here:
After mapping out the route suggested by google maps for bikes, I've found that the first leg from Rock Hill to the Trek Store in Greensboro would be manageable at 130 miles, as would the final stretch from Trek Store D.C. to Aberdeen, about 90 miles. What I'd have to do Friday evening and Saturday morning is where things get tricky. The distance from Greensboro to D.C. is about 300 miles. I probably couldn't leave Greensboro before 2 PM, because the batteries take about 3.5-4 hours to charge, and the store opens at 10 AM (I'd need to leave Rock Hill about 3 AM Friday morning to make it to Greensboro by then, incidentally). So I'd have from 2 PM Friday until 10 AM Saturday to ride 300 miles, with a stop at a hotel in the middle of nowhere (literally the only hotel I could find in the 40-miles or so window where I need to stop) to sleep a few hours and recharge the batteries.
In my latest long test ride, I got about 25 miles out of the 500 watt-hour battery I have, and 20 miles out of each of the four 400 watt-hour batteries I'm using. That means even if I can carry five extra batteries, which isn't certain yet, I'd have to stop and recharge to go farther than 125 miles. So I'd be looking at close to 7 hours of riding plus 45 minutes or an hour of charging, if I can find a restaurant kind enough to let me use some outlets while I eat. That puts me at the hotel in Dillwyn, VA at about 10 PM, if everything goes perfectly. To duplicate that Saturday morning and arrive at Trek Store D.C. by 10 AM, I'd need to roll out from Dillwyn at 2 AM. After waking up before 3 AM and riding 13ish hours and 280 miles, waking up at 2 AM just isn't going to happen. And all of this assumes that I can sustain a 22 mph average including stopping for battery changes and to eat and so forth, which I still haven't been able to do in spite of multiple attempts. See here, here, here, and here. Last night was the closest I'd come, but then this happened:
And maybe that's the point. Maybe I'm wrong ever to expect a bicycle to be a replacement for a car in this sense. A bicycle will never be as fast as a car, and will never be as insulated from the challenges and difficulties of travel, and that's what makes it a bicycle. On a bicycle, I'm exposed to the elements, and I'm not moving fast enough to ignore the lady broken down on the side of the road or the turtle that's cowering in its shell and is about to be smashed like a dropped egg by the next car that comes along. I figure, even if I'd had another mile of battery and been riding along at full speed, I probably wouldn't have realized Kimberly was in need, at least not quickly enough to react and stop. That's part of what I love about traveling by bike. It's a more humane form of transportation; there's no metal and glass and airbags and upholstery and air conditioning to protect you from the elements and from the concerns of other people and creatures. I could even say that going by bike makes it harder be the priest or the Levite, but maybe I'm just trying to justify myself.
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