So I bought an ebike...

Started by Toonces, December 31, 2018, 05:15:00 PM

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JasonPratt

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Quote from: Toonces on January 17, 2019, 12:34:21 AM
Still here and alive. On kindlenso thisnwill be short.  Of wtf.

Day 3 to.borrow.  weather is bad.  Had first fall; good call on gloves.  Heavy rain tomorrow.ngut check.  Inshall prevail.  Jesus thisnisnworse than a drunk post.  F you kindle.

BEST POST EVER!!!!  O0

You in direct competition with my wife texting without glasses.
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Toonces

I should have just bailed on that post.  I got so tired of deleting and re-typing only to have it f up again.  Ah well, now we know that Kindle is worthless for posting on internet forums.

So like I tried to say last night, I managed to get the bike out on the road and do the whole bike-train-bike thing to work and back.  It was definitely a learning experience.  The bike ride to the depot here in town is short, about 9 minutes.  I'm the second stop southbound so there is plenty of room for the bike.  I chose to get off at the "safer" albiet farther stop in downtown San Diego.  It's just under 5 miles from the depot to work; I've got it down to 20 minutes now that I have the route down.  It's pretty straightforward, but not as easy as described.  The first part of the ride is along the harbor with a lot of tourist attractions and therefore people, so I have to slow down through there, especially on the way home.  Then the majority of the rest of the ride is along a dual-use sidewalk.  It's pretty wide, but there are a lot of joggers that have to be passed and dodged.  And, when I crank the pedal assist on I'm faster than normal bikes so I find myself needing to pass other cyclists which can be challenging.  Anyway, neither ride is particularly hard, but allowing a few minutes on either end means I'm spending about 40 minutes biking each way, with a 1-hour train ride in the middle each way.  Today I drove due to the weather and it was 1:05 door to door.  The drive is stressful, while the train is great because for an hour I can turn off my brain and read and/or listen to Howard.

So I'm faced with a longer, less stressful trip, or a stressful but shorter drive.  I'm not entirely sure which one I prefer.  I'm going to stick with the bike a while longer to have a better frame of reference- I'll bet it's a lot better when the weather is good- but I'm just not entirely sold that biking/train is the final solution.

On the first day, on the way home, I was riding the bike from work to the depot, and I was about 10 feet from the train ramp when I had my first fall.  I was turning left on the road across a couple of lanes of traffic and the railroad tracks to get onto the train ramp at the depot.  It was raining and I failed to account for the slickness of the tracks due to the rain.  As I was crossing the tracks, I think I tapped my brakes to slow down and caused my rear tire to lose grip, and I dropped onto my side as I tried to correct the skid.  Fortunately I was wearing jeans and a jacket, so while I banged my elbow pretty good, I didn't lose any skin.  Like I said, it was a bit of a learning experience.

So that's it for now.  The bike is super easy to ride.  I've been limiting the pedal assist to get a workout, but it would be just so easy to crank it up and do almost no work biking.  Again, it will be interesting to do this when the sun is out and it's a nice day; the weather has been really miserable here this week.

"If you had a chance, right now, to go back in time and stop Hitler, wouldn't you do it?  I mean, I personally wouldn't stop him because I think he's awesome." - Eric Cartman

"Does a watch list mean you are being watched or is it a come on to Toonces?" - Biggs

Toonces

I haven't had a chance to bike to go surfing yet at lunch, but I hope to do that next week.  It's about 5 miles from my work to Mission Beach, my preferred surf spot near my work, which is nothing on the ebike.  I'm curious to see how that goes.
"If you had a chance, right now, to go back in time and stop Hitler, wouldn't you do it?  I mean, I personally wouldn't stop him because I think he's awesome." - Eric Cartman

"Does a watch list mean you are being watched or is it a come on to Toonces?" - Biggs

MetalDog

That hour long down time on the train is going to be key.  You should certainly take advantage of that.  I expect you will come to look forward to it.
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Sir Slash

I LOVE 'down-time'. It's like 'up-time' for me. I also like train rides. The people on trains however....
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

Toonces

It's been a couple of weeks now so I guess it's time for an update.

I'm still liking the bike.  I've got about 130 miles on it now.  I haven't had a chance to take it surfing from work yet, but I've taken to riding it around town when I go surfing locally and that is definitely the way to go.  It's 10 minutes from my house to my usual surf spot, and there's a good bike lane most of the way so it's an easy ride.  The pedal assist eats up the hills on the way back.  What's great is that I can bike literally up to the surf, whereas when I drive it's kind of a hassle to find somewhere to park.  In the summer this bike is going to pay for itself in convenience.  I'm trying to use the bike any time I hae to go into town.  Like last night I went for a surf and then stopped at the grocery store to pick up booze and dinner.  With a big backpack I had just enough room to cart it all on the bike, and it is just so nice to not have to worry about parking.

On taking the train to work, I guess I like it better than driving, but just barely.  I missed something that, in retrospect, is blindingly obvious.  When one takes public transportation, one has to deal with...the public.  Ugh.  I'm not diggin that at all. 

Thursday the weather was really bad here, so I drove.  41 minutes door to door on the way to work; 1:05 on the way home.  So taking the train is much longer....but damn that drive is the suck, even when the traffic isn't too bad.

I'm going to continue to stick with the train/bike for work for now.  Also, tomorrow I'm going to get some decent rain gear so I don't have to drive when the weather is bad.

One of these days I'll give myself some extra time and take some pictures.  Some of the route is pretty scenic.
"If you had a chance, right now, to go back in time and stop Hitler, wouldn't you do it?  I mean, I personally wouldn't stop him because I think he's awesome." - Eric Cartman

"Does a watch list mean you are being watched or is it a come on to Toonces?" - Biggs

Toonces

#37
'sup fellas.  I can't believe it's been more than two years since my last post in this thread!  Anyway, I'm at about 1500 miles on my bike and figured it's time for an update.  I read through the whole thread to see where I left off...

So with respect to the train/bike thing, once I got the routine nailed that pretty much became my preferred means of getting to and from work until March of last year when the pandemic took hold.  I never did do the more risky/shorter bike ride on the busy road.  I basically would take the train all the way downtown (if you're familiar with San Diego, it is the last stop that drops one off by the USS Midway museum/Embarcadero area) and then ride along the Harbor to my work just past the airport.  Once I got the drill down it really was quite pleasant.  I would get on the train and then read on my Kindle for an hour.  Once I got off downtown I'd put on Howard Stern on my phone and then bike the 20 minutes into work.  While riding an ebike doesn't get your heart moving anything like a real bike, it was just enough to get the blood moving and, honestly, I found that I'd arrive to work in a much better frame of mind, and ready to jump right into working vs. when I would drive the car in, and then it would take about an hour of drinking coffee before I felt my brain had warmed up.  I know Sir Slash and I kinda bashed on biking in R&P a while back and I will say that, yes, I would ride my bike in the rain, cold, whatever.  In fact, it became a point of pride to not be deterred by the elements (and, proof that pain is a great motivator, you haven't faced frustration until you've tried to drive in SoCal during a rain event...maybe DC in any kind of snow comes closest to that frustration).  I got some really ridiculous looking rain gear off Amazon and even though I looked stunningly foolish, it kept me dry and everytime I rode the bike and saved that $10 I felt like I beat the world a little bit.  A small personal F-you to the MAN.  By the end there I was basically riding the bike/train every single day without fail.

I didn't advertise it on the public forums, but around winter in 2019 I started to get chest pains when I was riding the bike to/from work.  I noticed it first when I was surfing, but after a few weeks when I got the pains every time I rode to/from work I finally went to see a doctor.  It turns out I had a 95% blockage of a heart artery and, had I not been in as good shape as I was and not exercising every day on the bike, I likely would have had a heart attack and died.  So I saw a doctor and 2 days later was having heart surgery to have a stent put in.  It would not be any sort of exaggeration to say that riding the bike likely saved my life; that's what my cardiologist said anyway.

A bunch of things were going on in my life (besides the whole heart/almost died thing), a lot of international travel for work, and then Xmas, and then the pandemic, all of which really limited my biking after late fall 2019. 

By March 2020 we were heavy into the pandemic here and the interstate completely thinned out to where the car drive into work was about 35 stress-free minutes.  Thus, while it was much cheaper to bike, it was hard to justify adding that extra hour each way to bike in.  Once I got off the bike routine, I never got back into it again; between the pandemic and then more travel, and then now having a new job working from home, once I stopped biking to work around Oct 2019 I never picked it back up.

That's not to say, though, that I don't bike.  It is hard for me to overstate just how much the ebike has changed my life.  Besides saving it, I find myself trying to bike anytime I going within 5 miles of my house, especially outside of about Nov-Feb when it's warm and easy in SoCal.  A few months ago I added some panniers to the back of the bike, and those little pouches make it just oh so easy to throw some fins, a handplane, water, wetsuit, a few beers, a towel, and basically disappear for the day to the beach to pretty much surf and drink all day...with a slightly buzzed bike ride 10 minutes back home.  It's virtually the same amount of time to drive as bike to the beach from my house with all of the traffic lights, and if you add parking time, it's actually faster to bike than to drive.  With the ebike it's not even necessary to pedal unless I want to; the throttle will easily take care of the whole ride if that's the choice.

WRT maintenance:  So far I've had 2 flat tires.  Fortunately, both took place in town near my house so I was able to lock the bike locally and walk home, get the car, then drive back to pick up the bike.  It's just not possible to walk the bike with a flat tire.  I paid to have the first flat fixed; I figured it out for the second one.  Now I carry the repair parts in the panniers so if I get a flat in the future I'm able to fix it on-site.

At about 1200 miles I took my bike to a local ebike shop and had them give it a tune-up for $150.  They washed the bike, tuned the rims, brakes, tightened up all the bolts...stuff I could have done but it was worth the money to have it professionally done after struggling with the brakes for so long.  For $150 a year to tune the bike up it's still a deal compared to driving.

So that's it.  I am still using the bike a lot; not as much as I wish I did (some days you just don't want to deal with locking the fucker up, dealing with the weather or the hassle of just preparing to ride a bike) but I use it far more than I probably would a regular bike that required, you know, sweat and work.

Last week I bought two of the Costco ebikes for $350 each.  15 miles range and cheap enough for casual use, and essentially disposable.  I haven't assembled them yet, but the intent is for us to use them during the summer to go to the beach and back and not have to deal with parking.  Also, the wife and I can take them downtown, bar crawl all evening, and bike home on the back roads without a designated driver.  The hills would make a regular bike likely not feasible for this (we've tried, it's not) but being able to just twist the throttle suddenly it's totally feasible.  No, Slash, I might not take my date out on a bike for our first date, but after 22 years?  Baby, you wanna go drinking downtown get on the damn bike because I'm not driving 1 freaking mile in a car and not drinking!

I snapped this pic off of the Surfline camera last month; that's my nerdy ass getting ready to park and surf at my local beach.

(Edit: Apologies for the multiple edits; Groggys is giving me some issues tonight for some reason.  I'm chatting up JH offline).


"If you had a chance, right now, to go back in time and stop Hitler, wouldn't you do it?  I mean, I personally wouldn't stop him because I think he's awesome." - Eric Cartman

"Does a watch list mean you are being watched or is it a come on to Toonces?" - Biggs

demjansk1942

Good job, I am getting ready for my ride to work as well.

Dammit Carl!


steve58

#40
Ebikes, sound cool.  Wish I lived in a place where I could use one.  Roads around me here in N. Virginia are either too curvy or too much traffic.

p.s.  not to be a buzz kill, but you might want to check out this link about CUIs...
Government is not the solution to our problem—government is the problem.   Ronald Reagan
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.   Thomas Jefferson
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.   George Orwell  The truth is quiet...It's the lies that are loud.   Jesus Revolution
If you ever find yourself in need of a safe space then you're probably going to have to stop calling yourself a social justice warrior. You cannot be a warrior and a pansy at the same time   Mike Adams (RIP Mike)

Sir Slash

That does look cool. Uhhh... You don't actually bike and surf at the same time do you?  :hide:  I'm glad it's working out for you and hope your health situation is allowing you to bike and other things you love too.  O0

I had to go through the treadmill thing to keep my doctor off my ass, hated it at first but now....I still don't look forward to it but I DO IT anyway. And it's not that big a deal. As soon as the pool gets a little warmer, I'll hit that some too--great exercise. You can't buy good health, unfortunately.



"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

Dammit Carl!

Yeah.  Once I retired from the military in late '19, I said, "why, hello my old friends buffet and beer," way too often since and I'm right properly fat now.  Time to get the bike workin' and hit that trail near the house.

Right after I finish this beer.  :))

Toonces

Ah man, Steve58, you suck, bro!   >:(   :peace:
"If you had a chance, right now, to go back in time and stop Hitler, wouldn't you do it?  I mean, I personally wouldn't stop him because I think he's awesome." - Eric Cartman

"Does a watch list mean you are being watched or is it a come on to Toonces?" - Biggs

steve58

Government is not the solution to our problem—government is the problem.   Ronald Reagan
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.   Thomas Jefferson
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.   George Orwell  The truth is quiet...It's the lies that are loud.   Jesus Revolution
If you ever find yourself in need of a safe space then you're probably going to have to stop calling yourself a social justice warrior. You cannot be a warrior and a pansy at the same time   Mike Adams (RIP Mike)