Dahon.Steve

I created a post a while back in the Car Free forum that my job in New York City was moving and I intended to walk away. I‘ve had second thoughts about this and now I‘m thinking of making the 4 hour commute (both ways) by train each day. I just can’t afford to walk away because I’m getting great pay.

Here’s the problem. I don’t have a car and the new office is located about 4 miles away from the train station which will require taking a bus. I DO NOT want to depend on that bus because it‘s not reliable at all. That bus could easily make my trip a 5 or 6 hour commute! There are two hills and one huge down hill to get to the new office. That down hill will have to be climbed at night after leaving from work.

Here are my solutions.

1. Go-Ped gas scooter -- I know it’s not a bike it’s strong enough to get up that hill. It’s very light for the dry weight is about 20 lbs. I really like this scooter.

Cons: Rather large in a bag, noisy and maintenance will need to be done. I’m also afraid of getting stopped by the police at the station since I will be carrying gasoline into the trains.

https://www.goped.com/products/sport/default.asp

2. Old Ten Speed/Hybrid beater --- I’m thinking of buying a beater and locking the bike at the train station. I’ll use both New York 3000 and Kryptonite Chain for protection as this bike will have to live outside. I will also buy a cover for the bike to protect it from the elements. With locking skewers for the seat post and wheels, I feel it can survive for many months.

Cons: I still have to climb up that huge hill each day. The ten speed will need lower gearing. There’s always the danger of theft and vandalism.

3. Electric Folder ---- I’ve been looking at options like Bionx but they are quite costly and heavy. One option that I like was the RevoPower gas powered front wheel. I would only have to carry that front wheel with me and leave the junk bike locked at the station. Unfortunately, the RevoPower wheel will be available in 2008 but it’s not that expensive.

https://www.bionx.ca/index.php?id=mai...31&language=en

https://www.revopower.com/users_and_...lications.html

4. Folding bike --- I’ll have sell my two Dahon folders and get something with more gears like the Downtube Mini. In fact, the Mini is what I’m looking at buying. I’ll have to get the gearing down to 24’ inches to make it up that hill.

Cons: I still have to climb up that huge hill each day. I also have to carry this bike across three transit systems and that can get old real fast.

5. Buy a car --- The company will give me 8K to do this but the money will not come until the middle of the year.


So those are my five options. Other than finding a new job, (which I’m trying to do) what option would you take? Do you think the Go-Ped gas scooter is sound? The electric Go-Ped option is out of the question as it weights 52 lbs!

By the way, I’m the ONLY one in my office who’s even thinking of using a bicycle to the new location. I haven’t told anyone what I’m thinking of doing for I’m not about to make myself an oddball! Everyone in the department either leaving the company or resigning. Only a small percentage will drive and an even smaller number will take the train and bus.

What should I do?

jur

If I may be so bold as to ask for more personal details:

Age? Weight?

Also, what are the distances involved? The big hill for example, how long and tall is it, what is the gradient?

The reason I ask is to see what is possible and feasible.

energyandair

I find it hard to imagine living with a long commute and have always organized my life to keep travel time under 20 minutes one way.

I guess I would be prepared to travel a little longer if it was an exceptionally enjoyable trip or the payoff for a few more minutes was very substantial but I wouldn't go much longer (eg 1 hr plus) unless I felt I had no choice or it was just short term and had a huge financial benefit.

This doesn't mean that everyone has to make the choices that I have but I can't help but wonder if you have a better option.

Does the job pay so much better after tax than any acceptable alternative that its worth that kind of extra time? I'd have thought that there would be a lot of choices around New York.

Is moving to live close to the job an option?

If I absolutely had to do it and had to do it by train. I would want a light bike which was as much fun to ride as possible, was durable, and had a good fold that keeps the chain away from me and from other people on the train. The Birdy is the only one I know that meets those requirements but there may be others.

David

Dahon.Steve

I'm not in bad shape at 38 (156 lbs) but I really can't tell the gradient. I've gone up it a couple of times with my Jamis Aurora and had to stop to get air. It's about 1/3 of a mile long and it that's what makes it difficult.

Dahon.Steve

Thanks David.

I would think about moving closer and that is an option. It's still going to cost money and I like the neighborhood I'm living. I have no doubt I'll find something within the next six or eight months. So in the long term, I don't want to work there because there is NOTHING up there. I have so much more with regards to resturants, night life and so fourth in New York City.

I don't want to live up there or work in that town. I'm only doing this until I can find a similar position in the city.

makeinu

If I were you and the pay was that good then I would consider moving. I know you like your current location, but there must be a nice place to live without a car that's a little closer. Once relocated I would take the train and ride the folder to work (down the big hill) to remain punctual and take the unreliable bus home (up the big hill). Sure the bus might cost me an extra hour going home if it makes me miss the train, but that's ok if we aren't talking 5 hours total. Who knows, the bus driver might be a little more punctual once he realizes someone is depending on him.

In the meantime you could try options 1 through 5 as part of a fun transportation experiment. You can still try to catch the bus home and if it stands you up you can explore the neighborhood a bit. See how far out of your way you have to go to circumnavigate that steep hill. See if there are any stores around the train station where you can buy fresh bread, or get a haircut, or whatever else you might need to do once a week or so when the bus fails to get you to your train on time. If it's so rural that there aren't any stores around then maybe leave some potted tomato plants around the bend to tend to. Whatever, I don't know, use your imagination.

Other than that the only thing I see missing from your options is the possibility of leaving something motorized locked up at the train station. Perhaps an electric bicycle, perhaps a larger scooter or motorcycle, or perhaps that car that you mentioned. I'm actually in the middle of discussing the idea of leaving a car at a suburban rail station for my wife's "reverse" commute. It kinda makes sense, as many suburban commuters leave beater cars at suburban rail stations while they work jobs in cities. It makes sense for you for many of the same reasons it makes sense for them: mileage is low (so gas/maintenance/wear/repair is cheap and emissions/danger are reduced) and you don't have to worry about urban parking/traffic. An advantage distinct for "reverse" commuters is that you get to have a car available for ocassions when you could use it (buying small furniture, accomodating friends from out of town who don't have monthly transit passes and might not be competent to cycle on city streets, etc). A disadvantage is that you have to pay full insurance on a car that's not used much.

Anywho, that's my 2c.

yamcha

24" for 1/3 of a mile is crazy. Get the electric unit put on your folding bike. The Go ped is not safe at higher speeds and you have to stand.

You should buy a level ruler just to make sure the hill isn't too steep for even a electric bike or Go Ped. I used to have a 50cc Honda scooter that got up to about 35mph on flatland but had a hell of a time climbing hills and would sometimes konk out after a few dozen yards if the hill was too steep.

jur

You might get a general idea with Google earth or bikely.

jur

Anyway where I am going with my questions is comparing to my situation (which is natural). I started commuting by bike 3y ago. I didn't go the full hog at once, I had the bike in the car and I would park somewhere and ride the rest (I know you don't have a car, but bear with me). As distances got tame, I stretched them until one day I did it all the way.

My distance is 28km one way. It sounds impossibly far to someone who never would consider cycling, and I was in that category 3y ago. At 44 I was overweight (91kg) and unfit and decided to do something about it.

Anyway, initially I also thought my commute was very far and very hilly, but as I got used to things (ie got fitter) those hills diminished greatly in difficulty and the full distance is now everyday routine. I am able to climb hills MUCH faster than before, in a much higher gear than before. In fact for a while I did it on a singlespeed, and there is one 15% gradient section.

A year ago I was called up for jury duty and for a week I cycled in to the city and back, 55km each way. Very enjoyable, that was.

Right now I am probably fitter than the vast majority of men my age, in fact I don't think there are many men of my age who are not dedicated competing cyclists or ex-cyclists who will beat me up a hill. I have beaten a lot of men much younger than me.

How did I get this fit? Well it came as an extra benefit to commuting daily. I didn't do ANYTHING extra for it - it is essentially a gift. Right now there is not a hill I can't climb with my lowest of 32", and I have done most of the big mountains in the state including Mt Baw Baw (hors category).

So I would recommend you consider this way also. Start small by going mixed mode and work your way up to the full distance (which you haven't mentioned). That monster hill requiring a 24" gear should soon diminish.

csr

I think the Bike Friday can come with even lower gear inches. https://www.bikefriday.com/gearing

IWantToGoFaster

Is it really worth 4-6 hours of your life each day?

Endless_BiGH

I would definatly go for an electric bike. You will have to compromise and it won't be cheap, however what you want is something like a geared hub motor (good for going up hills) and a small size wheel - say 20" or 24"

something like www.texaselectricbikes.com sell - their motor kit is called the puma, the motor is one of the lightest, and if you got some LiFePO4 batteries for it it wouldn't add much weight.

plus you could potentially use it as a replacement for part of the train journey if you had enough battery capacity.

the other possibility is something like the elation bike setup (google elation bikes)

edit: i would move closer though, and commute on the bikes you've got, and if it gets too much build an electric bike so you can alternate what day you ride each bike.

EvilV

You know Steve, a third of a mile is a short walk - maybe 7 minutes if you are taking it easy. If it were me and the rest of the route is easily ride able on the mini, I'd just get off on the hill as soon as it gets hard, and walk for a few minutes. I did a heavy laden bike tour across the country about three years ago, and I'd not been cycling much for a good while. By the second day, I couldn't pedal the 1900 foot climb I had to make. I just walked up pushing my heavy laden bike. It was far easier than riding.

So - rather than get involved with gas power - possible problems with officials on the train over carrying fuel, and so on, I'd just take my folding bike and walk up the killer hill.

Just an idea.


Edit:

And Jur is right about the hills getting easier as you get fitter - but you'd know that already. I suppose if the first week or two you got off a quarter the way up the hill and pushed the rest, by the end of a month you'd be most of the way up, and pretty soon after would be wondering who had leveled out that hill and made it so easy to ride up.

Diode100

I can't help but agree. No matter how attractive your present home town is, four hours plus commuting, on top of a normal woking day, is not going to leave you much time to enjoy it. Let alone theimpact on your health of the daily stress, and that's without factoring in the perils & pains of winter commuting. Get a map and look at what's available in zones half an hour, and one hour out from the new work location. Maybe you can find some cosy little place, that would suit your needs, just a cycle ride away. Failing that, it sounds like you have six months plus to find a new job - in New York City, that has to be possible doesn't it ? then you could mutate into one of those fixed wheel crazies I see on You-tube - much more fun that sitting on a train.

rhm

I admit this is good advice, but I'm going argue the opposite anyway!

My commute is about four hours each day. That includes four distinct 15-25 minute bike rides, i.e. from home to an NJ train station (5.5 miles, flat), from Penn Station in NYC to office (2.5 miles, also flat), and the same rides back again in the evening. The time spent sitting on the train is about an hour each way; and I lose a few minutes to waiting for the train. While I agree this is a long commute, I do it pretty gladly because (1) the alternatives are not real options (moving closer to my job would take my wife farther from hers, and the kids farther from their schools, and finding a job closer to home would mean a career change); (2) I like where I live; and (3) I actually like my commute. I enjoy the riding, and make good use of the time on the train whether reading, writing, relaxing, or sleeping. It is nice to have a couple hours that are truly my own, with no work, no kids, and no chores. Whether Steve would like this, I don't know; but I really do.

I definitely don't have any hills like his on my commute, and I can't speculate how the Downtube Mini would handle it, but again, I'd say give it a try. If your employer is willing to subsidize a car, they should be pretty willing to subsidize a new bike, and maybe an electric scooter too. My employer pays for all my transportation expenses, including the occasional bike part and, so far, two whole bikes.

Steve, I also suggest you investigate whether bike lockers are available at any of your train stations. If you can use a bike or scooter without having to take it on the train, that would help a lot. Either way,once you start taking the train regularly you will get to know your fellow commuters and almost certainly people who will gladly give you a ride in an emergency; in my six+ years of biking to the train I have accepted rides from three complete strangers (once there was 10" of snow; once the back roads were under 24" of water and I couldn't take the interstate; and once I had mechanical problems).

Finally: Steve, if you want to borrow my Mini for a few days, to see how you like it, send me a PM.

--Rudi

eubi

If you are 38 and in good shape, I would think you could get into shape for the 1/3 mile climb rather quickly.

I've found that scary climbs can become easy ones after a week or so.

Good advice on getting the gearing low enough so you don't blow out your knees, though.

JugglerDave

Well, this past season I had a very tough hill on my way home... 315 ft total vertical climb; most of it 7-10% grade but with one steep section at 17%.

Did it about 80 times btw April and last week. On the way home... would be followed by a 30 minute
train ride and then a 1 mile bike home. Every day a nice accomplishment.

My clothes were sweaty every day (esp. when it was 80+ degrees out). But that's what the washing
machine was for.

Bike is a Downtube IXNS. At the beginning I was using the lowest gear for most of the hill. Within a few weeks I was using mostly the 2nd gear and dropping down to 1st for the steep section. After a month or two, most of the hill was in 3rd gear except for the steep section.

yamcha

How to go up hills easier: improve your spin!

A better pedal stroke is your key to going up hills faster and easier. Many people resort to a push-push kind of stroke when going up hills, which is very tiring and doesn't work nearly as well. You can tell if you're one of these people with a bad pedal stroke by paying attention to your body as you go up hills. People with bad pedal strokes will notice that their upper body sways when they pedal seated up hills. When they push down with the left foot, their upper body will move to the left to exert more pressure. This will not happen with people with a good spin, because they aren't putting all their effort into pushing, but instead onto making their pedal stroke smooth and even. I guarantee you that if you fix your pedal stroke, you will go up hills easier. It also gives you something to think about as you are climbing, which makes the hills seem to go by quicker: you pay attention to your body, feeling your legs, trying to keep things as smooth as possible. And then when you get to the top, you'll look behind you and see that you've left most of your fellow riders far behind. I'm not kidding. It works that well.
The best thing I've done for my pedal stroke was a trick taught me by Penn Cycling Team coach Pete Durdaller. Find a flat road with light traffic. In Philly, this is West River Drive on the weekends. Then pedal with only one foot, holding the other one out. This works best with clipless pedals, but if you don't have your straps too loose, it probably could work with toeclips as well. You can't do this for very long because it's very tiring. What I would do is pedal about 15 strokes on each leg, do 3 reps of this, then just pedal regularly for awhile before doing it again. The first time I tried this, my pedaling motion was incredibly jerky. But I stuck with it, and concentrated on it (this is why you need the low traffic), and eventually I got it more or less smooth. This teaches you the feel of smooth pedalling. Once your legs learn what it feels like, you can do it when you're pedaling with both legs.
Another things that helps is to make sure that you're pulling back at the bottom of you pedal stroke. Think about scraping mud off the bottom of your shoes after a muddy walk. This is more or less what should be happening at the bottom of your pedal stroke.
Keep it up, and soon you'll find that hills aren't nearly as bad as before.

https://www.myra-simon.com/bike/pstroke.html

Bacciagalupe

A few thoughts.... I assume based on your description that you are taking a train (trip time unknown) and then have 4 miles to go after that. Based on this:

1) You're going to hate that 2-hour each-way commute very quickly.
2) You'll hate it twice as much in the rain or snow.
3) Scooter, electric bike, electric folder: too heavy, may not be able to get it on the train. Pass.
4) You didn't list "carpool" in your options. I'd say that carpooling that last 4 miles should be pretty easy to arrange and is a good option.
5) Rather than get rid of existing bikes, you can just upgrade the gearing. A 1/3 mile hill really is nothing, especially if you fix up the bike for low gearing.

I wouldn't quit before you have a new job, but chances are I'd leave if the new location wound up being genuinely inconvenient. So carpool for a few weeks until you find a new job.

I'd also check into working from home / remote office options.

Pine Cone

According to my calculations a DT Mini with 2.0" Big Apple tires would need a 39-tooth chainring in the front and a 25-tooth ring on the hub to get a low gear of 24.5". The high gear would then be just under 75", an OK but not very high gear. Considering I have a couple of fixed gear bikes with 60-70" gears the 75" would be OK. Getting the 39-tooth chainring and 25 tooth rear cog should be pretty easy.

Stock the DT Mini I have came with a 23/48 which gives me a range of 33" to 100" which I find ideal. My 55-year old knees don't like steep hills unless I am in shape, so I usually ride bikes with lower gears until my fitness grows. I have about a 10 km commute which has a couple of good climbs including one which is a mile long hill that I have to slog up on the way home. I find that it takes me 6 to 8 weeks of commuting to get my knees back in shape if I backslide and stop riding for a couple of months.

My experience with electric assist bikes and hills was not positive. The electric motor was not strong enough to go up any of the larger hills in my area.

Now that I have a longer stem on my Mini I really like the bike. I don't have a fold-and-go commute, but I think you could make it work. It would be easy to modify the bike to get the lower gear, and easy to change it back if you got stronger.

You might even want to make a 39/48 double chainring bike. If you want to change ratios you have to loosen the rear wheel and move the chain by hand, but I have a similar setup on my fixed-wheel commuter, with a small chainring for my out-of-shape season commutes and the larger ring for use when I am feeling stronger.

Since most of your long commute will be on the train it won't be as bad as if you were driving the whole time.

Lalato

I'm a complete n00b when it comes to commuting by bike. I still haven't done it, but I'm currently considering it for at least part of my monster weekly commute.

My commute goes from Urbana to Chicago every week. I leave home on Tuesday mornings and arrive in the far west suburbs of Chicago 2.5 hours later. This is by car. I actually stay over night in Chicago two nights and then I return home on Thursday night. I work from home on Mondays and Fridays. It's the only way I can remain sane. If I had to commute each day or stay away from home longer each week, I would probably quit and find employment elsewhere despite the probable drop in pay.

My recommendation to you is to find out if you can work out some kind of schedule where you can telecommute at least partially each week. Trust me on this... You will learn to hate that train/car ride. Actually, hate is not strong enough of a word. That said, I would much rather take a train than drive a car.

--sam

p.s. Today I got my first speeding ticket in the year since I started this crazy commute.

folder fanatic

You already have your Dahon folders. I recommend that you use them until you decide whether or not to stay completely car free. Then you only be car lite. Just use that thing when you go to work. In Southern California where I live, cars are considered above and beyond a necessary, rather than a choice. There is no choice when it comes to cars here. There is a token transit system that the polititans pay lip service to, but these systems have proven to be unreliable at best, non functioning at worst with the threat of a long strike looming at any given time. Most people here prefer to drive. While I don't have a car at present, I do keep up my license and even car insurance because I know I might be called to drive at any time (especially with elderly parents with me). My folding bikes are intended to take with me in pratically any vehicle I can load them into. Besides, my Dahons and my Brompton has been geared down to fit 99% of the hills surrounding my area. We have very steep hills and mountains out here. If I cannot tackle it with my lowest gear, I simply get off and walk it up-it is usually faster than pedaling up most of the time.

Your employer is very generous in giving you part of the money needed to buy this car. Most employers don't offer any benefits-including the basics such as health insurance. I would stick with this company. Who says you must drive all the time? I would use bikes when appropriate and cars when it is so. Besides you can always wait for the RevoPower gas powered front wheel is avaliable and use that as a back up to a car when you want to. And keep the car and folders (you won't need to sell them) at home.

invisiblehand

What about moving closer to the new job?

invisiblehand

Missed this ... sorry Steve for asking the same question.

invisiblehand

That is a good point. This past year, we moved further away from DC such that my commute is about 10 miles each way. I figured that this would be no problem even with my weekend warrior rides.

You will be surprised how riding every day--or even five days a week--can begin to wear out the body. I still can't ride a 100 miles on the weekend and ride five days the following week. Something always gets irritated by Wednesday or Thursday.

Note that things are getting better. I can ride hard on the weekend--say 150 miles-- and commute three days the following week whereas that was not the case in June.