simplygib

I'm about a week away from riding down the west coast - Oregon and California. I'm wondering about the availability of electricity to recharge my phone, which will also serve as my access to the internet and e-mail. I was considering solar to recharge, but my phone (Motorola Q9c) is so picky about chargers that I just don't know if it can be made to work or not, and I don't have enough time left to figure it out. Also the solar solution wouldn't work too well if I run into a lot of fog, which is likely this time of year.

Any info from those of you who've done the Pacific coast would be greatly appreciated.

ETA: Obviously I'm not hoteling it. Hiker/Biker campsites most likely.

staehpj1

Will you be eating any restaurant meals? If so, I have never had a problem plugging in a charger during a meal. If not, maybe you can befriend someone with a campsite that has electricity.

I have charged phones in campground bathrooms quite a few times, but had a phone and charger stolen once when it was left unattended.

PhattTyre

I just did much of that route (Astoria to San Fran) and found I could charge at hiker/biker sites. I would either plug in at a near by empty campsite or in the bathroom, which can be a little sketchy, but I haven't heard of anyone's phone being stolen this way. Staehpj1's tip of befriending someone in a site with a plug is good too. Most people are friendly and curious about bike tourists.

Restaurants can be good during a meal. Libraries are hit or miss. The library in Manzanita wouldn't even let me plug in for one call when I had a dead battery. The librarian told me to plug in at my motel. I told her I was on a bike and camping. She just said, "oh, sorry".

staehpj1

Wow! I would like to think that was an isolated instance. Librarians were generally very helpful everywhere that I have stopped.

Were you just plugging into a wall outlet or a USB port on a computer? If the latter I can almost understand it.

TromboneAl

You shouldn't have any trouble around here (I live between Eureka and Crescent City). We gots 'lectricity and ever'thin! Just joking around -- I'm not offended.

Solar could be a problem, be we often have an hour or so of sunshine in the mid afternoon. I sometimes see cell phones charging (unattended!) in the bathrooms at campgrounds.

You'll be passing right by my house, and you're welcome to come visit, spend the night, or arrange to ride together for a few miles. I'll send you a PM.

P.S. We ain't got flush terlets yet, but our outhouse is a two-seater!

simplygib

Thanks PhattTyre. That would work. I have a 4500mAH battery pack for my light that I may be able to use to charge the phone too. If I could charge that at the campsites I think I could get 2 or 3 phone charges out of it, which would be a big help. It's pretty ugly too so might not be attractive to theives.

The route you took is exactly what I'm going to do. How was it? Fog? Traffic? Any issues I should be aware of? Thanks again.

TromboneAl

Here are some random tips for my area:

I see lots of bike tourers on this route.

You'll definitely want to take the Drury scenic alternate route which is just south of Klamath. It goes through the redwoods, on a great road, and bypasses a big freeway hill. Prairie Creek Redwood state park has very nice hike/bike sites.

The roads between there and Big Lagoon are good, but they often have very narrow shoulders.

Patrick Point State Park is highly recommended and has hike/bike campsites.

The Big Lagoon county park isn't bad either (right on the lagoon).

From Big Lagoon to Trinidad you can choose Patrick's Point Drive or the freeway. The former is recommended because it has great views, but it's a little bumpy, and there are small hills. If you're in a rush, the freeway has a wide shoulder here (except for one spot).

From Trinidad to Westhaven, you'll want to take Scenic Drive. This isn't a through route for cars due to a slide, but bicycles can get through.

You need to go on the freeway between Westhaven and Clam beach, but it's not bad.

There's camping at clam beach (near McKinleyville). It's right in the sand, but near the freeway.

You can get through McKinleyville and on to Arcata on a MUP (called the Hammond Trail), or travel on the freeway or local streets.

There's a KOA between Arcata and Eureka that is a standard KOA type place (not so scenic).

Camel

If your having trouble finding folks willing to let you charge, or the washrooms look sketchy-perhaps ask the host/folks at the check in hut if you could leave it with them for a couple hours?

-Another idea might be to buy a second battery. That way you would allways have one ready to go. I bought a second battery for my phone (LG model) at batteriesplus, they seem to have a bunch of stores nowadays. The one I bought has a few hundred less mAh than the OEM, but still lasts days on standby (or hours of talk time).

Jaron

i just rode down the oregon coast and i brought a solar charger with me, and i was able to get enough sun to charge my phone and ipod almost every night. but, yea like everyone else is saying, there will be plenty of places to charge your phone when you're resting. i brought my wall charger and a backup, just in case. i haven't used it for a month now, even since i have been back in the city.

PhattTyre

This was the only time I've run into such a problem myself. I was kind of surprised. I just wanted to plug into the wall and noticed all the outlets were covered up. When I asked if I could charge the conversation went as such:

Her: No, we don't let anyone plug anything in.
me: Oh, ok, do you know of any place else in town that might let me plug it in? Maybe a restaurant while I get a meal?
her: No... what about the hotel you're staying in?
me: I'm on a bike trip down the coast, I'm camping the whole way and my phone died today. I'm hoping to get enough charge for one call to a friend I'm trying to meet up with tonight.
her: oh, sorry, we don't allow plugins.

One of very few unfriendly and unhelpful people I've met on tour.

ggriffinslo

We just finished a tour in Maine and found that it was easy to maintain battery life by turning the phone off for most of the time. We'd turn it on, check for messages and make any needed calls. There were many opportunities to plug in and charge along the way. Yu'll probably have no problems with it.
George
SLO, CA

staehpj1

I don't know if it is a problem there, but on the TA there were lots of places with no signal. We found that our batteries died FAST if the phone was left on when there was no signal. Aparently it used a lot of battery when searching for a signal, so yeah turn it off when not in use.

spinnaker

The outlets were covered for a reason. Probably someone abusing the privilege. The poor lady was just doing her job, cut her some slack. I'm sure she has heard a million hard luck stories.

No offense but you were already in a library that provides free access to newspapers, magazine, books and probably the internet. You shouldn't expect to get free electricity too.

spinnaker

There should plenty of Warmshowers folks along the way. Even if you don't want to sleep in their home, I'm sure they would not object to you plugging in while you camp out in the backyard. Asking nicely and some token of your appreciation are always in order. For smaller favors like this, I brought along refrigerator magnets form my home town, they are small light and inexpensive but the small gift shows you have anticipated that folks would be doing you a kindness and you wanted to be prepared to show your appreciation. You can use your imagination of token gifts from your hometown.



There are hostels along the way. You can get a cheap place to stay and have a place to charge your cell.

BigBlueToe

I charge my phone and my mp3 player on tour. I use wall chargers for both.

• At libraries I don't even ask; I just plug them into the wall.
• When I go into a restaurant and need a charge, the first thing I do is scan the wall for outlets. If there's one by an empty table I request to sit there. I've never been told no.
• At campgrounds I often charge in the bathrooms. I don't like to sit inside and watch my stuff, so I generallly sit outside close with a book. I don't know if that's any protection or not, but I keep my ears open.
• If you get to a campground early enough on a weekday there are often full-service campsites that are empty. Just plug your charger into the outlet on the post.
• Another thing to watch for is covered picnic areas - the kind with lots of tables that people reserve for family picnics, etc. They usually have power. Unless there's a family picnic going on, you should be able to sit there with a book and keep an eye on things while your devices charge.
• This is slightly off-topic, but once I was working the concession stand at a baseball tournament my son played in. A guy came to the window with a phone and a charger, and asked if I could plug it in somewhere. I was happy to do it for him. You might find similar opportunities.

I keep my phone off unless I'm calling so it doesn't need to be charged very often. I listen to my mp3 player almost every day, so it needs to be charged every 3 or 4 days.

gz_

I recharged whenever doing laundry which was about once a week. That was enough since I only turned it on when I wanted to call out.

simplygib

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm thinking I will be fine using campground and restaurant outlets, and using the phone as sparingly as possible. But I'll be using the phone to update my travel blog (if I can figure it out), so could end up spending a lot of time typing into its little keyboard. I considered bringing my laptop for that purpose but it would, of course, be heavier, more worrisome in terms of theft, and would pose a larger problem where charging its battery is concerned. It would be so much easier for updating the blog though. I think I'm gonna miss it.

Anyway, thanks again. Time is getting short and the butterflies are setting in. This is my first tour in many years, and my longest one to date. Very much looking forward to it.

Sifu

Umm, you can go to GI Joes or just look around online and get one of these: https://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/001497.php

It's a hand crank powered LED flashlight, and ours (from GI Joes) came with SIX adaptors with which to charge various cell phones. Awesome emergency item.

himurastewie

A little OT but in regards to phone signals up in Maine, there's usually a signal up rt. 1 (easternmost route) through to eastern Aroostook county (northernmost county) but the central counties (Piscataquis, western Penobscot, some of Somerset) are generally unpopulated by anything but trees and wildlife so there's typically no signal out there, and by unpopulated I mean Piscataquis (where Baxter State Park is located) has a population of 4.5 per square mile.

But if you're keeping to the populated areas, i.e. southern Maine, up the coast, rt. 1, Acadia, etc, signal shouldn't be much of an issue.

Maps given by service providers are usually the best indication, though I'd only use them as a general guideline. A town I worked in, which is a suburb of Boston had no verizon signal whatsoever, but other carriers had signal there (AT&T, Sprint, etc) so with anything, YMMV, but like others have said when there is no signal to be found that sounds like a good reason to shut it off.

n4zou

I use a standard bicycle dynamo to recharge my cell phone and GPS unit. It's really simple if you can DIY simple electronics or find someone that can help you do it.
Here is the circuit.


The batteries must be solder tab type. The batteries regulate and filter the power for your USB device. If you have a bad connection across the batteries unfiltered and unregulated power could damage your electronic device. The switch selects off, LED headlight, and USB circuit. Any standard 6 volt 3 watt bicycle hub, bottle, or bottom bracket dynamo will work fine with the above circuit. You may switch from the USB circuit to the headlight circuit using the switch when you must travel through a tunnel or other places where lights must be turned on. The LED headlight circuit may be replaced with any standard dynamo light system. The dynamo will not produce enough power for both lights and USB devices. The batteries will not fully recharge a USB device without help from the dynamo. If you allow the batteries to completely discharge you may rapid recharge them by disconnecting any USB device and ride with the dynamo engaged and powering the batteries. Check the battery for calculating how much time is required at 500mA recharging rate. It should be about 2.5 hours for 4 AA size Ni-MH batteries. Simply reset your cycle computer trip time and when it reads 2.5 hours your batteries will be fully recharged. You may stop for breaks and meals without needing to keep up with recharging time as the computer will stop and start ride and thus recharging time automatically. Here is a photo of the 4 diodes forming the bridge rectifier which converts AC from the dynamo to DC for the lights and batteries.

Yellow wire attaches to the dynamo, terminal mounting tab is grounded to the bicycle frame, Red wire is DC positive and Black wire is DC negative.

simplygib

Thanks for all your input. I've finally got this figured out. I will use the above-mentioned battery pack to charge the phone. I found a reference online to a car charger that supposedly works with my phone (as I said earlier my phone is very picky about chargers and if it doesn't like it it refuses to charge, and displays an "incompatible charger" error message). It was dirt cheap so I took a chance and ordered it. It arrived yesterday and it works fine with my phone.

Then I found some power connectors for computer drives, and spliced the female part of the connector into the battery pack. Then I spliced the male part of the connector into a 12v female "cigarette lighter" type receptacle, into which I then plugged the car charger. Plugged in the phone, and bingo! It charges fine with no "incompatible charger" error messages. As an added bonus, my MP3 player uses the same mini USB connector as my phone, so I can charge that with the battery pack/car charger too.

I should only have to recharge the battery pack about once a week, which takes just 3 hours from a wall outlet. I think finding usable outlets once a week shouldn't be a problem.

Because I screwed around and didn't make Amtrak reservations until yesterday, I'm leaving a couple of days earlier than expected (sold out the rest of the week). Tomorrow night I'm off! Can't wait.

https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/LazyLewis2008