Poll of the Day > I'm going to ride* my bike across the USA**

(+) Yeah! (+)

*Well it's an electric bike but considering the sheer weight of the thing from the battery, motor, suspension fork, and all of my gear like a tent, sleeping bag, air mattress, cooking kit, food, 2-4 liters of water, tools, spare parts, laptop, camera, clothes for several days, etc. and the drag from having all that stuff hanging off the bike riding on the lowest power setting to get the most mileage is only slightly easier than riding a normal bike unencumbered and if I ever run out of power it's much, much harder.

**I'm starting in the midwest and heading to the west coast, it's going to be about 2,300-2,500 miles or a bit more than 3/4s of the width of the country.

The longest trip I've gone on was about 250 miles and that took four days after which I definitely needed the rest I got when I got home. So if I do four days on and one off resting that should be about 50 days or so assuming nothing major happens like an injury or an issue with the bike that requires leaving it at a shop overnight. On the other hand I might find that as time goes on I get more efficient and make more miles per day, I could probably shoot for 75 a day.

Sleeping King is that you fam? Still drawing swords?

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I also ride an electric bike and live in the Midwest but used to live on the West Coast.

Tracking topic.

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CinderLock posted...

Sleeping King is that you fam? Still drawing swords?

Speaking of which, who are you?

Also, good luck, TC!

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Sarcasthma posted...

Speaking of which, who are you?

Also, good luck, TC!

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Oh shit, I'd recognize that face anywhere.

Hi, Shenti!

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Sarcasthma posted...

Oh shit, I'd recognize that face anywhere.

Hi, Shenti!

Oh man I miss that guy he was so angry.

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CinderLock posted...

Sleeping King is that you fam? Still drawing swords?

Sleeping_King, Dreaming_King, Tengu_Spam, etc. yeah it's me. I gave up on the sword thing, or maintaining any pretense that I have creative talent awhile ago. I'm in my mid/late 20s, time to grow up you know?

MondoMan180 posted...

I also ride an electric bike and live in the Midwest but used to live on the West Coast.

Tracking topic.

I'm not actually going to start the trip until the first of June when my lease runs out since I'm planning on settling somewhere near my destination. I'll probably make another topic then since I assume this one will be dead. I'm not even sure why I made this one right now to be honest. I guess if anyone has suggestions that I can look into over the next week that would be great.

Reigning_King posted...

Sleeping_King, Dreaming_King, Tengu_Spam, etc. yeah it's me. I gave up on the sword thing, or maintaining any pretense that I have creative talent awhile ago. I'm in my mid/late 20s, time to grow up you know?

Fair enough I enjoyed seeing your hobby at the time.

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Reigning_King posted...

I gave up on the sword thing, or maintaining any pretense that I have creative talent awhile ago.

Your sword gimmick was a bit much at times, but you came up with some legitimately interesting ideas.

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Thanks you two, I had fun with the whole thing as well both as a joke here and "seriously" but for all the time I spent thinking about stories I wanted to make and such I have nothing to show for it. I lacked the drive to do anything in reality beyond amateur drawings. That describes me as a whole pretty well, which is one of the reasons I want to do this bike ride actually.

I want to go on an epic journey, not just in my head but in reality. I also want to move out of my home town I've been stuck in my whole life. ...and I saw Golden Boy for the first time recently which is what really planted the seed of the idea, but you know the journey part, not the other stuff in that series.

oooo sounds fun.

if you're camping, where are you going to charge the bike?

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PunishedOni posted...

oooo sounds fun.

if you're camping, where are you going to charge the bike?

Great question. On my test ride I found that there were a suprising amount of places outdoors with electrical outlets if you look for them. Parks and pavilions are rather obvious, but I even found wells and billboards far out in the countryside that had them in easy access. As a last resort if I do find myself with an empty battery in the middle of nowhere I can always go up to a house and ask for their charity.

All that said it is undeniable that the best time to charge up would be while I sleep and while official camp sites and state/national parks would have offices/store houses I could probably arrange to leave the battery charging over night in, that won't always be the case.

It's almost like a video game where I have a physical stamina gauge, a battery gauge, a timer, and my available cash. I can trade one of the resources for some of the others in various ways, like burning up my battery by using the throttle to save on time if I'm late or tired, or using money to rest in a motel to regain more stamina/battery than camping would give me. Balancing all of these variables will by far be the hardest part of the trip and I'm sure I'll make some mistakes but ultimately I'll always still be in the US and not some uncharted wilderness so I doubt anything catastrophic will happen.

I hope you have spare batteries, and basic repair tools. I used to ride an E bike and it failed so frequently.

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Longest ride I've ever done is the Seattle to portland on a regular bike

https://cascade.org/rides-and-events-major-rides/seattle-portland-presented-alaska-airlines


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CarefreeDude posted...

I hope you have spare batteries, and basic repair tools. I used to ride an E bike and it failed so frequently.

I considered buying an extra battery but they run at like $600 plus shipping and it would take up a good amount of my storage space. So far I've put around 450 miles on the bike in the month I've owned it, and while there are a few minor issues it's held up so far. The worst failing I've had is once when I tried going from the weakest pedal assist to the second weakest and for some reason the controller gave me max power which really threw my for a loop. Good thing I was out in the middle of nowhere so I could stop without incident.

what happens if you break down in the middle of nowhere and are at the mercy to the random locals (including wild life and crazy people)? arent you scared?

do you know roughly where on the west coast you're headed to?

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teddy241 posted...

what happens if you break down in the middle of nowhere and are at the mercy to the random locals (including wild life and crazy people)? arent you scared?

I'm not going to say I believe people are inherently good, but instead I believe that people inherently want to appear good. If I'm ever in a bad enough situation I'm positive I can ask a local for help and they will do what they can for me, if for no other reason than it likely won't be a great drain on them (a few pennies worth of water or electricity/giving up a dozen square feet of their property for the night) and they can tell everyone they know that they got to help a young man traveling across the land by bike. The story of meeting and helping me will be more valuable than what I take, and the more they help me by offering food/whatever else the more they can brag. It's a bit of a cynical take but I think it's accurate.

As for animals I'm not really worried. Even if I did legitimately get stuck out in the woods somehow things like bear and wolf attacks are very rare. I would probably have to be more careful about not accidently wandering into hunting territory.

PunishedOni posted...

do you know roughly where on the west coast you're headed to?

North western Washington. This might sound strange but based on what I've heard I don't think I would enjoy being in Cali or Oregon. Even Seattle seems to not be all it's cracked up to be but I still plan on going through there to see for myself and because the company that sells the brand of ebike I own is based there and I imagine I'll need repairs by then. I've lived in a moderate-small sized city my whole life and I'm pretty sick of it. The population of Seattle is almost exactly 10x that of my city so I would probably like it less. I want to set up shop somewhere maybe half the size or smaller.

Reigning_King posted...

I'm not going to say I believe people are inherently good, but instead I believe that people inherently want to appear good. If I'm ever in a bad enough situation I'm positive I can ask a local for help and they will do what they can for me, if for no other reason than it likely won't be a great drain on them (a few pennies worth of water or electricity/giving up a dozen square feet of their property for the night) and they can tell everyone they know that they got to help a young man traveling across the land by bike. The story of meeting and helping me will be more valuable than what I take, and the more they help me by offering food/whatever else the more they can brag. It's a bit of a cynical take but I think it's accurate.

I'm sorry to play that card but it sounds a little bit like the old white privilege to me, like I don't think I'd be able to rely on the kindness of strangers for something like that and neither would a black person I imagine

Also you should really get a spare battery not just for emergencies but when you're using one you can always charge the other. Take out a loan / credit and rush delivery maybe if you have to

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If you come across any rivers or lakes ;)

https://youtu.be/gthUzxCiWS8

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I hope you have all the other basic bike repair tools, bikes are so complicated these days that just to change a tire on my electric bike proved to be a headache, you might wanna practice disassembling parts then reassembling, REI has classes on that kinda stuff. Certainly I would think a final tune-up before you leave

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If you plan on riding at night at least part of the time, invest in a yellow reflector vest, even ones with the blinking lights?

Plot out your route before hand to avoid major roads. Thank God for Google Maps mapping bike routes, though still wanna preview it.

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MondoMan180 posted...

I'm sorry to play that card but it sounds a little bit like the old white privilege to me, like I don't think I'd be able to rely on the kindness of strangers for something like that and neither would a black person I imagine

Also you should really get a spare battery not just for emergencies but when you're using one you can always charge the other. Take out a loan / credit and rush delivery maybe if you have to

Well I mean I'm not going to be doing it regularly, or at all if I can help it. It's just an option I can try in case something goes wrong that I wouldn't have if I was out in the wild for real. Also I'm not white, but even so I believe people would help me if I needed it even when I'm out in the countryside in states where the population is 97+% white.

If keeping the battery charged is an issue I can always order another one while on the road and have FedEx deliver it to a Walgreens or something a few days ahead of me, I've never used that service but I've heard of it. Worst thing that could happen is I misjudge the time or the package gets delayed and I have to hole up in some small town for a few days.

MondoMan180 posted...

If you come across any rivers or lakes ;)

Heh, looks cool. My bike is monstrously heavy though, so I doubt I could get it across anything but the shallowest of streams. I'll have to keep that in mind.

MondoMan180 posted...

I hope you have all the other basic bike repair tools, bikes are so complicated these days that just to change a tire on my electric bike proved to be a headache, you might wanna practice disassembling parts then reassembling, REI has classes on that kinda stuff. Certainly I would think a final tune-up before you leave

The company that makes my bike has a bunch of detailed videos up on how to maintain and repair their bikes that I've watched. Fixing a flat on the back tire where the motor is kept does indeed look like a nightmare, but I'm sure I can manage if I'm careful. I will make sure my route goes through major towns so I can get to a bike shop if I really need to grab anything beyond the spare parts/tools I have now.

Speaking of routes I'm going to use a navigation app called Komoot. I used it for that 250 mile trip and it worked like a dream, it kept me on the back country roads so I had no issues with cars or coming across a highway where biking was banned. The single bad thing about it is running the gps on my phone constantly drains the battery like crazy so I needed to carry a powerbank just to make it through one day.

https://youtu.be/-d5zmqYJYJk

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Btw there is a decent chance going through the mountains even on the low elevation roads will burn out your motor.

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CarefreeDude posted...

Btw there is a decent chance going through the mountains even on the low elevation roads will burn out your motor.

Is that so? I've never even seen a mountain irl before so I hadn't really considered what special precautions I would have to take with them yet. I suppose if the elevation is bad enough I can always just get off and walk, I'm not really doing this for fitness or speed, so I don't mind cheating.

Walking would probably be best. Going up hills puts a lot of strain on the motor, especially with all the extra weight you will have. You'll also likely have wheel spokes snap so bring extra

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Reigning_King posted...

I've never even seen a mountain irl before

I heard on the local radio station that Mountains don't even exist

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Metalsonic66 posted...

I heard on the local radio station that Mountains don't even exist

No mountains, just dew.
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do you have your route planned out? USBR10 looks nice if its not too far out of your way
https://wsdot.wa.gov/travel/commute-choices/bike/us-bicycle-route-system-washington

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I suppose I hope you dont die on your trip, so good luck

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If you end up finding a good route I'd be interested in hearing about it. I've done Korea and Japan but USA would be a different beast, I was thinking more North -> South.

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Cool stuff. Have fun, and be safe.

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Oh yea regarding route I was gonna comment once I bust my laptop out, Ive been sssooooooo sleepy its a day off but havent done anything

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PunishedOni posted...

do you have your route planned out? USBR10 looks nice if its not too far out of your way
https://wsdot.wa.gov/travel/commute-choices/bike/us-bicycle-route-system-washington

I'm going to go along the Adventure cycling Northern Tier route with some deviation like stopping in Chicago briefly to visit some family members (I'm dreading trying to ride a bike through that city more than anything else). The route has been ridden probably many thousands of times by now so I figure it must be pretty good and safe. One thing about it though is that it is almost always done west to east, not east to west like I plan on doing it, apparently the wind tends to blow eastward? Oh well, I'll manage.

Mead posted...

I suppose I hope you dont die on your trip, so good luck

Thanks, I'll do my best not to die. I suppose that it's mostly up to the drivers who pass by me though...

I found this for you, you gotta check this out!

https://youtu.be/r62vLt4Cdu0

For a 2,300+ mile trip, I'm barely joking, might be worth it, AND if you were to Youtube the whole trip and make a cast out of it you might get enough views to offset the travel costs! (assuming you have a good camera, good editing, decent personality)

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Also afa routes, iirc, from Midwest to West Coast theres 2 main highways, I-80 and I-84. I forget which but the one that is more southerly is the less mountainous one, more flat. If you were driving Id say perhaps a bit more boring but you said you wanted to avoid mountains.

Even though you wont be -directly- taking highways I assume you might be "tracking" them along the way, more or less.

Then once you get to the West Coast there is the Pacific Coast Highway, which up North at least is comprised of I-5, I forget what it is further south in Cali.

Orrr....maybe for the trip you could try historic Route 66 as much as you can? It wont be as busy as the highways, and its a famous journey that happens to run along the same path youre going!

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