Bleeding Edge Bike Commute

This is a romance as well as a cautionary tale of my initial bike commute on my brand-new super-light folding bike.

It is secure to say I have a difficult bike commute: 41 miles each method; 7 miles of water to go across each means; as well as 300 meters of upright to get on the method home. Offered all that, I leverage public transportation all I can to ensure I do not spend 4+ hours a day commuting. That implies visiting San Francisco on BART (Bay Location Public Transportation) as well as down the peninsula on CalTrain or down the East Bay on BART and also across the Dumbarton Bridge on bus. The first option was preferable because the CalTrain system on the peninsula has devoted bike vehicles. No other system in the Bay location does.

The Obstacle
Therein lies the problem. No public transportation, except for CalTrain, is very keen on seeing bikers around heavy traffic. BART outright outlaws them for each of the two heavy traffic periods.

The Initial Solution
Rather than crossing the bay and afterwards heading to work, I would certainly head down and then cross the bay. I would certainly take BART south to Union City and also either cycle or bus across the Dumbarton Bridge.

Some Bridges Like Bikes
I was surprised as well as impressed to find that the Dumbarton is the one transbay bridge that has a bicycle/pedestrian lane completely across. A heartening truth in the face of the recent Bay Bridge reconstruction’s brand-new bicycle/pedestrian bridge from Oakland to Prize Island, but not beyond (aka a “bridge to no place”).

Anyway, for the first couple of weeks of April, this strategy functioned penalty. If I stood up early sufficient, I would BART down and cycle throughout the Dumbarton. The whole journey took 90 minutes, yet who’s counting when this consists of a workout? (aka a reprieve from a fitness center see).

Some Buses Like Bikes
Whenever I got up late, I would bus across with my bike in a bus shelf, and the entire journey took 70 mins.

Neither option was super-fast, yet given that a traffic could make an auto journey last 90 mins or more, neither had not been bad. And also, one might fill up the whole time with web-surfing or reading, rather than driving.

The Fact
Then Spring hit. It stopped raining and also warmed up enough to ensure that other bikers began having the exact same idea for going across the Dumbarton. This ensured that the Dumbarton Express bus racks were always full. I tried getting to it a little early, however no dice: still full. Nevertheless, there were just two racks.

I rapidly realized that the Dumbarton bus path was not a reliable alternative for a cyclist provided the minimal ability. This created a real bind. I really did not have time to cycle the bridge everyday, and also I couldn’t dependably get up early adequate to beat the bike crowds to the Dumbarton Express bus. Check out the best electric bikes under £500 on this website.

Large Hiatus
Right concerning that time, somebody asked me to carpool so I took a bike-commuting-hiatus. Nonetheless, this really felt much more restrictive than all the bicycle curfews I was staying clear of. No more could I stay late at work or run duties at lunch with my bike. Car pool had not been working however, by then, I had truly fallen off the wagon with early rising so it felt like I couldn’t reverse. Months passed. I gained 10 pounds. I had failed to replace the cycling with another kind of exercise. This wouldn’t do.

The New Remedy
After trying as well as failing to obtain BART to lift their heavy traffic bike time limit, I unexpectedly realized that BART’s curfew excluded folding bikes. I researched those and found almost all to be sorely doing not have in toughness and speed. The one exception was a brand-new generation of bikes coming from a company called Tern.

The Tern Brink X20 seemed like a great prospect for the sort of folding bike I would need. An unbelievable bike by any kind of procedure: folding (quickly I could include, which is more than I can claim for many); 9.3 kg (that’s high-end roadway bike territory weight-wise); SRAM Red parts throughout (the very best road bike elements, as well as a price to suit naturally); and 1.11 inch broad wheels (picture 23c roadway tire, but only 20 inches in size, aka minimal resistance gliders).

This bike seemed excellent, given all my restraints: 300 meters of high-speed upright on the ride down capital from my home; 300 meters of high getting on the return ride home; bike curfews; rack room constraints; and also time restrictions (lighter equates to much shorter commute times on bikes).

With a folding bike, I might travel with impunity on any transit system. The bike wouldn’t even require a bike rack on a bus and also it would certainly circumvent the curfews on BART. Best of all, because it was ultralight and ultrafast, it would climb up hillsides as well as cross apartments nearly as rapid my road bike. “Woohoo! What a good time to be a bike traveler”, I thought.

After an interminable wait and also after getting much more weight, the bike finally arrived on the market and I bought the very first one I found. It is below where this tale really starts. The first day of bike travelling with this bleeding edge commuter bike was both amazing as well as horrific (no mistake of the bike’s, by the way).