Mine assumes you’ll take an uber to the nearest train station, which takes 1:10 and $23. Without the uber your only alternative is to walk for 2-3 hours (or cycle if you’re feeling brave).
Oh, and this is Texas so it’ll be boiling hot at least 7 months out of the year.
The shit show to get to work for me in a major U.S. city, living ass deep in the city limits:
Trying to switch to an ebike where I can, just ordered the parts. Hopefully it will make this massive ass hill a little easier.
This is mine,
I have an e-bike so it’s not problem.
Looks fairly similar. That gives me hope that the conversion will do what I want.
Out of curiosity, what type of motor/battery are you using?
48V 10 Ah lithium battery with a 350W motor.
It’s already have 3500Km of use and the battery is slowing down. I could used it 40 km before needing to charge, nowadays I’m worried when I had to do more than 25. But is enough for going and coming back from work, and the office bike park have energy outlets so I can take the charger to work when I’m worry about it.
I’m going with a 48V 13Ah battery and a 500W motor, and it’s a mid drive. So I should definitely be in a good spot if yours is doing well for you.
And my battery is removable, so I’ll be able to charge it at my desk which will be nice.
Thats one heck of a hill. I can’t imagine doing that every day.
Yeah, hence why I’m trying to convert my bike into an ebike. I’ve never tried biking up it. I know I could walk it easily, but it’d probably double the time it takes.
At a minimum, the conversion should make the hill manageable even if it doesn’t make it easy.
That, and keeping up with my friends on trails will be nice.
You should totally give it a try sometime if you’re feeling up to it and have a multi speed bike. It’s really hard the first time, but so much of the challenge is mental hurdles like feeling tired, balance when you’re going slow, and shifting. The physical challenge is a lot less than you might think.
I accidentally opted into a really tough commute a few years ago (~400ft ascent which is about 122m) and it was really challenging at first but it’s amazing how fast you can improve.
I also bought an ebike. They are incredible for days you aren’t feeling well or need to grab extra groceries. Good luck with your conversion project! I bet you’ll love it
That’s crossed my mind once or twice, but ultimately I don’t want to put myself in a situation I can’t readily get out of if I can help it. So I’ve been holding off.
I’ll definitely still be trying to go as far as I can up the hill under my own power as I can, but once I hit my limit I want the assist. I want the goal to be to slowly improve how far up I can get on my own.
But it’s gonna half to be baby steps.
I also bought an ebike. They are incredible for days you aren’t feeling well or need to grab extra groceries. Good luck with your conversion project! I bet you’ll love it
I have a grocery store juuuuust at the ~15 minute walk range of my home. It’s also up a giant hill. Nowhere near as bad, but bad enough for me to say “fuck it, I don’t have the energy to walk or bike”, and I take my car up for a few small things when I absolutely could have just walked.
So I’m hoping to reduce that as well, and take the bike for small trips like that.
First World:
Not quite comparable, because long distance, but for someone usually bouncing around Germany, the TGV network is kinda crazy. A bit envious after returning.
Like, the ICE is usually faster than driving, and I don’t have a car anyways, since I don’t really need one, but having a separate network for high speed rail means the French are just on another level.
That would be really fucking nice. I’m not joking. It takes me less than 15 minutes to drive to work, public transport doesn’t exist for me, and biking is terrifying because a long part of it is on a 55MPH rural highway with no shoulders or bike lanes.
I’ve taken to riding a motorcycle during the warm season instead. Far more enjoyable and nicer, even on a 49cc scooter (modded to reach 50+) or a 46 year-old Enduro bike.
This is my daily commute:
There’s literally no option for public transit, because I live near one rail system, and my work is near an entirely separate rail system. The two aren’t connected at all, so there’s no way for me to transition in between the two. Making a transfer between the two literally takes longer than simply walking to work, because the two closest stations are farther apart than where I live compared to my job.
What surprises me the most in yours and the OP is how much longer the walking and biking are comparatively. I picked a random spot 11min drive away from my house for comparison:
And I’m in the “countryside” of the Netherlands, no trains, trams or anything like this here and bus station is already like 10/15min walk.
I expect the public transit craziness but why is walking/biking that much more?
You dutch love bikes tho right?
I’m not Dutch I just live here but yeah sure do. This trip would pretty much be only on dedicated cycle lanes I think.
This is approximately my daily commute (3.6 km but basically city centre)
Mine’s a bit closer to your proportions, although I’m not sure if Google can accurately predict the effects climbing a steep hill up and down will have on cycling and walking. The weird thing is the public transport. It must not know about all available lines, because that should be more like 90 minutes.
Try CityMapper? I often get better results there .
Thanks for the suggestion, but I already don’t use Google for actual navigation, just for rough estimations. I’m quite happy with OsmDroid.
Just thought it might be worth checking if CityMapper “knows about all available lines”.
Well part of it is that my distance is actually closer to 10km, whereas yours is only 6.6km. It sucks that highways entrench the need for cars, but they’re also extremely fast when the roads are clear. I can drive 70Mi/h (~115km/h) almost the entire way from my apartment to my job. So the driving time is super short in comparison to anything else.
Ah yes of course that makes sense if 10 of those 11min are at highway speeds. Mine is smaller roads, first highway is maybe 15min drive away and speed limit is anyway 100km/h between 07:00/19:00.
might be a highway for op with a higher speed limit
More than twice as long as walking is impressive.
In my city at least, this happens because a lot of the bus routes are one way in the morning / afternoon (into or out of the city) so if you want to take a bus out of the city/downtown in the morning, it ends up being a mess.
Could also easily happen in a system that’s entirely hub and spoke without any lines that meaningfully cross each other, particularly if buses come 30+ minutes apart. So, going to a neighborhood that’s not between your location and city center can take forever speaking from experience.
My guess is because it doesn’t have a direct line to the destination, so you need to go all the way down to a station and make a bus swap to come back.
Like imagine you need to go two blocks south, from First Street to Third Street. But there’s no bus that goes north/south. So you go fifteen blocks east on First Street to the station, wait for your next bus, then come back another fifteen blocks west on Third Street in a new bus. Or you could just walk the two blocks south.
Two hours and forty-four minutes of transfers between buses instead of eight minutes of driving like Automobile Jesus intended? Blasphemy, I say.
Driving was one of the first scamcriptions. I thought I had escaped by bike. I lasted 4 years of full time commuting before the horror film level infrastructure disabled me crossing paths with a third grade equivalent competency person.
Biking to work would be awesome if I didn’t hate biking in the sun or snow. Spring or Fall are nice biking seasons. Might move to a more bike friendly area, but luckily current commute is nil since I wfh.
Gotta be Atlanta
