4500+ Miles US Ebike Tour - August 2014

+1 to veloman. that's extremely studly.

And, also, a good spec for an ebike. I'm liking where the thread went...all good, all good....
So, I can get 40 out of mine. 50 if I'm lucky. I'll work on changing that....
 
Thank you Grindz spent many hours reading this thread. You have given us something to dream up. Thinking we could try an ebike trip of distance. I know you have given us dreams. Maybe some more will put are dreams on the road. Nice
 
999zip999 said:
Thank you Grindz spent many hours reading this thread. You have given us something to dream up. Thinking we could try an ebike trip of distance. I know you have given us dreams. Maybe some more will put are dreams on the road. Nice

Great to hear man :D

The actual Guinness certificate is in limbo because I refused to pay 550 bucks to get a 3 day turn on my evidence, and another family has beat my record with 5200 miles. I'm very happy to see that number going up. I hope it very quickly reaches 10s of thousands of miles as people undertake around-the-world adventure trips.
 
IMO these are two separate records - theirs is 'supported' and yours is 'unsupported'. I consider unsupported to be a much tougher feat for obvious reasons.
 
danielrlee said:
IMO these are two separate records - theirs is 'supported' and yours is 'unsupported'. I consider unsupported to be a much tougher feat for obvious reasons.

Yup I agree. Two different records. Unsupported with no support vehicle is a much tougher adventure.
 
Definitely different to do it unsupported. I finally took a morning now that riding weather sucks, and watched all the vids. Very easy to see how much harder it was for you to do it unsupported. A motel or good camp with the dog and wife waiting at the end of each day would have made it so much easier. Even some dude along scouting ahead for your camp would have been a huge help, along with not lugging the whole camp on the bike.

It was also clear that fast charging was key for you. My idea of touring by buying a camp spot with a plug each night and charging slow might suck pretty bad. Not so easy to find that great camp every night, as you see in the vids. It can be done in my state, by stopping only at state parks.

My real touring dream is having lots of money, then ride super light and get a motel every night. Very costly for more than a long weekend. Call it supported by money.

As for the record, well, we know and you know you had it for a time. And still have the solo unsupported record.
 
It's no biggie. In the end, it's just how I justified my adventure, and I don't regret a thing. I only wish that I had 2 months :)
 
I hope to undertake a coast to coast to coast trip in the next year, and want to do sort of a combination of Grindz145 and Dogman's methods - camping out and occasional motels to keep my sanity.

I'd love to take a run at the record, especially after being inspired by you Grindz145! Plus it'd be nice to get the record back in the hands of an unsupported trip.

I found somewhere (gotta research for the link) that someone figured out the shortest driving distance to touch all 48 contiguous states is something like 6,800 miles. Now that's an adventure I'd like to take!

Either way, I've got my first practice XC coming up hopefully in early february. 1,500 miler starting in South Florida. I've got the new 9C 3010 that I'll run at 72V, so this should be an interesting experience in many regards :D
 
mlt34 said:
I found somewhere (gotta research for the link) that someone figured out the shortest driving distance to touch all 48 contiguous states is something like 6,800 miles. Now that's an adventure I'd like to take!

Yes! Do it! I would love to see this.
 
http://twentytwowords.com/how-to-drive-through-all-48-of-the-continental-united-states-in-113-hours/

Found it. 6,872 miles. Though I'd be starting in Florida, so getting back would add another 2,000 miles. I'll have to use the google maps link and see if I can rework it to a loop that starts and ends in florida more efficiently.

A big part of what I do with ebikes is advocacy, and I think a 'touch every state' trip would be an awesome thing to get some media buzz and show how versatile and effective ebikes are.

Plus you know you want to do donuts at the Four Corners intersection...
 
That would be awesome. One bit of caution I will advise is to carefully select your route ahead of time. That is a mistake that I made and it caused a lot of strife. you can't plan every night and every stop, but you can plan the overall route based on google maps shoulder and traffic. I imagine it will be a little bit trickier to get a similar route with decent cycling roads, and it will probably be a little be longer, but I really love the concept, and it should be doable!
 
Thanks for the tip! Yea, the way he figured it (and I think there's a link there to follow to a google maps route for the whole thing) is basically like 20-25 cities that are border towns. So if you used those same towns as waypoints but refigured it for bikeable roads, you could probably do the same thing with maybe a 10%-15% longer trip due to not using the more efficient interstate system. Basically what you said, haha. This won't be my February trip, but I'd love to do it some point. I'm not sure what the hardest part will be, the trip or convincing my wife to let me do it...
 
1500 miles is nothing to scoff at either. Remember pics/video or it didn't happen ;)

I regret how few photos I took. I have plenty of video, but not enough photos. I like what Justin did, just connected line power to his camera and had it take pictures in time lapse mode. This would work incredible well with a modern gopro, but I didn't have my shit together enough to make this happen.
 
I'm debating whether or not to take my DSLR on this shorter trip. This will obviously be a great photo opportunity but I don't know if I want the extra weight penalty or worrying about more expensive equipment. While I'm in the states I'll be picking up a new iphone 6 so I figure that's probably good enough. The kind of difference a DSLR can give me is going to be wasted when I'm too exhausted to really use it to it's full potential. I have a feeling this is going to be more of a "oooh a pretty sunset with my bike in the foreground" or "Here's me and a "Welcome To Georgia" sign kind of stuff, haha

I think if I can make the 48 state trip or even just a coast to coast to coast (I'm thinking Miami to san diego and back) then I'd bring the DSLR because I want those pretty pics. Maybe I'll make an ebike touring coffee table book out of it. The bike parked in front of 48 "Welcome to..." signs would be an awesome collage or poster.
 
If you can do it, that would be cool, but it is a lot of weight, and it's hard to get out of a bag/etc. I used a little point and shoot canon, and the photos are pretty good. More important, it's light, and I can literally store it on my hip.
 
Yea I loved the shots where you could see the shadow of you literally holding out a camera while cruising along at speed.

I think the combo of a phone and a selfy stick will make a good photo/video diary setup without adding much weight or bulk, both of which are at a premium.

The next thing is to figure out a good gps setup. I don't need to be super official with tracking like you did for the world record, but it'd be nice to have a nice squiggly line to see where I went a few thousand miles later. I also want to give glympse a try so people can follow me if they want. I know I wasn't the only one with a glympse tab open for weeks while you were on your trip, haha
 
I've been trying to decide on whether to bring my dslr with too or not. I'm a photographer too, so I need to probably buy a slim camera as an alternative. Or somehow build it into my rear carrier and really protect it. Should be able to pull off at least my Pittsburgh to North Carolina and back in the early spring. Bigger trip leave in late spring. Still planning, but I'll see where it ends up.
 
I miss Pittsburgh in the spring...

Ironically I might be doing my trip from Florida to NC and back. I'm planning on February though, otherwise we could have met in the middle!
 
More planning is a good idea. Plan a route, post it here on ES or other cycling forums. Then ask for locals to chime in.

For example, I often chat up guys loaded for touring as they head east from my house. Very often they don't realize that over that mountain, is about 60 miles with no water, no houses, and if you camp the military police arrest you. It's the huge White Sands missile test range, so you can't just pull over and put up a tent. They can't have anybody on that road when they run a test shot.

But more likely, the local knowledge will be more like, "take the route through x town, because if you go through y, you climb a much steeper grade. One place in NM I have ridden, I took the right way by chance. 5% grade climb to the pass. on the other side, the descent was 18%! :shock: Glad I was going the right way, south to north on that route!

Grades info you can get from map my ride of course.

When I've done my shorter tours, I found it well worth the weight to carry a small laptop. Pop into Mcdonalds or other free wifi, get my ES fix you know. I can't see good enough to do stuff on a phone.
 
rborger73 said:
I've been trying to decide on whether to bring my dslr with too or not....
I procured and use a sj1000 camera, like a GoPro but less expensive. Variously branded, from Amazon. If I need still pictures, I use VLC snap-picture mode. Resolution is good enough. Nice thing about it is mounting it on my helmet, turning it on and forgetting about it. Not having to worry about focus or looking through a lens or when to snap a picture or anything like that. And having to worry about breakage or stealage as with a more expensive dslr type camera.

I started this 80 Day Race Open Source Design thread and am considering it, as part of a design & build team. Hoping you long-distance eBike trekers might chime in on great ideas.
 
arkmundi said:
rborger73 said:
I've been trying to decide on whether to bring my dslr with too or not....
I procured and use a sj1000 camera, like a GoPro but less expensive. Variously branded, from Amazon. If I need still pictures, I use VLC snap-picture mode. Resolution is good enough. Nice thing about it is mounting it on my helmet, turning it on and forgetting about it. Not having to worry about focus or looking through a lens or when to snap a picture or anything like that. And having to worry about breakage or stealage as with a more expensive dslr type camera.

I started this 80 Day Race Open Source Design thread and am considering it, as part of a design & build team. Hoping you long-distance eBike trekers might chime in on great ideas.

Ya I have a gopro clone that will be coming with. Need something with a bit more umph too though.
 
I'm working on a waterproof dash cam mod that will be coming with me. I've got the supplies except for the dash cam :shock:

Still on it's way from China. Hopefully it gets here soon, I want to leave for my XC hopefully next week...
 
mlt34 said:
I'm working on a waterproof dash cam mod that will be coming with me. I've got the supplies except for the dash cam :shock:

Still on it's way from China. Hopefully it gets here soon, I want to leave for my XC hopefully next week...

Ya I leave mine on a dvr loop of 10 minutes. Records to keep a record in case another moron pulls out in front of me like the last one did that left be bruised and battered for a couple months. Rode home 13 miles after I made sure my leg wasn't broken. lol Which is probably what kept it so the swelling stayed down enough I didn't have to stop riding. That day... I didn't have my camera going.. figures. lol
 
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