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When I decided to move to the suburbs, I made the commitment to myself that I would not be driving in to work -- not every day, not even most days, in fact, as rarely as possible. So one of my location criteria was close proximity to a BART station. And to make the commute even more practical and flexible, I decided to get a folding bike that I could take on BART during commute hours. Mind you, this wasn't absolutely essential, because there's no parking fee at North Concord BART and the Emery-Go-Round shuttle from Macarthur station gets me to about 3 blocks from work. (And it's quite possible that during the rainy winter season I'll leave the bike home.) But I really wanted to have the flexibility to run errands from work (to my PO box, to the credit union, shopping) and the idea of keeping a bike at work permanently didn't appeal to me.
So having done some preliminary research and consulted knowledgeable experts, I got a Brompton folding bike from a distributor in Palo Alto. It was, to put it bluntly, expensive. However it does live up to the hype. After several days of practice, the fold-down and unfolding are very fast and smooth. When folded up, the bike has a very small footprint. I'm still getting the hang of how to tuck one foot around it to hold it in place when I'm sitting down so that it won't fall over on the curves and decelerations. But on a very crowded train, I can simply stand straddling the bike and it takes up little more space than I would by myself. It's light enough to carry easily up and down stairs (but small enough to take on the escalator), although not light enough to take the stairs at a run to catch a close connection.
As a bike, the Brompton isn't something I'd ride long distances for recreation. The 16" wheels have a very different steering feel than a standard bike. There also isn't a lot of "spring" in the construction and you not only feel every bump, you feel every little stick you run over. (Of course, I'm used to my Trek, which has actual spring suspension on the front end.) The model I got has the hub-internal 3-speed gears and 2 derailleur gears on the crank, for a total of 6 combinations. My commute biking is all essentially flat and I stick mostly to the lower derailleur. The gearing on the 3-speed set doesn't allow for a lot of nuance, but the highest power gear is sufficient to tackle the hills going up to downtown Berkeley.
The commute itself is turning out to be relatively painless. Relatively. For the settling in period, I'm getting up at 6am with a goal of out-the-door at 6:30. That gets me to my desk around quarter of 8. I may adjust things to target an 8am arrival more closely. I don't really have a routine coming home yet, but at least twice last week I managed to get in my gym time before heading home. The routine also works well for picking up groceries at Berkeley Bowl before getting on the shuttle, although not much more than a backpack's worth.
Various house-sale errands meant that I did drive to work twice last week, providing a comparison. So a bike/transit commute of ca. 1:15 compares with a drive time of 0:45, given the same departure time from Concord. (With no unusual Traffic Events on the route. Those could bump it up considerably.) But taking transit means that I get in about 45 minutes each way of reading e-mail and other online material or even books. I remember reading books. I actually read an entire novel in the last two weeks. And the online time is something I'd be doing anyway, so in effect (assuming I don't simply expand my online time) I'm "saving" half an hour a day over driving. Although not over a non-commute life. I'm still settling into a routine at the moment. One of these days I'll even get caught up on my sleep.
So having done some preliminary research and consulted knowledgeable experts, I got a Brompton folding bike from a distributor in Palo Alto. It was, to put it bluntly, expensive. However it does live up to the hype. After several days of practice, the fold-down and unfolding are very fast and smooth. When folded up, the bike has a very small footprint. I'm still getting the hang of how to tuck one foot around it to hold it in place when I'm sitting down so that it won't fall over on the curves and decelerations. But on a very crowded train, I can simply stand straddling the bike and it takes up little more space than I would by myself. It's light enough to carry easily up and down stairs (but small enough to take on the escalator), although not light enough to take the stairs at a run to catch a close connection.
As a bike, the Brompton isn't something I'd ride long distances for recreation. The 16" wheels have a very different steering feel than a standard bike. There also isn't a lot of "spring" in the construction and you not only feel every bump, you feel every little stick you run over. (Of course, I'm used to my Trek, which has actual spring suspension on the front end.) The model I got has the hub-internal 3-speed gears and 2 derailleur gears on the crank, for a total of 6 combinations. My commute biking is all essentially flat and I stick mostly to the lower derailleur. The gearing on the 3-speed set doesn't allow for a lot of nuance, but the highest power gear is sufficient to tackle the hills going up to downtown Berkeley.
The commute itself is turning out to be relatively painless. Relatively. For the settling in period, I'm getting up at 6am with a goal of out-the-door at 6:30. That gets me to my desk around quarter of 8. I may adjust things to target an 8am arrival more closely. I don't really have a routine coming home yet, but at least twice last week I managed to get in my gym time before heading home. The routine also works well for picking up groceries at Berkeley Bowl before getting on the shuttle, although not much more than a backpack's worth.
Various house-sale errands meant that I did drive to work twice last week, providing a comparison. So a bike/transit commute of ca. 1:15 compares with a drive time of 0:45, given the same departure time from Concord. (With no unusual Traffic Events on the route. Those could bump it up considerably.) But taking transit means that I get in about 45 minutes each way of reading e-mail and other online material or even books. I remember reading books. I actually read an entire novel in the last two weeks. And the online time is something I'd be doing anyway, so in effect (assuming I don't simply expand my online time) I'm "saving" half an hour a day over driving. Although not over a non-commute life. I'm still settling into a routine at the moment. One of these days I'll even get caught up on my sleep.
