When we decided to move out here, we didn’t know quite how hard it would be to find a place to rent. But, it was challenging – we only found two places to look at, and one was way to small (and went to someone else anyway) and the other was waaaaay far away from town – 21-ish miles, in fact. However, due to a combination of its beauty, the fact it is furnished, and that it was the only one available, it was the one we ended up in.
So, we both started getting nervous about the distance, and rightfully so. Twenty-one miles is a long way to bike twice daily, even with an e-bike. Still, we’re going to do our best to stay a one-car family and use the bikes as much as possible. This meant that one of the first things we did was make a test-ride into town and back.
First off, I want to give a shout out to Reddit user korDen, who indirectly inspired me to diver headfirst into this attempt. I read korDen’s post on Reddit about finding a family bike. The rural commute they do each day is admittedly longer than ours (though preschool dropoff is less), but after reading that my hesitancy turned into a Barney Stinson-style “challenge accepted”. I now know that we can’t do the same level of bike-use as Seattle (at least currently), but it’s a fun challenge to see how much we can do.
We started off a bit late in the day, which was unfortunate. It meant the heat had already climbed to around 80 degrees, less than optimal in a ride that is about 50% completely exposed to the sun. We took about a gallon and a half of water for the four of us and ended up drinking pretty much all of it by the edge of town. Based on this, I’m going to finally figure out a good way to attach water cages to the Packster so that I can have even more water with us, and water that is easy to reach.
The ride really isn’t bad from the standpoint of difficulty and safety, at least during the week. It starts on about 6 miles of country road with virtually no traffic. Not many people live up there full time and it dead ends at the National Forest. The second 3rd is very similar. It’s a rural-residential road that roughly parallels the highway, again with few full-time residents, at least compared to pretty much everywhere else we ride. There are rolling hills on both sections, but nothing that we couldn’t climb without the e-assist, even with one kid each on our bikes. That means that almost 2/3rds of the ride is on nice roads with little traffic.
The last 1/3rd of the ride is the only part that made us a bit uncomfortable. It’s a rural highway, but has nice wide shoulders and so far, with one exception, everyone has been quite respectful, pulling well to the left and not making sketchy passes. (One Acura SUV decided to pass too close and over the speed limit, but I’m fairly certain they were a tourist.) The only thing I disliked was the occasional truck and trailer combo, but even they were well aware of the space they took. Still, I’ll continue being super cautious.
In the end, my verdict is that even though it’s a highway, the ride through downtown Seattle is much worse and I’d rather bike these 8 miles every day than have to work in Pioneer Square and make the daily commute by bike. The exception is weekends, especially holiday weekends. Based on what locals have said, and our own perception of the traffic, I’d not ride that highway between Friday at noon and Monday at 7:00am, and I’d add Thursday to that on a holiday weekend. Too many Seattlites visit and they show the distinct lack of care that most in the city do. It would basically be like downtown but at 60mph.
Total active riding time was just under 1.5 hours, though with water stops and a potty break it was around 2 hours total. The girls were mostly happy, and Lurline and I enjoyed the ride. I think that one of us solo on the GSD would do it in slightly less time because the Packster is noticably slower and whomever rode it did have trouble keeping up.
The main takeaways from this test ride were that we’d have to leave by no later than 6:30am in order to make it to school on time, with the ideal departure being closer to 6am, and that it’s unlikely we’ll do this much in the winter, not due to concerns over road conditions but because of the high berms we’ve heard build up on the sides of much of the route. Having nowhere to ditch in a close call makes me fairly worried.
Our current soution to neither of us feeling like just under 44 miles every day is really sustainable is that on days we want to bike, one will drive the girls to school and the other will leave on the bike at the same time. We’ll then swap at the end of the day, the biker taking the girls home and the other bringing the car back later. We also had the pleasant surpise of discovering there’s a bus, so we have the option to just bike part way and lock up at the bus stop. The schedule doesn’t work for going to preschool, but would be a nice way to get a ride in.
In all, I’m glad we spent extra to get a U-Haul large enough to carry our bikes in addition to our stuff and I’ll keep track of mileage from here out and keep you updated.