With the help of my bike expert friend who initially helped me out at Freewheel, I now remember the name of the company who made my frame: Sakai. I was right about it starting with an 's' and it being five letters long. Now all I need to do is coerce someone into picking it up for me.
I spoke to my old roommate about his bike tour plans for a while yesterday. He's planning on biking out to Washington State when he moves out there for school. He suggested that we bike to his hometown of Plymouth which is roughly 80 miles away, the perfect distance for a one day ride. I've always wanted to see his hometown anyway, so I'm certain we'll make this trip work. He is planning on buying a new bike but he'll probably end up using his current road bike which he uses for commuting at the moment. It's an old Schwinn- his Dad's actually, but he's in good enough shape that he'll be able to keep up with me and my fancy new bike.
Sometime soon I'll need to start the price-shopping for equipment. Equipment is going to be a hell of a lot more expensive than I had previously thought. Here's a rough list of what I'll need and how much things will cost before discounts:
Panniers ($150)
Handlebar bag ($50)
Rain gear ($80?)
Bike shorts x2 ($100)
Bike shirts x2 ($120?)
Special bike pump ($50)
Tools ($100?)
Helmet ($80?)
TOTAL: $730
Optional equipment:
Bike computer (tells you your MPH, highest speed, miles done so far each day etc.)
($50)
Clipless pedals ($50)
Clipless pedal shoes ($80)
Higher quality saddle ($80?)
Digital camera ($200?)
TOTAL $460
If I get all the optional equipment along with everything I'll actually need it'll end up being $1190. After a 15% discount, if it doesn indeed apply to everything listed for the stuff I need only, it'll cost me $620.50. If I get the 15% off on the optional stuff too, minus the digital camera, it'll cost me $841.50. Now that I'm writing this all out, I'm realizing that I'll need to either work extra shifts throughout the next year or get less or cheaper equipment. I'm sure there are other pieces of equipment I'll need to buy too to add to the list. Right now I'm feeling like I should just rough it and go with only the equipment I absolutely need. Apparently, bikes come with low quality saddles (seats) and pedals because it's expected that the customer will upgrade these parts. I'll probably end up just using them, unless I make a lot more money than I have been making. I've seriously considered taking a night job along with my job at the OF. I've had lots of free time lately so I could easily fit another job in.
I should also reevaluate my numbers for the cost of the trip as well as other logistics. From what I'm seeing, it looks like the cost of flights to Dublin and London are comparable, so I won't be paying more to go to Dublin first compared to London. That's nice to see. It also looks cheaper to fly from Chicago instead of from Madison because all flights go through Chicago anyway. Maybe I can bike down to Chicago to save some money. Looks like I'd save about $89 if I bike to Chicago and fly to Dublin from there one-way ($310) versus flying to Chicago first and then flying to Dublin ($399). If I manage to make my way back to Dublin with a cheap flight from Bergen, Norway, then the round trip fare will be about $790. Scratch that. Orbitz.com stopped working so I tried expedia.com and their price for $685. I'll definitely need to do some shopping around to get a good price on airline tickets. The price, on expedia.com for a one way ticket from Bergen to Madison is... ridiculous. I'm not even going to write what it is. Sounds like I'll need to take a quick flight from Bergen to Dublin. It's only about $171 for the short flight. Alright. That's my new plan. Start in Madison, bike/bus/get a ride to Chicago, fly to Dublin, bike around northern Europe, take a short flight back to Dublin, head back to Chicago and bike/bus/get a ride back to Madison. I'm glad to see it's actually feasible.
As far as planning the trip logistics, I've been using this map with it's scale to get a rough estimate of how many miles I'll be going and which general route I should take. I'm estimating it will be about 2400 miles total. If I leave shortly after school ends, I'll be heading out on roughly May 20th. I'll probably want to come back to Madison in time to move out on August 14th or so, so this leaves me with a few days short of three months. I've been estimating that I'll be on the trip for about 75 days. 2400 miles/75 days is 32 miles per day. If I want to dedicate certain days to biking and other days to sightseeing, then I'll need 2400/x = 80 --> x = 30, so if I dedicate 30 days to biking the entire day, I'll have 45 days just to sit around and enjoy the great capitols of northern Europe. I'm excited. So I'll probably need about $40 per day for food and lodging (this is a rough estimate), which will put me at $3,000.
Previously I'd thought I could get away with only $250 in equipment. Now I see it will be closer to $750. I thought I could get away with $3,500 covering the airplane tickets and the food/lodging of the tour itself, but now I realize it'll be $764.60 (round trip from Chicago to Dublin) and $171.60 (Bergen to Dublin). This isn't even considering the cost to get to Chicago in the first place, and it's assuming that each of these airlines would allow me to bring a bike along. These are things I still need to figure out. The new predicted price for airlines is $936.20. This along with the predicted $3,000 for the food and board is $3,936.20. So the total money I need to collect is $3,936.20 (airline ticket/food/board) + $750 (bike) + $750 (equipment) = $5436.20. This divided by nine for the nine months I'll need to collect this is $604. This means I'll need to make $600 extra above and beyond my normal monthly expenses every month for the next nine months. Sounds like I need to get another job.
I spoke to my old roommate about his bike tour plans for a while yesterday. He's planning on biking out to Washington State when he moves out there for school. He suggested that we bike to his hometown of Plymouth which is roughly 80 miles away, the perfect distance for a one day ride. I've always wanted to see his hometown anyway, so I'm certain we'll make this trip work. He is planning on buying a new bike but he'll probably end up using his current road bike which he uses for commuting at the moment. It's an old Schwinn- his Dad's actually, but he's in good enough shape that he'll be able to keep up with me and my fancy new bike.
Sometime soon I'll need to start the price-shopping for equipment. Equipment is going to be a hell of a lot more expensive than I had previously thought. Here's a rough list of what I'll need and how much things will cost before discounts:
Panniers ($150)
Handlebar bag ($50)
Rain gear ($80?)
Bike shorts x2 ($100)
Bike shirts x2 ($120?)
Special bike pump ($50)
Tools ($100?)
Helmet ($80?)
TOTAL: $730
Optional equipment:
Bike computer (tells you your MPH, highest speed, miles done so far each day etc.)
($50)
Clipless pedals ($50)
Clipless pedal shoes ($80)
Higher quality saddle ($80?)
Digital camera ($200?)
TOTAL $460
If I get all the optional equipment along with everything I'll actually need it'll end up being $1190. After a 15% discount, if it doesn indeed apply to everything listed for the stuff I need only, it'll cost me $620.50. If I get the 15% off on the optional stuff too, minus the digital camera, it'll cost me $841.50. Now that I'm writing this all out, I'm realizing that I'll need to either work extra shifts throughout the next year or get less or cheaper equipment. I'm sure there are other pieces of equipment I'll need to buy too to add to the list. Right now I'm feeling like I should just rough it and go with only the equipment I absolutely need. Apparently, bikes come with low quality saddles (seats) and pedals because it's expected that the customer will upgrade these parts. I'll probably end up just using them, unless I make a lot more money than I have been making. I've seriously considered taking a night job along with my job at the OF. I've had lots of free time lately so I could easily fit another job in.
I should also reevaluate my numbers for the cost of the trip as well as other logistics. From what I'm seeing, it looks like the cost of flights to Dublin and London are comparable, so I won't be paying more to go to Dublin first compared to London. That's nice to see. It also looks cheaper to fly from Chicago instead of from Madison because all flights go through Chicago anyway. Maybe I can bike down to Chicago to save some money. Looks like I'd save about $89 if I bike to Chicago and fly to Dublin from there one-way ($310) versus flying to Chicago first and then flying to Dublin ($399). If I manage to make my way back to Dublin with a cheap flight from Bergen, Norway, then the round trip fare will be about $790. Scratch that. Orbitz.com stopped working so I tried expedia.com and their price for $685. I'll definitely need to do some shopping around to get a good price on airline tickets. The price, on expedia.com for a one way ticket from Bergen to Madison is... ridiculous. I'm not even going to write what it is. Sounds like I'll need to take a quick flight from Bergen to Dublin. It's only about $171 for the short flight. Alright. That's my new plan. Start in Madison, bike/bus/get a ride to Chicago, fly to Dublin, bike around northern Europe, take a short flight back to Dublin, head back to Chicago and bike/bus/get a ride back to Madison. I'm glad to see it's actually feasible.
As far as planning the trip logistics, I've been using this map with it's scale to get a rough estimate of how many miles I'll be going and which general route I should take. I'm estimating it will be about 2400 miles total. If I leave shortly after school ends, I'll be heading out on roughly May 20th. I'll probably want to come back to Madison in time to move out on August 14th or so, so this leaves me with a few days short of three months. I've been estimating that I'll be on the trip for about 75 days. 2400 miles/75 days is 32 miles per day. If I want to dedicate certain days to biking and other days to sightseeing, then I'll need 2400/x = 80 --> x = 30, so if I dedicate 30 days to biking the entire day, I'll have 45 days just to sit around and enjoy the great capitols of northern Europe. I'm excited. So I'll probably need about $40 per day for food and lodging (this is a rough estimate), which will put me at $3,000.
Previously I'd thought I could get away with only $250 in equipment. Now I see it will be closer to $750. I thought I could get away with $3,500 covering the airplane tickets and the food/lodging of the tour itself, but now I realize it'll be $764.60 (round trip from Chicago to Dublin) and $171.60 (Bergen to Dublin). This isn't even considering the cost to get to Chicago in the first place, and it's assuming that each of these airlines would allow me to bring a bike along. These are things I still need to figure out. The new predicted price for airlines is $936.20. This along with the predicted $3,000 for the food and board is $3,936.20. So the total money I need to collect is $3,936.20 (airline ticket/food/board) + $750 (bike) + $750 (equipment) = $5436.20. This divided by nine for the nine months I'll need to collect this is $604. This means I'll need to make $600 extra above and beyond my normal monthly expenses every month for the next nine months. Sounds like I need to get another job.
posted by Nels at 12:36 PM
2 Comments:
Hmm... thanks for the advice. I clearly need to do some more investigating.
Yeah, I got the same feeling too, although it does make me feel like I should do a little more shopping around, which is never a bad thing. As far as equipment goes, I think I'm gonna just tough it out and find another job so I can buy decent stuff. If I can't find another job, however, I guess I'll be heading to Target. I've been trying to find a job as a bartender/bouncer, but I'm learning that they usually don't get off at night until 4 AM and I have class every day at 8:50 AM. It would be a cool job and I would make a lot of money, but I don't think it would work out. By the way, Eric, I can't seem to get your blog to work...
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