The start of my 4000-mile trip: Getting to Newark (Update)
Four months from today I expect to be on the road on my 4000-mile solo bike trip. I’ve been planning to leave June 3rd, the first Monday in June, but I might delay my departure one day in order to be able to attend the 50th wedding anniversary of my friends Jim and Lyn in Washington, D.C., on June 8th. On their other hand I might leave on May 24th in order to be able to visit my friends John and Lisa in Northern Virginia before they depart for Africa May 4th.
I’m writing this post using my folding Bluetooth keyboard connected to my iPhone. This is the setup I’ll use while I’m on the road, so I need to get used to it.
Since publishing Planning: Gear (Update) I have continued to refine my selection of gear. I expect to publish another update in a week or so.
Today I took the ferry across the Hudson from Battery Park City to Paulus Hook and then rode to Newark to see whether I’d like to start my 4000-mile ride that way. You can read about my previous such ride in The Start of My 4000-Mile Trip: Getting to Newark, and you can see a record of today’s ride here. Today’s route was a significant improvement over a previous route I had planned from Paulus Hook to Newark because I rode on Montgomery Street rather than Grand Street.
Although it’s now 59 degrees, when I began my ride this morning it was only about 40, so I took a portable battery and a cable. When I noticed my phone was quickly losing its charge, I was going to attach it to the battery but discovered that I had brought the wrong cable. I had also brought my Bluetooth earpiece, so I put my phone in my saddle bag to keep it out of the cold and attempted to connect the earpiece. I had done that before, but I couldn’t remember the procedure, so I put my phone back in its mount and hoped the battery would last long enough for me to get to Newark. When I got home I reread the manual for the earpiece and learned the connection procedure. Perhaps I’ll keep a copy of the manual on my phone.
Shortly after mile 8, I encountered a sign saying OFFICAL AND EMERGENCY VEHILCLES ONLY, or something to that effect, as I came to a cinder path that led me to the path along the bridge over the Hackensack River. I have slightly revised my route from Paulus Hook to Newark to avoid both the sign and the cinders. You can see the revised route here. I plan to ride it in the next week or so to make sure it’s an improvement.
I was safe throughout the entire ride today, but there was a lot of debris on some parts of the path along the bridge over the Passaic River. When I noticed many trucks on the road just before I stopped in preparation to cross one of the exit or entrance ramps, I had the thought “The truckers are my friends”, and immediately a trucker waved me across the ramp. I gave him a thumbs-up as a thank-you.
I considered riding from Newark back to Paulus Hook but my phone battery was very low and I didn’t trust myself navigating the return trip without my phone, so I took the PATH train to the World Trade Center and rode home from there.
It has certainly been much easier to write this much with my Bluetooth keyboard connected to my iPhone than it would have been using the touch keypad on my phone.
I’m writing this post using my folding Bluetooth keyboard connected to my iPhone. This is the setup I’ll use while I’m on the road, so I need to get used to it.
Since publishing Planning: Gear (Update) I have continued to refine my selection of gear. I expect to publish another update in a week or so.
Today I took the ferry across the Hudson from Battery Park City to Paulus Hook and then rode to Newark to see whether I’d like to start my 4000-mile ride that way. You can read about my previous such ride in The Start of My 4000-Mile Trip: Getting to Newark, and you can see a record of today’s ride here. Today’s route was a significant improvement over a previous route I had planned from Paulus Hook to Newark because I rode on Montgomery Street rather than Grand Street.
Although it’s now 59 degrees, when I began my ride this morning it was only about 40, so I took a portable battery and a cable. When I noticed my phone was quickly losing its charge, I was going to attach it to the battery but discovered that I had brought the wrong cable. I had also brought my Bluetooth earpiece, so I put my phone in my saddle bag to keep it out of the cold and attempted to connect the earpiece. I had done that before, but I couldn’t remember the procedure, so I put my phone back in its mount and hoped the battery would last long enough for me to get to Newark. When I got home I reread the manual for the earpiece and learned the connection procedure. Perhaps I’ll keep a copy of the manual on my phone.
Shortly after mile 8, I encountered a sign saying OFFICAL AND EMERGENCY VEHILCLES ONLY, or something to that effect, as I came to a cinder path that led me to the path along the bridge over the Hackensack River. I have slightly revised my route from Paulus Hook to Newark to avoid both the sign and the cinders. You can see the revised route here. I plan to ride it in the next week or so to make sure it’s an improvement.
I was safe throughout the entire ride today, but there was a lot of debris on some parts of the path along the bridge over the Passaic River. When I noticed many trucks on the road just before I stopped in preparation to cross one of the exit or entrance ramps, I had the thought “The truckers are my friends”, and immediately a trucker waved me across the ramp. I gave him a thumbs-up as a thank-you.
I considered riding from Newark back to Paulus Hook but my phone battery was very low and I didn’t trust myself navigating the return trip without my phone, so I took the PATH train to the World Trade Center and rode home from there.
It has certainly been much easier to write this much with my Bluetooth keyboard connected to my iPhone than it would have been using the touch keypad on my phone.
In response to Burnett Thompson asking me to report on getting accustomed to using my iPhone SE with my Bluetooth keyboard:
ReplyDeleteAs I wrote above, it was certainly easier writing as much as I did with the Bluetooth keyboard than it would have been if I had done all the typing directly on my iPhone. Before deciding on a keyboard with full-sized keys, I had tried a keyboard with slightly smaller keys. That keyboard was smaller and lighter, but I made loads of typing mistakes. Such a keyboard might work for someone with small hands or who does not type by touch, but for me it was impossible. My keyboard does not have a command (Apple) key but does have a Windows key that functions the same way. Because all the computers I use are Mac I don’t like that the Windows key is not immediately next to the space bar, but I can live with that.
Blogging involves not just typing but also including links and pictures. Both of those operations are a little more complicated on my iPhone than on my iMac, but I’m getting more comfortable leaving the blog draft to go to another Safari page to copy a URL. I’m also getting comfortable importing pictures into my blog posts and then sizing and placing them as I wish. I’m typing this comment on my Bluetooth keyboard connected to my iPhone and I don’t know whether I would lose what I’ve written if I were to go to another page in Safari, so I will not add any links to this post. Instead I will write another comment with links after I publish this one.
A few hours after I had finishined the blog post above I noticed that the lower part of my neck was stiff, which is unusual. When writing the post I had my phone laying flat on my desk, and I suspect I had been bending over and thrusting my head forward as I typed. Today I have my phone on a stand that tilts it at an angle and the stand is on a shelf 7.5 inches above my desk. I think this is a better setup and I hope to feel comfortable in my neck after finishing this comment. I will need to find a way to have my phone elevated when blogging on my trip, but I don’t know how I will do that.
One final thought: The small screen of my iPhone SE makes blogging more difficult than it would be on a bigger screen, but I’m sticking with the SE (now discontinued, I understand). I hope that Apple will continue to offer cell phones no larger than an SE. I have no interest in carrying one of those big devices in my pocket, and I have no intention of carrying a purse.
Here’s a link to my Bluetooth keyboard:
Deletehttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B018K5EJCQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_JEZwCbRZ04VE9