The other week I tried riding in to my Northcote school.

I have a road bike from when I used to cycle to an old job before I got my drivers’ licnce. It’s about nine years old but still goes well.

The ride is certainly not short – 15km each way or 30km total, not including the ferry ride inbetween.

And that was the biggest problem with that ride – missing the Birkenhead ferry and having a half-hour wait for the next one. Where’s that harbour bridge cycleway when you need it?

Birkenhead Ferry at Northcote Point, and a local

Aside from that, it was a good exercise. I’d left a change of clothes at the school in case I ever did this – that was six months ago so they were a little dusty – but meant I didn’t have to take a change with me. The school has staff shower facilities too.

I caught the ferry to Northcote Point for the outward trip, and met it at Birkenhead for the homeward trip. On the city cide, I used the Northwestern Cycleway up to Carrington Rd, including its just-opened new section through Kingsland.

The new section is great – and well lit too. Unfortunately the next section between St Lukes Rd and Carrington Rd is incredibly poorly lit and I nearly lost my balance after striking a rock I didn’t see here!

To carry my equipment with me, I’ve upgraded to the Logitech Kinetik backpack, which is a rigid backpack designed to carry a laptop plus a whole bunch of accessories.

Logitech Kinetik backpack

I’ve managed to fit all of these into that bag:

• My laptpop with charger
• Commonly used tools
• Jacket and umbrella
• Cabling
• Lunch
• Breath mints (important!)
• A paper file
• Extra discs and recovery equipment

And my little laptop fits into a separate well-protected compartment, leaving the main laptop bay free to fit a second laptop or additional gear. I’ve already used this to move a couple of serviced and spare laptops around from and to a couple of clients.

I’m going to try to bike a bit more often. If I can get a cheap second bike, it may even be an option to bike to the local train station (Mt Albert). The problem is there’s no lockers there. Mt Albert and Baldwin Ave stations have missed out on the Wedst Line upgrade.

Birkenhead · cycling · ferry · laptop · Mt Albert · Northcote

Things are still going well, and I’m still enjoying the (mostly) lower stress levels of hardly driving, and still enjoying the benefits of getting work done on the move.

I say mostly, because things can get difficult for workdays or non-CBD events that extend beyond around 8pm. Getting home can be slow, and sometimes I’ve caved in and accepted the offer of a ride, usually to a point along the bus route to home.

That isn’t happening too often tho, so I’ve decided to continue on for December, and I have purchased the December Monthly Discovery pass.

I’m under budget for the month too. I’d allowed $60 (four hours) worth of Cityhop car travel of which I’ve had to use none so far. I’ll carry that allowance over to December.

We’re planning on using a Cityhop car to get to the Airport next month as it’ll be far more direct from our location than either airport bus, and cheaper than a shuttle.
The plan is to pick it up the night before at the overnight 6pm-8am rate of $30, load it up, then next morning drive into the airport and drop it off at Cityhop’s Airport depot.

The December per-workday cost will be higher. I have 14 workdays in December as opposed to 21 in November so the per-day cost is a significant 50% higher.
Since I won’t be using this pass after December 18th, it’s up for sale on Trademe for delivery from that date to help offset the cost. Would this be useful for anyone?

I’ve given up trying to use the laptop on the bus as its hard disc protection system kicks in almost constantly, slowing the laptop right down. It just doesn’t like the bumps. The train on the other hand is far smoother, and I’ve now also used it on the ferry.
I’ll have to see if using it on the Northern Busway is less bumpy than your average road when the opportunity arises.

budget · cityhop · cost · december · laptop

Well I’ve made it through two weeks now of delivering without wheels.

So far it’s ended up better than expected.

Most of my travel these past two weeks has been related to the school I contract to in Northcote.

So far the biggest highlight has been working on the move: I was surprised how easy this was on the train, and it is even possible on the bus. I’m using my Toshiba Portege R500 laptop combined with my 3G phone to get online. I have access to my e-mail and job/support tracker, as well as some remote access to clients while on the move.
The Portege has been good but I’d imagine you could do just as well with a modern netbook too.

I think I’m actually getting more work done this way than if I stayed at home doing admin work followed by driving to a site. While the bus/train is slower, being able to work and move at the same time is more than making up for it.

It also means I haven’t had to worry about the cellphone driving ban, another plus.

I’ve also liked the flexibility of being able to go home from the Shore by ferry if I need to relax after a stressful day. This photo is taken from the Bayswater Ferry this evening.

And, I’ve been able to join in after work drinks. I’m a cheap drunk, and just one drink can affect my driving, so I exclusively stuck to the orange juice if I had to drive afterwards. Not anymore!!

As it happens, I’ve not had any significant equipment movements that I haven’t been easily able to get couriered, so I am yet to use Cityhop’s services. Maybe in the next week or two.

The biggest downside has been the link between the “Rapid Transit Network” and home. Outside of the morning and evening peaks, the bus between home and either Kingsland Station or the city detours around St Lukes Mall which is frustratingly slow. My alternative connection, the 008 bus passing Avondale station, seems to be deliberately timed to fail to connect with any train.

I’m also not doing so well on Wednesday evenings. I’m taking beginner French classes at Alliance Française d’Auckland, on Arch Hill, which finish at 8pm. At the moment, I’m depending on a relative taking the same class to drop me off on Sandringham Rd on his way home, or I have to do a V-shaped run into town and back out again which takes over an hour.

I have been lucky and managed to avoid last week’s train signal failures, although I’d have just kept tapping away at the laptop on the train or at Britomart if caught up in something like that.

So, so far so good…

cityhop · drinks · ferry · laptop · Sandringham Rd · signal failure · time savings · train