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My stress level was elevated by the stench of car exhaust as my tunnel vision focused on the highway. I checked the arrival time on my phone repeatedly. If we missed the next bus we would probably miss our passenger train. We would just have to wait for the next #12 and hope for the best.
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Should we start riding our bikes to the train station? We could make it in time if we had our box bike but with the kid rolling on her own two wheels the trip would definitely take over an hour. But what if the next bus also has a bike on the rack? What if the bus gets canceled at the last minute? 15 minutes and it was not showing canceled. I frantically checked the trip planner on the Trimet app for the next bus.
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Then I noticed a person that hailed the bus also had a bike! Did I make the wrong choice in taking the 12 over the 43? We waved the driver off and pulled the bikes away from the curb as the bus rolled past us with a full bike rack. As the bus driver pulled in just 500 feet away at the bus stop just before ours, I could see that the bus bike rack was folded down and there was a bike loaded. “What? What? WHAT!” our daughter yelled over the sounds of car exhaust and tire noise. Was there a bike on the front of the bus? “OH NO!” I exclaimed. The bus wasn’t canceled! But wait, what was this? I squinted my eyes and stood still. We spotted it a few blocks away and breathed a sigh of relief. With the morning sun to our backs we looked West on ODOT’s Highway 99 scanning past the hundreds of single occupancy vehicles looking for the #12 bus. I opened the Trimet Hop Fastpass app on my phone to triple check that we had money loaded on the card. We arrived at the bus stop at 6:30 am and prepped our bikes for the bus, pulling the panniers off and staging the bikes near the bus stop pole. I hadn’t been on a passenger train since I was a kid and this would be our daughter’s first heavy rail experience. (Thanks Splendid Cycles crew!)īack to the morning of our departure… Bus to Union Station in PortlandĪt the baggage car the workers told us to remove the e-bike battery from the bike and carry it on, which I missed in the instructions online.Īs we rode to the bus stop on Pacific Highway we were excited to start this journey. I picked up the Tern the day before our journey and it was ready to help haul our luggage to the train station. My panniers would clip on the rear rack just fine and there was more room for an additional bag on top of the rack. The Tern Vektron Q9 is a folding e-bike with a Bosch mid-drive motor. I was so happy to hear back that they did have an e-bike that was under 50 pounds that I could take on an extended test ride! It’s also over Amtrak’s 50 pound weight limit, so I contacted Barb at Splendid Cycles to ask about borrowing a loaner bike for the trip. As much as I’d like to take our box bike up north, it’s too long and too heavy to put on the bus rack. You may know from previous articles that I primarily ride an e-Bullitt cargo bike hauling our kid in the front box and towing her bike behind when she isn’t riding on her own. This was our safest route in case of canceled buses (which has been happening often due to a Trimet driver shortage) or full bike racks. Not wanting to take that gamble we decided to ride two miles to Pacific Highway and catch the #12 bus which has frequent service, every 15 minutes for most of the day. The next bus wouldn’t be for an hour, too late for us to make our Amtrak train. If one other person was using the bike rack we would not be able to board. Trimet bus racks only hold 2 bikes and we had 2 bikes to get to Portland. Taking the 43 would be convenient but also a gamble. Only the 6:17 AM bus (with about an hour ride and one transfer) would get us to the train station in time for our 8:20 AM departure. The 43 bus to Portland is the closest bus route for us but unfortunately it only offers three buses in the morning with hourly service. This was going to be our first carfree trip to visit my parents in Seattle and the first visit since the start of Covid. I just needed to get our six-year-old up and on her bike to ride to the Trimet bus stop. My panniers and backpack were loaded the night before with all of our gear for the four day trip. It was 5:00 am and we had an Amtrak train to catch at Portland’s Union Station. The alarm clock on my phone buzzed and made chirping sounds as I rubbed my eyes. Overgrown trail recommended by Google Maps en route to Mukilteo Ferry.