Eric Schneider
eric schneider
The Ride, Issue 116
Supercommuter Eric Schneider's day starts at 5 AM. After a brisk 2-mile ride, the bus awaits him at the car-pool parking lot next to the Maine Turnpike's Saco exit. The bike rack on the bus isn't usually full, although the rare times that the two slots are already taken, the kindly driver will improvise, allowing Schneider to take his bike onboard for the journey north to Portland. However, most days lately, Schneider has biked the 17-mile distance between home and work. His route takes him over the so-called "Million Dollar" bicycle-laned Casco Bay Bridge into South Portland, then onward to connect with Route 1 in Scarborough. But getting home is another matter! Due to his work schedule at the hospital, this doctor never knows at exactly what time he will be able to leave for home. With the last southbound bus departing at the early hour of 6:30 PM, he often must rely on his own wheels to return home. Schneider is no stranger to bicycle commuting. Before moving to Maine four years ago to attend the University of New England, he lived car-free in Eureka, Calif. While on the other coast, bicycle riding provided recreation and the quickest route to work. In those days he rode his landlord's defunct 30-year-old Schwinn ten-speed, and his bicycles became only more dated since then. As a first-year medical student at UNE, Schneider logged over 1,200 miles on his 60s-era Raleigh 3-speed. After a year of suffering the pain of lugging a heavy backpack on each ride, Schneider graduated to a pair of steel baskets. Affixed to a red, pressed-steel 70s Schwinn ten-speed, this beast of burden was a custom construction built up for him by a fellow medical student with bike mechanic roots in Boston. Glory days ticked by as Schneider triumphantly rode this bike for another thousand or two bikes. His most memorable journey, to a radiologist's office in Sanford, 15 miles from Saco, was marred anticlimactically with two flat tires. Schneider's newest ride is a 21-speed touring Novara from REI. He claims this frame has already logged into the tens of thousands of bikes. The best time thus far spent awheel were the 200 miles he traveled around Maine's coast for eight days during spring 2003. "Nearly seventy pounds of camping equipment, food, clothes and a pair of combat boots on the Novara's heavy-duty rear rack -- it was my mobile home!" he reported. He hopes the bliss of roadside-ditch camping, tenting and camp-stove cooking will be re-lived soon, as he currently plans to tour Northern Maine's woods along hundreds of untouched logging roads. If the world was a perfectly bike-friendly place, Schneider would like to see three things: roll-on bike service aboard Amtrak trains at ALL stations; a rail-trail between Portland, ME and Portsmouth, NH that traverses Saco; and a Bike Friday New World Tourist in his garage. Two of these wishes may yet come true. The Eastern Trail Alliance has been hard at work with regards to developing the Portland to Portsmouth Rail Trail. Meanwhile, Schneider's wife finds herself slowly adjusting to the idea of letting her bike-mad husband purchase the upmarket Friday. "Money well spent and cheaper than a car," he contends. However, Amtrak's Downeaster stops in Saco, two miles from Schneider's home, but he can't bring his bike aboard. Bicycles are only allowed to board at Boston, MA, or Wells or Portland, ME. And this isn't likely to change anytime soon. | more supercommuters » Planet Bike honors the silent hero of the Revolution: the bicycle commuter. A supercommuter rides through every season, in all types of weather, day and night. Choosing the simplicity, health and pleasure of bicycling, a supercommuter isn't necessarily against automobiles. They simply prefer to ride a bike to the grocery store, to work, to a concert or the cafe. nominate a supercommuter » |
