Status: Planning (probably not gonna happen in 2020)
So I’ve been thinking about doing this little longer distance journey/adventure on my Esk8.
Objective: Reach “Three-Country Cairn” by only using my Esk8 (walking allowed)
The three country cairn is the point where the borders of Finland, Sweden and Norway meet right up in tip of the Finnish Maiden’s arm and in the arctic circle.
The distance from my town is about 1100km in one direction using the recommended route by google maps and avoiding crossing onto Sweden’s side when in the far north. Most likely the actual distance will be longer, as I most likely can’t actually keep following the shortest route to my far destination.
So, I can already hear the questions popping up in your minds about “how am I going to actually be able to do this”? Well you see, extraordinary distances require extraordinary ride ranges before needing to charge. Small pack (energy wise) and quick charging is not an option as you need to find too many places where you’re allowed to charge and we will be going through the Finnish countryside and I’m not looking into knocking random people’s doors asking if they could spare me a crumble of electricity.
No, I need a lot of range capability with one charge with the ability to charge up to full over night. This gives me more flexibility in planning my route.
So I need a pack that is capable of getting me the distance I need.
How much distance exactly?
Anything above 200km+ per charge minimum. Now I have this little pack in the design phase that would consist of 432 pcs of Samsung 35E cells (high capacity) arranged into a neat 12S36P configuration. This would give me roughly 4.5kWh of energy capacity.
How much range can I realistically expect out of this?
Hard to exactly say with the actual travelling gear aero wise, but if it’s warm, I have good tire pressure, keep my belts not too tight, travel at a reasonable average speed (~18-20mph/~30-33kmh) and eat a lot of beans to engage boosters for maximum efficiency. It should be able to do in the neighborhood of 300km per charge with it.
How are you gonna charge it while on the road?
While of course using personal friend connections where possible during the trip, it won’t still be enough to cover the whole distance (I have couple friends near Oulu in the middle of the trip) between points, so how am I gonna charge in-between these places?
Simple.
Camping/Caravan sites
These places are dotted all over the place like pimples on a teenager’s face. Most of the places are able to provide electric poles for RV-Campers. Now I have an option. I’m going to be carrying a sleeping bag, a hammock and a tarp with me so I can essentially sleep in any forest with Everyman’s rights ( https://www.visitfinland.com/article/everymans-rights/#3836d673 ). The camping sites usually offer either a tenting spot or a car spot with prices being 5-10€ for tent spot and 20-30€ for electric spot, so not really expensive even with the car spots. I’ll most likely try to get a tent spot and then try to sweet talk someone to allow me to charge my board. If not I’ll get a car spot to just charge my board.
There’s gonna be quite an amount of gear I will be needing to take with me from spares (belts, inner tubes), tools, camping equipment and clothing. But in the end this shouldn’t really be anything that couldn’t be overcome in my view at least.
EDIT:
I need to hop off, as I’m gonna go sleep in my hammock in a nearby forest to test the gear out, as the weather has finally warmed up, so nights aren’t actually near freezing in temperatures. I’ll probably write more tomorrow and reply to people’s questions.
