The American Discovery Trail is a cross-US road biking route. 6800 miles worth, specially marked on the map with a dark green line.

AllTrails won't use it for biking route making. It keeps wanting to switch me to on road.

I've looked at more than 120 miles of it and it's all the same

Thus have the problem with the Missouri Katy Trail. When paired with the Rock Island Trail it's THE longest continual rail-trail for road biking in the US. Road biking custom maps won't follow it.

The map editor needs to stop being so clever, just let me mark a line, don't tell me not to use the dedicated bike path for biking.

I have one of the first party rear racks where and designed into it two threaded mounting holes on the bottom back. I want to mount a light to it.

After talking with tech support I gather they didn't design such a bracket.

The holes are m4 and are 5/8" apart on center. (I measured metric too, it's absolutely that measurement)

The light uses one of these standard plastic reflector mounts you find all over such products

Does anyone know of a 90 degree bracket that will do what i need?

I like to include good and bad in the mix. I'm prepping for a one night bikepacking trip in a few weeks, exact date TBD.

The Good-

I just learned the founder designed hardware at Lime, and having rode Lime, Bird, Bcycle, Lyft and Drop ebikes on trips; Lime was my favorite across all of them.

I bought a Tempo. I picked up first party fenders and rack. The styling is excellent. I wish there was a blue color but can't win everything.

I love the software interface. Working in IT it's intuitive, loads Fast, enjoy the security with built in Find My and the NFC card lock. I've seen way worse software products. I love the mode switches easy on the fly and modifications I can make. I like having physical buttons.

The customizations are great. I tweaked up the torque from a start to start from a stop faster I just set Class 1 to match my city's coming ebike max speed law on sidewalks so I can switch to it and follow the law easily.

I put it together myself and it worked. Only broke my shifting once early on trying to lube my wheels and shift gears late at night without a bike stand. I since bought a bike stand.

I like that there's a local bike shop that can do work on them. Big plus to have a network.

I love the built in lights. I owned a set on my last bike and never used it because it would fall off (so I mounted as needed) and had to be charged inside. So I never used it. Being bike powered and permanently mounted makes the light functional in comparison.

I'm using the pulse mode enough already that it's helped me extend my distance so I get more exercise without being tired of biking because I have to stop on every hill.

The bad-

Customer Service. I'll keep this really simple. When every non-trivial query takes 1-2 two days that's a problem to solve. It makes support SO SLOW.

If the brand can't speed up customer service it's going to have a hard time scaling up sales. The cost side of the business is going to accelerate.

Shipping. They cheap out on shipping for non-bikes. They say "3-5 days, could take 7". I'm only halfway across the country from California their shipping speed is 8 days every time from packaging the order to my receiving it. They're not even making their worst case timeline. Luckily I fixed it via a bike ship but I was waiting on a part and it took 8 days to arrive. Don't leave a customer with a broken product when you can ship the part faster.

Product information is lacking. Calling the customer service line and they don't know anything not on the website. When the website doesn't give basic information you can get by looking at the product nothing is helpful.

I'm working currently on a challenge with a rack that's so minor. I want a bracket for a light that attaches to the rack. More light for better visibility. The rack has two holes pre-tapped. Customer service has no idea the product had them. Still waiting on technical support (expect 1-2 days more) but so far there doesn't seem to be a bracket that exists. Even my closest official service shop would need to custom make one. (Which is my Plan B)

I'm also getting a replacement rack from support. Not sure if it's a problem mine has and they have QC problems or if they're going to send me a replacement rack that's also flawed. TBD. But support finally admitted the bike rack should not block the rear lights from the back. So progress there. Either way it's not good they're selling accessories that don't meet their standards.

Summary-

It feels like this is a company that can solve a few problems and grow or it's going to fail hard. And every problem can be solved. I like the bike I want to buy another one eventually. But it won't happen if they can't solve their teething pains.

Shifting broke with 6 miles on my new Tempo. set it up 24 hours ago. How do I fix it?

The shifter doesn’t move the gears and the little gauge moves from 5 to 1 and nothing else.

Velotric support was less than helpful. Told me 24-48 hours for a callback, that became 30 minutes after I hung up. Then they didn’t even want to help, just send parts. I managed to argue waiting 24-48 hours into setting that up on the phone at least.

And get this, they’re cheap enough they have no way to ship other than ground. So my bike will be down more than it worked.

They need to rethink support. It’s rough.

Getting a Velotric Tempo with their rack in about a month. I want two panniers where I can mount just one of them at a time for city use.

I see a lot of good options but I'll be budget tight. What is worth buying and is under $100 for the pair? I already have a bag for on the rack.

I have a bunch of UL gear for backpacking so I'm not worried about weight issues.

Starting in the US midwest I will have enough miles to get to somewhere round trip next summer. Leaning towards Europe. I want to go backpacking in the mountains for five days. Let's call it 50-60 miles. I don't care if I finish the trail but that would be a bonus.

The only requirement is excellent views, photography opportunities in terms of landmarks and nature and ease of access from a major airport to the trail via public transit. The goal isn't to go to a big city but could fly into a place I would want to spend a couple days after.

What do you recommend?

My first trail on the list is the West Highland Way

I don't drink alcohol but I like fun drinks, to try new combinations. Where can I go that is fun to go to but isn't centered just on alcohol. Somewhere with so many options that they have a page of the menu dedicated to them. I don't care if they serve alcohol, just looking for not options.

Somewhere River Market to Waldo is ideal but it could be a bit further out, a 15 minute drive from those spots would be completely fine.

If you use non-network ATMs with a personal account the bank's fee schedules are messed up in your favor. The two fee schedules are a legal document they are required to follow. They updated the personal one on Dec 31st

https://www.communityamerica.com/info/membership-agreement

personal schedule has two fees listed.

1. co-op arms are free
2. there is no fee listed for using non co-op ATMs inside the US. Meaning you want to call for a refund if they charge you one.
3. foreign transaction (transactions made outside the US) fees are $1.50 + 1% per use.

foreign transaction is industry standard to mean transactions made in a currency that's not US dollars. they should not be charging a foreign transaction fee for any transaction inside the us, also, that's irrelevant to being any other atm fee when they don't charge a non-network fee in their fee schedule

The business fee schedule has the clue that they should have a third fee in both

1. co-op atms are free
2. there is a fee listed for business use of a non co-op ATMs inside the US.
3. foreign transaction (outside the US) there are no fees. Meaning

until they fix their fee schedule document you should be calling when you're charged a non-network atm fee on a personal account or a foreign transaction fee on a business account. tie up their line and get them to fix this document at the very least.

And online banking should NOT call it a foreign transaction fee if it's not. call and demand a refund until they fix that -even after the document gets fixed-.

We expect banks to be accurate, not to charge unlisted fees and not to call them something different than what they are.