I rode the bike today...

(Shots from several commutes over the last few weeks)

It was a beautiful morning! Very little traffic. A cool (but light) breeze. The bike was working well. My knees were working well. I rode a few miles on Sunday. I rode to work on Monday. I hope to ride tomorrow.

My wife and I saw an OmniMax movie last night - part of the BBC Blue Planet series. And it had astounding footage of all kinds of creatures. And it offered up some optimism for the future; however, like all modern nature documentaries, the ever-present villain was man-made environmental destruction.

They're too small to see here, but there's a cow bird,

a snowy egret, and a green heron in this one.

And that makes the bike rides even better. Every time a person chooses to travel by bike (in place of a single-occupant car) we all breathe a little better. I know it's very simplistic, but my greatest hope in all of this is to have thousands of people making incrementally better choices about petroleum and plastics and pollution. I know that would have a massively greater impact than just this one dork joyfully riding a bike as often as possible.

The view over the handlebars this morning

 

May you joyfully make a positive impact!

That Cargo Bike Thing (With pics and questions)

[Dual-posted on Mesquite Hugger and 2Wheels Maybe]

Cargo bike obsession - normally, I figure it's just me being an eco-dork. But lately it seems so much bigger than that.

A homebuilt longtail cargo bike

Cargo bikes siren sing to me for a lot of practical and impractical reasons.

The biggest three are

1. I want to do my best to go car-free/petroleum free
2. I want to spread the word (and a cargo bike would invite a lot of questions!)
3. I want to live healthier - both physically and financially.

and a cargo bike should help with all three.

A snippet of the most recent runaway post (by MH standards) post

Number 3 with a bullet! (by MH standards)

Recently, though, a lot of you have been stopping by to check out cargo bike posts. Back in October, I wrote a post about a pretty simple way to build your own cargo bike. Most posts around here have an initial response of twenty to thirty clicks and then quickly die down to a click or two per week or month. And then they fizzle out. But not this one!

A long john / bakfeits / box bike from DIYBiking

 

Nope, that's not the case with this DIY cargo bike post. It's been visited more than 100 times in the last month. For a low-rent blog like this one, that's pretty darned impressive!

A midtail from Benno Bikes

So, what's the deal? Why do you keep looking at cargo bike posts? What's the attraction? No, really - what is it? I would really like to know. And it seems the same for y'all.

A trio of lovely Yuba longtails

So, (Yes, I know - I'm a glutton for punishment.) I put together a little survey so maybe we can a better idea of where this thing is going.

A Schwinn trike from this week's Craigslist

(Not a lot of cargo bike action here in Lubbock)

It's just a few questions on a Google Form. It's nothing personal - no names or emails. I'll leave it open for about 6 moths with a monthly update (on the 2Wheels Maybe blog).

A reverse trike from Urban Tribe (Straight outta Denton, TX)

  

A cycle truck by Virtue Cycle

The Tern (+Xtracycle) Cargo Node folding cargo bike

Turn-key and DIY cargo bikes from Xtracycle

 

So here it is. Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts on bikes that haul!

 

The Short Survey about Long Bikes

 

As always, thank you for reading (and for filling out the survey)! May your bike haul you to a better life!

 

PS. Would you like to have your cargo bike stories or photos featured on 2WheelsMaybe? If so, please shoot us an email through the contact box on either blog.