Saturday Ramble: the Week

We had rain this week, thank the Lord! Lubbock was drying up and desperately needed the moisture, but it came with high winds and even a few tornadoes in the area. Lots of damage. Many people will be cutting and hauling branches, repairing fences, and figuring out how to fix things or who to call. But the rain was sure nice.

 Yesterday I saw a Model 3 and a Chevy Volt, but...

...the most exciting green car I saw was...

...an older Prius with a DIY solar panel setup. Intriguing. Was it charging the traction pack? The 12 volt accessory battery? Something else? DIY green ingenuity always gets the juices flowing.

No progress on the Huffy klunker this week, but lots of dreaming.

The most exciting cargo bike news this week was the arrival (in my awareness) of the new Mongoose Envoy cargo bike. It comes in at half the price (or less) of a base model Yuba Mundo. Is this the birth of the accessible cargo bike for the masses or just a serious threat to the small manufacturers who've been carrying the torch so long?

In regional news, I was very excited to see an Electrek post about our neighbors to the west:

You go, New Mexico! (Click here for article) Woohoo!

Here in Lubbock, the steadily increasing stream of pedestrian and bullet-based deaths continues. More painful statistics and meaningless death.

At our house, on the other hand, our household grew by one and we are thrilled!

May you be blessed and encouraged, and may we find better paths!

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.



Saturday Morning, Pedaling, Good Heartache, a great talk, and a skinny dog in a cargo bike

It's been a good week!

Bronchitis, a less than-impressive back, lots of rain, and mediocre e-bike building skills made this summer a less-than stellar time for mesquite hugger bike commuting. But things have been looking up this fall. This week I hit my standard weekly goal for bike commuting - 60% of my commute was done on a standard bicycle. (And that makes life better when you're me.)

I've also been pro-actively seeking a better outlook. [Feel free to skip down to the next paragraph - not much to see here.] I don't seek out news until after 9am. I've spent more time with a pen or a book in my hand and less with a phone in my hand. Did I mention that I spent more time on a bike? I've been making lists and marking things off the lists. And (most important) I've deliberately spent time with the people I love. Plus, I've scratched the dogs a lot.

It may sound simplistic, but simplistic works better and better for me.

Yesterday, in my quest to mentally ingest good stuff, I watched a Ted Talk that inspired me and turned the corners of my mouth up. It also broke my heart a bit. It'll shock you, but it was about the healthy changes that come about when people choose to pedal.

The Amazing Ways Bicycles Change You

If you want to learn about the Amazing Ways Bicycles Change You, watch the whole thing - I highly recommend it! If you want to see my good heartache, skip forward to 15:55 and watch to the end.

Around 1994 I was blessed to adopt a 9-month-old greyhound named Patience, and for the next 25 years greyhounds napping on the couch would be a permanent permanent and joyful fixture in our home.

So there I was watching the TedTalk when the speaker went to video and showed himself cruising along on his bakfeits cargo bike while his beloved greyhound napped happily on her own mobile couch. Yep, sometimes heartaches are good. Anthony, may you and Lucy (who looks a lot like our Condo who passed away last year) pedal a lot of happy, healthy miles!

And may you, dear reader, find some healthy choices that make life better for all and make life especially better for our four-footed family members.

Bonus greyhound posts:

Sashadoption

A Tiny House Even Closer to Home

No-Weld, DIY Longtail Cargo Bike Frames

You know the Mesquite Hugger approach - always looking for a better way to haul stuff without burning any gas or much money. This one started like oh so many bad ideas around here at MH, with a very cheap Craigslist ad:

Novara is an REI house-brand.

First, the photo went to Photoshop.

Then, the frame pieces went into Powerpoint.

Various revisions came into play.

Then I went back to look at some of my favorite cargo bike designs - the EdgeRunner, the Mundo, and the RadWagon.

Yuba Mundo and Xtracycle EdgeRunner

A slightly revised design rose up.

And here is where it ended up: (with RadWagon for comparison)

But the practical brain kicked in - I remembered all of the unfinished projects I still have lying about, and decided not to go buy the $10 frame.

For those of you who are intrigued:

If you have more time than money and see the beauty in a cargo bike, the No-Weld, DIY Cargo Bike Frame is a pretty legitimate way to go. It's an idea that's been floating around for a while, mostly inspired by the XtraCycle FreeRadical/Leap.

The Original - the Xtracycle FreeRadical

(Ignore the price - it's a VERY old ad.)

There're basically two schools of thought:

1. Split-up a full suspension mountain bike frame and find a way to add some length to the middle (like my little almost-project above).
2. Add the back swingarm portion of a full-suspension mountain bike to another complete bike frame. (See below.)

One of my favorite examples!

(Find it and many others in this MTBR Forum)

Lots more can be found in this Endless-Sphere thread

The Homemade Xtracycle (blog post with lots of good detail)

Feeling inspired? If so, start looking around for a bike that looks like this (and costs very little):

(That rear section is the main ingredient you need for the three bikes above.)

 May we be successful in finding super-low-carbon transport to fit our budgets in both time and money.

Two Years Later Update:

I finally got started!!! (Click here)

A Cargo Bike Bargain (or two) this Month

[Yes, I know, it's a sickness - this desire to use a cargo bike as a tool to burn less carbon. Oh, well.]

So, you've read the 400 or so Mesquite Hugger Cargo Bike (Dreaming) posts, and you, too, want a cargo bike, but you haven't yet found a suitable bargain to reel you into your practical dream. Well, this one might do it - especially if you've already got a nice 26" donor bike that just won't haul enough of your precious stuff.

Find it here

 

Yep, it's $300 off of one of the most-respected longtail frames out there - that puts it down in the Xtracycle Leap (kit) price range. (And, personally, I love the green color too.)

 

Speaking of Xtracycle, they have some nice sales going on, too:

 

Look at all those Xtracycle savings out there!

 

I'd love to have the $1749 EdgeRunner 24D, but not when there's a Mundo LUX frameset out there for $699.

 

Weird Cargo Bike sidebar:

 

If you find yourself looking for a movie where you get to see multiple cargo bikes riding around San Francisco, a tiny house built by a former-football-hero-hobbit, and one of the best cat-turned-human actor portrayals ever, check out the IndieGoGo-ed film Unleashed.

 

 

No, it's not Citizen Kane, but if you are the same particular brand of eco-dork-pet-adopting-nerd-household as we are at Casa de Mesquite Hugger, you might just enjoy it!

 

A still from the YouTube Trailer. (Look for an EdgeRunner and a Boda Boda too.

 

Well, there's your cargo bike fix.

 

May choices better than burning gas be appealingly available. (And may you choose them!)

Rad Wagon or Euro Wagon? Another Saturday Ramble

The post is colored bittersweet green. It's because I have green-car envy.

It doesn't help that I keep parking the Vespa at work, looking around, and noticing all kinds of green cars parked around me. (Woohoo! More green cars around!)

Since the truck broke down (and went away), I've been two-wheeling it on the scooter and the bicycle. The electric bike broke down too. And I've been fighting bronchitis. So, it's mostly been scootering and catching rides.

I'm missing having weather protection, and I'm missing being able to haul stuff about. So, even worse than usual, I've been dreaming about a new ride.

Look what popped up on Craigslist this week:

How that for some serious Euro-Dork street cred?

I have a weakness for wagons - they make sense to me and it's a little easier to dream that I'm buzzing about in a space shuttle. And this one could easily shuttle my people about and haul a kayak and dogs and bikes and all kinds of groovy stuff. It could even haul the little guy to school in all weather. But this one has some serious drawbacks - it's old, it'd be expensive to maintain/register/operate, and it's definitely not green.

(Also, the good doctor's latest climate study hit the presses this week, and let me tell you, we need to be taking green action now - not later.)

The other wagon in the same price range (not on Craigslist) is the $1599 (with free shipping) RadWagon electric cargo bike. Instead of a space shuttle, this one'd help me feel like I was buzzing through the trees of Endor on a speeder bike. And it'd haul many of the same things (less conveniently and less far). It'd even take the little guy to school - weather permitting. And it would be very green (and orange) and would be super cheap to maintain, (not) register, and operate. Weather protection, though, is sold separately.

And both are a little beyond this lower-middle class income at this point. So, it looks like it's time to fix the electric bike, tackle a DIY cargo bike frame, and keep pinching the pennies.

But it sure is fun to dream about all these sexy wagons cruising about.

May we find greener ways (both big and small) and make healthier choices, no matter how tough.

Fossil Free Friday - Cargo Bikes in the Media (WooHoo!)

[This one is for those of you who've been going through Mesquite-Hugger-Cargo-Bike-Post withdrawals]

 

What you'll find in this thrilling episode:

• a new Yuba (that's not a longtail)
• a review of an old friend - the Radwagon
• and a bit of Xtra teasing

 

The New Yuba

 

Yep, Yuba did a big ol' reversal by offering a new bakfeits-style cargo bike - The Supermarché. This is the first Yuba I've seen where the load goes in front of the rider. You can learn more and see it in action on Wired or you can check it out on the Yuba site. (Me, I still want the Yuba Boda Boda V3 stepover or a plain old $999 Yuba Mundo.)

 

Check it out on wired.com

 

Even if you're not really interested in that particular cargo bike, the Wired video still does a nice job of going over what a cargo bike can do and how effective it can be in helping us drive less, pollute less, and spend less. Good stuff!

 

The Radwagon

 

And then there's the $1599 Radwagon (now with free shipping!) If you've spent much time around here, you know I have a big ol' crush on the tangerine banana bike from Seattle. Check out the recent article in Men's Journal:

 

Men's Journal article here

Since I am married to a lovely woman who really, really

wants a Ducati Monster, I had to include this quote.

 

PS. Rad Bargain alert: Radpower has the

Ballard Bag on sale for 1/2 price right now. 

 

The Xtra bit of news...

 

...is that I received an email from Xtracycle this week, and it contained some very Xciting words: New Bikes Coming Soon. I am staying tuned and will let you know!

 

Your Xtracycle random montage

 

May ditching your car become more and more common and may we all breathe easier and curse a lot less.

 

New Crop of Austin Craigslist Cargo Bikes - Love ya, ATX Weirdness!

Oy vey, these cargo bikes, they keep drawing me back in, but it doesn't hurt to look, eh? For those of you in the area, there are some good deals and some real diversity this month. Enjoy! 

 

Lots of big-haul choices this month!

Metrofiets:

 

Those cool kids over at Compost Pedallers are liquidating another Metrofiets (handbuilt in Portland, OR!) If you are serious about hauling on a bike, you can't get hardcorer than this, y'all! This one is $200 less expensive, but it does not have the big box.

Oak Cliff Cargo Bikes:

 

 

Handbuilt on the south side of Dallas, Texas - this is an amazing price for any vendor bike and especially amazing for a handcrafted machine like this one. Have you always dreamed of vending by bike, this could be a great start.

Trek/Gary Fisher:

 

 

This one is my absolute fave from the list. It was built by Trek/Gary Fisher as a longtail cargo bike and has lots of nice upgrades and modifications. $800 - not shabby at all! This model has been discontinued but that sure won't affect how it hauls! (Sigh...)

Yuba Boda Boda:

 

 

Still in the box at $699 - it's a Yuba Boda Boda V2 "People for Bikes" edition - somebody is in for a deal!

 

Longtail Bicycle Build Pt. 1

(Somebody, please stop me!)

 

Me, I've been watching plans, talking to a few welder buddies and reading My Solar Electric Cargo Bike.

 

May you find yours and may it haul awesome and eco-friendly, dear reader!