Today's Low-Carbon Ride to Work and Another Trip to Scotland on a Bike

[Post summary: Bikes, E-Bikes, Gas sucks, the crazy guy from Scotland put out another vid and I decided to share it with you]

See, the Huff-E-Rat hugs trees too.

This really depressing article came out last week and it has strengthened my resolve to work harder at being carbon-free:

US burned more gasoline in September than ever before

 

So this week I rode the regular bike to work on Monday and Tuesday. This morning, I rode the Huff-E on its maiden commute of  seven miles (one way). There's something to be said for a low-powered e-bike.

 

On a non-electric bike, I generally average about 9.5 mph on my ride to work and about 11.2 on my ride home. Apparently my body works better when it's warmer. This morning's ride to work on the electric bike averaged 11.4 mph. It was both chilly and a bit breezy.

 

I still pedaled the whole way - I can't stand to be a on a bike and not pedaling. It just feels wrong. But I was a little less winded and sweaty when I got to work. And I had the same smile. I burned quite a few calories. I burned a tiny amount of electrons - about eight pennies worth. I saw a beautiful sunrise. And I had that smile.

So, back to the low-powered e-bike thought. When you start shopping for e-bikes you run across a lot of 250 watt offerings. Conventional thinking says that anyone over 200 pounds should veer toward something larger. Me, I've plateaued at 240 pounds. The 250 watt setup is great for what I am wanting now - a little boost through the breeze and the cold and the slight inclines we refer to as hills around here. I am wanting to maintain consistent speeds. I am wanting to keep exercising. And this thing is perfect for all of that.

I think I'd be pretty happy with a number of 250 watt bikes. Would they work if I lived near hills? Probably not. Would they work if I wanted the bike to do ALL of the pedaling? Probably not. Would they work if I wanted to travel 20mph? Nope. Would they work if I lost 80 pounds? Sure.

I guess the moral here is to figure out what you want your e-bike to do before you start shopping for an e-bike.

On to the Crazy Scottish guy:

Watch it on youtube (Love the music!)

 

I watch Danny M videos for a tiny vacation and to keep myself humble. I'm impressed with myself for commuting on a bike three days this week - he's out riding on rolling hay bales. I guess I'll keep pedaling.

 

May you stay humble, stop burning gas, and have that smile.

 

PS. When you are looking at e-bikes, one of the things I have learned is that speed can be really dangerous on an electric bike, but it's probably not in the way you'd think. The bikes are perfectly capable of handling the speed, but the drivers around you are not. Anything over 15 mph and automobile drivers will misjudge your speed and pull out in front of you. Their brains are just conditioned to bikes moving slow. Watch yourself out there. Like many other things in the bike commute world, we can all point fingers and talk about fair and responsibility and heads up their...but the only thing that really matters is that we all reach our destinations safely.

Lubbock Local Wildlife: Leaping Lizard!

It's been a good year for mailbox wildlife. Every time I come home I scan the area to see who's hanging out.

 

Ladybug

Ailanthus Webworm Moth (Required some hardcore googling!)

Former guest star on MH

 

It's been a really good year for Mediterranean geckos around the house. Really, they are the only reptiles I see regularly. (Sure, I have seen a lot of red-eared sliders and soft-shelled turtles, but not anywhere near the house.)

 

I keep seeing one large-ish gecko near the mailbox after dark - she apparently likes LED lights too. I kept trying to get a picture of her, but geckos have little patience for blogger paparazzi. A few nights ago I stood on my tiptoes and peered over the mailbox lid to see if she was hiding back there. Sure enough -  there she was. I knew that she'd run away if I lowered the lid to take a picture, so I slipped the camera lens over the lid and snapped the pic.

photo taken just seconds before the incident

 

My loving and patient wife was standing behind me all the while. She's come to understand that she's married to a dork who seeks nature in strange places. I showed her the pic and then went inside. She stayed behind. Very quickly thereafter, I heard a pair of screams from the front porch. The dogs and I rushed to the door to find a wide-eyed woman on the porch and a wide-eyed gecko scurrying toward the shrubbery.

 

My wife had wanted a better glimpse of the gecko and pulled the mailbox lid down. The gecko apparently watches too many of my Danny MacAskill videos through the front window and wanted to see if she could safely land on my wife's neck/shoulder region. She did. My wife brushed her away and the brave lizard leapt down onto the blouse. The second brush-away had the lizard leaping back to the wall and off into the night. I never did figure out where the screaming came from.

 

Never a dull moment around our house.

 

May you be surrounded by great nature - and may it not land you!

Another Look at Daymak Electric Bikes and Scooters and Such

Once in a while I re-post desktop vacation videos. You may have caught one of the Danny Macaskill videos, the ones I sometimes head to for a ten-minute mindsweeper. Sometimes it's all the break I need to prepare me for another couple of hours of work.

Well, my next recommendation is not quite that, but for those of you who are interested in electric bikes and scooters, you might find this one intriguing.

Getting to the video: Just go to daymak.com and don't click on anything. Daymak has a random shuffle going with lots of video of their products. (People keep asking about my dream job, I think I'd like to shoot, edit, and produce Daymak videos for a living.) Enjoy the videos, but don't expect any Danny Macaskill stuff.

[Blogger note: I have never seen a Daymak product in person.]

You see, Daymak intrigues me. I had seen them in the past and discounted them as a distributor of some really mediocre looking Chinese e-bikes and scooters. Then their break-out product hit Kickstarter, and I started paying better attention. It was the Beast. They met their Kickstarter goal and delivered their product in a timely manner.  And people even seem to be happy with them.

So, I did a little more research and found that Daymak had previously created a predecessor to the powered wheels (Flykly, Copenhagen Wheel, Evelo, etc.) that are all the rage these days and put it in a bright yellow bike. And it's actually pretty cool when you check it out.

Daymak Shadow

 

On the heels of the Beast came the Daymak Drive System. Or maybe I used the wrong verb tense since it has still not made it to production. The DDS is very much like the Copenhagen wheel and such with the added bonus of built in solar panels for supplemental charging. And they've hoped to bring it in at considerably less money than those others. Still waiting, but I look forward to seeing what it turns into.

 

Daymak DDS

 

The most recent innovative product from Daymak? Well, it may not be that innovative, but it does look like a game-changer among e-bikes. At first glance it seems a pretty standard machine. A hardtail hybrid, twenty-one speed with a low-powered front hub motor and a removable lithium battery. What makes it exceptional is its really low weight and its really low price and its exotic material list. An e-bike under 35 (or even 28) pounds, under $2000, and made out of carbon fiber. And if you jump on the Kickstarter train, it can be had under $1000. And this from a company that has actually delivered on what seemed like a long-shot Kickstarter - the Beast. (And it's pretty sexy in black suede.)

 

Daymak EC1 Kickstarter

 

Yep, Daymak keeps surprising me, especially for a company that offers things that look like this:

 

 

May Daymak keep surprising us, and may we keep having new and better options for staying away from gasoline while having a very enjoyable ride.



Not Lubbock on a Bike: Scotland Vacation on a Trials Bicycle

I've not ridden in a little while. Busy life, blah, blah, etc. I've missed the bike. I have to admit, I am a rather pedestrian biker. I don't ride fast. I don't ride daring. I don't ride to new places. I am getting from one place to another and trying to make sure that I have enough energy to reach my destination.

Even so, I love riding. Time on a bike is something more than the sum of its parts: an overweight middle-aged guy on an old bike in a flat town that lost its lustre (for me) 25 years ago. (No one ever heads to Lubbock to feed their aesthetic soul.) But the bike adds an element of motion and minute discovery. The painfully mundane occasionally sparkles in a way I seldom see through a windshield.

Mostly I ride to and from work - about 25 minutes each way. The hardest part of the day lies between those two rides. Eight hours staring at two wide-screen monitors in a little room with no windows. Some days I need a vacation, but there's little time and less money for that sort of thing, so I sneak off to Scotland for 8 minutes of trials biking.

Danny Macaskill "Way Back Home"

 

Yes, I know it's not a real vacation. I know I am not a fat, middle-aged guy on a skinny bike hopping about the mythically beautiful highlands, but I often forget that I am a fat, middle-aged guy sitting in a chair in an office building. I enjoy the music, I enjoy the scenery, I enjoy the camera angles, and I enjoy seeing what a man with a bicycle can accomplish under the right circumstances.

 

 

My perspective shifts a bit. My heart rate slows a bit. I am ready to face a few more hours in this chair. And some little spot in the back of my brain is planning a trip to Scotland. Another little spot is wanting to study filmmaking. Yet another is planning a leap over something monstrous (like a curb or a pallet or a beer can). A fourth part is modifying an old mountain bike frame into a trials bike. A fifth tiny little spot goes back to work, stops staring at the beige and lifeless wall like those lone and level sands that stretch far and away, or something like that.

 

May you occasionally get away!

3-Minute Vacation: San Fran, Plug-in Fords, Trials Bicycles

Keep in mind, I am an old, fat guy who struggles to chew gum and walk at the same time, but I do have an unrealistic dream or two. One of those is to be able to plop down the cash for a plug-in car, but anybody with cash can do that. I'd also love to spend a few hours at the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. That cash thing again. My third dream (at least in the context of this post) is to ride a bicycle like Danny MacAskill, a guy who makes the impossible look easy, fluid, and lyrical. No amount of money in the world...

 a still shot from the video vacation

I have a new mentor lately, a gentleman much wiser than I, who offers very good advice. He was recommending recently that I needed to get away, to get out and do something that I love without the pressures or expectations of other people, a time when I could experience joy, exhiliration, and peace. I mentioned canoeing on running water, and he said something dangerous. He told me that even if I could not get out on a river, it would be good to find a photo or a short video to let my brain experience a tiny vacation from the day. The 3-Minute Vacation idea was born!

I popped over to youtube this weekend and ran across a video where guys who can ride a lot like Danny Mac cruise about the Bay Area in plug-in Fords to reach places to ride their bikes. Living the dream!

Bike Parkour - Streets of San Francisco

May you enjoy your Spring Break, no matter how short, and may you get there using green transportation!