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 Leaning Cargo Trike, A Confession, and a New (to me) Electric Bike

Okay, I have two cargo bike confessions to make.

The first, and the most pertinent to this post, is that I have never cared much for three-wheeled vehicles, including cargo bikes. It's not a dislike for what they are, it's a missing what they can't do - and that is lean. I love bikes, motorcycles, and scooters the very most when I get to lean while riding. Cornering well on a two-wheeler is an art and a thrill for me. So, each time I've ridden a three-wheeler that doesn't lean, my body and mind have been sorely disappointed.

It's why I lean toward (you know the pun was intended) cargo bikes like the Radwagon, The Yuba Mundo, and the Benno.

So, I thought I'd share with you a three-wheeled cargo bike that does an impressive job of leaning. It showed up on Electric Bike Report recently, and it does indeed look like lots of fun (if you're not sitting in the front getting seasick!)

 link to the video above

For those of you who want lots of details, it's not available yet, it's European, and I fear it will be very expensive. But it is a seriously cool machine...

...and I love the front suspension!

Carqon website - check it out!

Now for the other confession.

I have decided to stop looking for a cargo bike. Yep, I know it's very scandy (Thanks, BB!) but I picked up a new-old e-bike and came to a new realization. It's time to quit focusing on what I don't have. What I do have is one really nice second-hand pedal bike, one really nice second-hand e-bike, two different second-hand bike trailers, and a really crowded garage! I've come to a time when I want to do more with what I have rather than waste time wanting something more. Some day I may end up with a cargo bike, but it no longer needs to be an obsession.

Here she is - a Prodeco Phantom X 500-watt, folding E-Bike.

Yep, it's a very cool bike, especially considering that I picked it up used for a very small fraction of the original asking price. Why was it so inexpensive? Well, the original 36-volt battery pack has a dead pouch or two, so the pack will only charge to 32 volts; this does not impress the controller which demands at least 34 volts. (Low-voltage cutout) That's why there's a silver bullet on the rear rack. It's the battery from the Huff-E Rat, and that battery is doing a nice job on the Phantom.

This is the first bike I have ever owned that has disc brakes and a suspension seat post. They are two luxuries I am enjoying! (But  the cushy seat post feels a lot like having a low rear tire. I will have to get used to that.)  Having 500 watts of power is also enjoyable. The 250-watt setup on the Huff-E actually made me feel sorry for the poor little thing hauling big ol' me around. This motor is a much better fit. (If you're over 200 pounds, go for something bigger than 250 watts.)

That's it for the cargo bikes and e-bikes today. I will keep you posted on how the Phantom is doing. I may even get brave enough to try repairing the original battery. I will keep you posted on that too.

May going green be a good deal, may you appreciate what you have, and may you be well.

As always, thank you for reading this.

The Huff-E-Rat Lives: My Latest E-Bike Incarnation

Where we are now

You're probably tired of hearing about it by now, but I had the opportunity to talk to people about electric vehicles at the Texas Tech Museum last week. Two friends were generous enough to bring electric cars to display, but I wanted an electric bike I could display too. So, last Saturday I gathered up pieces I had lying around and came up with the Huff-E-Rat. (Electric Huffy Rat Bike). And it was a big hit at the museum. So, I thought I'd do a quick post and show it off for you readers who like such things.

Where we started

A handful of years ago, my mother and two brothers gave me this old Huffy for my birthday. It has been together in a few different incarnations over the years, but none of them have really stuck. (Bicycles always make great birthday presents for me. My wife gave me a folding bike frame for my birthday this year and I am gathering up the pieces to make a very cool bike out of it!)

The Electric Bike Kit that is on it now

(If I had it to do over again, I would do things a little differently)

A few quick details - the battery (mounted on the rear luggage rack) is a 36 volt 10 amp/hour lithium battery. The motor is a geared rear hub motor. The controller is 250 watt and is pretty underpowered for a guy my size. It is a single-speed and (so far) only has front v-brakes.

The battery recharges by using a little charger. It's very much like charging a cell phone. And I'm very much enjoying the ride!

Just hanging out under the 34th Street LED streetlight

For those of you who are e-bike curious, here is a great Electric Bike Review article that covers a realistic view of e-bike ownership and costs: Electric Bike Review - The True Costs of Owning and Using an Electric Bike

On the Marsha Sharp Pedestrian Bridge

Leaning against the junky old Dodge I try to avoid driving AMAP

May you enjoy the ride cleanly, quietly, and non-destructively.

PS. I still want a Radwagon, but it's very nice to have this bike and the craigslist trailer!

National Drive Electric Week: 2 Skinny Wheels - Thinking Smaller

So, what's National Drive Electric Week all about? Is it to get everyone into an electric car? Or is it to get people out of gas-burning cars? For me, it's the latter. It is an opportunity to make a concerted effort to promote ways to help us all stop extracting, buying, and burning fossil fuels so that we can do less damage to the environment in which we live.

To celebrate National Drive Electric Week, I took Electric Bridget out for a ride on Saturday. And, no, Bridget is not an electric car -  she is an electric bicycle. Electric Bridget came to me as an old Bridgestone mountain bike that sat out in the weather for a while and was generally just neglected over the years. When I decided to build a low-dollar e-bike workhorse, EB got a new lease on life.

To be honest, I have ridden EB very little. Since EB does not (yet) have a pedelec controller, miles ridden on EB do not qualify for the National Bike Challenge. (But there are only 15 more days of that.)

So, I had kind of forgotten what it's like to ride an e-bike. It's awesome! I did a quick 8 miles. It was windy. I went up all of the slight inclines that feel like big hills on a non-electric bike. I still arrived home breathing hard and sweating, but I did eight miles in about the same time (and exertion) as I normally do four. I did not check, but I doubt that I ever exceeded 17 mph.

But it sure keeps me thinking...

One of my favorite blogs to read is Bike 5. The premise of that blog (Go read it already!) is pretty simple, For trips of 5 miles or less, a bicycle is best. (Health, budget, breathing, saving the planet, etc.) (Ironically, my office is 4.9 miles from my home.)

With the electric bike, it seems you could easily go to a bigger radius. (With apologies to Bob, who writes and lives Bike5.) One could easily create a blog for e-bikes called E-Bike15. For trips of 15 miles or less, the e-bike is best. From all of my DIY days, I have learned that having the right tool for the job makes almost everything better. I have lots of days where the bike (with me powering it) is not up to the job, but the 4,000 pound Dodge in my driveway is definitely overkill. At those times, the e-bike is the best tool for the job. It's hyper-efficient, fairly low-cost, and amazingly inexpensive to maintain and operate.

Learn more (and see this larger) here

And then there's that whole commute with a smile idea. Some people refer to it as the "EV Grin". When I ride a bike I smile a lot more than when I drive a car. (E-Bikes are funner than cars, y'all!)

Honestly, not everyone needs an electric car in order to make a positive impact. With that in mind, consider the advantages of an electric bike: they are easier to park - you can even park one in your tiny house. Try that with a Nissan Leaf! You don't have to buy a big fancy charger or have your house rewired. And there are lots of different options for different needs, different budgets, and different physical abilities.

From this...

 

...to this,

there's an e-bike for everyone.

In case you are wondering, this is not a Don't buy an electric car post. I love electric cars and see them as one great tool for cutting our dependence on carbon, but not everyone is in a place to own one. (I'm not.) If you're like me, the e-bike might be the next best thing. You might even come to realize that an e-bike is the best thing for you.

May you find the best thing for you and may it be a better thing for us all!

Climate Change and Depression? Kick it in the Butt with Peer Pressure

On the days I ride the bike to work, I pass a house with a big old Chevy diesel truck idling in the driveway. There's never anyone in it or near it. It's just sitting there burning fuel and polluting the air. I pass idling empty cars all over the place, but this one is remarkable in its consistency. Keep in mind, this is happening in July - not December.

Not this bike, but you get the idea

Sometimes I also see a pseudo-jet-powered bicycle buzzing down 47th Street. Some guy in town has strapped a 2-stroke leaf blower to the back of his old Huffy cruiser. He scoots by loudly and slowly in a cloud of blue smoke.

And I wonder about these two pollution factories. Do these people actively want to destroy life on Earth, do they just not give a damn, or do they not believe they're hurting anything?

And it depresses the tar out of me! It definitely negates any positivity created by my bicycling and composting and recycling and running around the house turning lights off.

Yes, I know where I live. I am in West Texas where it's guns and beef and diesel and God-sponsored politicians wealthy from oil and lobbyists. There is little room for a mesquite hugger here. And it gets really depressing. Combine that with consistently record-breaking weather and people running around everywhere killing each other - this is not a great season for joy.

So, this morning I found myself googling climate change depression. I found lots of stuff - lots of depressing stuff and Naomi Klein quotes. I also found an article, Depressed about Climate Change? Good. Here's How to Take Action, that offered some hopeful advice. I needed some hopeful advice.

The rest of the article offers a  great deal of insight into climate change inaction, but this paragraph really hit home. So, if you see me trying to use positive peer pressure on my social network, you'll know what I am trying to do. Does anyone know Jet Bikerson's Twitter handle?

May you influence positivity and not give in to depression!

More dogs and cargo bikes!

This is a season where I stress my way through the days.

Kylie the Wundermutt and I were sitting on the couch yesterday afternoon. The TV was off. The house was quiet. She sighed with contentment. Yep, life is better with a good friend by your side. Stress, like butter left out, melted a bit.

This morning I rode the new electric Frankenbike to work. I crossed town on 38th. I did not head down Indiana Avenue. I did not get on the Loop. The bike kept me distant from the racing rats. Stress, like butter left out, melted a bit.

So, if bikes and dogs help melt stress, then...

Cargo bike here. Sharky the Shark Dog here, Eek!

 

As you can tell, I already have my dog and cargo bike inspiration, but I can tell that you are still on the fence about all of this. So, here is a video for you. This video is about Ollie, and it's about Howard's quest to help Ollie acclimate to riding on/in a cargo bike. Besides a dog and a cargo bike, you will get to take a short trip down the Santa Monica Pier. There's also a reference to Craigslist. This video has everything and bike lanes! Enjoy!

 

Ollie (Howard's dog) Riding a Cargo Cycle

 

Next up, let's head to a hotbed of bicycle culture - Copenhagen, Denmark to continue the inspiration. Copenhagen is the home of Nihola, a manufacturer of fine cargo bikes. These people get the whole dog/cargo bike connection. They even build a model especially adapted for dogs - the Nihola Dog. Check it out. While you are there, check out the intro video and the gallery of dog and bike shots. (One dog - the small, black shepherd - looks just like our Matilda.)

 

Nihola Dog!

 

Okay, I can see it in your eyes - you're starting to see how happy you and your Fido would be cruising about town. Yep, life is better with a good friend by your side.

 

May you and your four-legged furball find fun and butter in your quest for green transportation!

Communal Electric Scooters - Gogoro and Scoot Network

I have admired the Gogoro from afar, but I have resisted writing about it here. I love the idea. I love the design. I love the scale. I love the low-carbon mission.

But I have figured it's an idea that would stay on the other side of the world.

Until now. There may be hope for electric scooter fans in the US (all ten of us).

The deal with the Gogoro is that it's not just a cool scooter - it's a cool scooter that comes with its own infrastructure that keeps you from worrying about range anxiety or charge times. The creators of the Gogoro focused on swappable batteries and battery swapping stations - the whole package. Yep, you scoot around until you're low on electrons. Then you pull over to a battery swapping station. You swap out two small-ish battery packs. Then you hop back on and scoot away fully charged.

It's a cool idea, but you need several scooters and several battery stations to make the whole thing viable. And this is America where we don't much care for scooters and electric vehicles aren't faring that well either.

Gogoro article from Fortune

If you read through the article you learn that (a) the Gogoro is going like gangbusters in Taiwan, (b) that they are headed to Amsterdam next, and (c) then they are looking at the States. You also learn that (d) they had a presence this year at the CES (Consumer Electronics show) in Vegas, (e) they would like for you to nominate US cities that would be great candidates for a Gogoro network, and (I am really jazzed about letter "f") they are looking at selling Gogoro scooters with chargers for people who do not live in a place where there is a network. Yep, there is a lot of exciting news there. Gogoro fans rejoice!

As a DIY sidebar, I have this goofy dream of being able to build my own vintage scooter that take advantage of the Gogoro battery swapping network. My (unfinished project) ElectroPigeon and I could very happily hop on that scootwagon.

So, North Americans, if all of this scooter network infrastructure talk has you drooling and dreaming and such, you are (sort of) in luck. On this side of the planet (San Francisco), there is a setup that's vaguely similar. Really, it's more of a bike share program that features electric scooters, but it's still pretty cool.

Scoot Networks

 

Yep, you can pretty easily find yourself scooting around the city by the bay on a bright red electric scooter. I wonder if they have locations near the City Lights Bookstore (one of my lifetime dream destinations)...

 

May you find yourself electrically scooting about a beautiful place (or your dingy home town) and enjoying the ride sooner rather than later.

 

PS for those of you who read yesterday's post:

 

Here is what greeted me when I logged in this morning (and it felt much better than watching an odometer roll over on a car):

 

 

PPS for Knippa - Can we set up the Lubbock Gogoro battery swap station outside your oh-so-cool scooter workshop?

 

 

 

Friday Random: Lubbock on a Bike with Leaf Envy, More Temptation, and another Bug

Look who showed up on the porch near all of the olla planters

I finally rode the bike to work today. I love riding in the fall. It rained yesterday, so (thanks e e cummings) the world is mudluscious and puddlewonderful. And, it's staying darker longer, so drivers are more likely to see my strobing lights. And mid-sixties feel good on my skin as I ride. I saw two mockingbirds and lots of great fall flowers. Good stuff. So much better than fighting traffic in my little truck.

However, I did see the Nissan Leaf guy on Utica this morning and felt much more plug-in envy than normal. Work has had me hopping lately, so I have been driving a lot more and biking a lot less. I've had a number of thirty-forty mile days instead of my normal 10. And, back in the National Drive Electric Week, I stupidly opened up a big ol' can of temptation. My wife and went to look at the white Leaf I wrote about. We loved the car, and it was a really great deal, but we did the math and figured out that we are not quite wealthy enough to buy it wisely. But all of this driving has made me want to go electric very badly. And my wife drives that much on most days.

Speaking of temptation, it's time to cut back on it a bit lot. You see, I have way too much stuff and I have a bad internet habit. (The two are closely related.) Every day I check Craigslist for bicycles, motorcycles, electric devices, and battery-powered devices. Sometimes I search solar, barrels, and free as well. Then I go to scoot.net/classified and look at all of the vintage scooters and parts. Then I go to endless-sphere.com and check out the used electric bike stuff. A few times per week I go evtradinpost.com and check out electric cars, trucks, motorcycles, and conversion components. Finally, I head to ebay once per week to see what funky vintage electric cars pop up this week. I've got it bad. Each week I find at least one thing that tempts me royally and I spend entirely too much time trying to fugure out how to afford and justify the purchase. So, next week, I am going cold turkey. The only way I will go to any of those sites will be to post things for sale. Please say a prayer for me and/or send over some methadone and near beer.

May you avoid temptation, enjoy a bike ride, and appreciate your neighbors no matter how small (and green) they are.

PS. Do you think I should ask the landlord at work for a big yellow ramp?

Another Modern Vintage Electric Scooter Is Born - Cezeta!!!

My favorite way to get around, bar none, is to ride a vintage scooter. For me, a scooter combines the joy of riding a motorcycle with the aesthetics of cruising in an old car. And there is a dash of humor that brings it all together.

My favorite album cover of all time!

The obsession: If you want the opportunity to hear me talk for hours with hardly a breath taken, ask me about some old scooter or other - consider yourself warned. I purchased my first Vespa about twenty-five years ago, and it has been an obsession since. One my first conversations with my wife happened when she asked about my Vespa t-shirt. Our wedding invitation featured us on a Vespa, and some of our best times together are still spent riding a scooter...

The conflict: I ran into an ethical problem a while back. I started realizing just how badly we fans of internal combustion engines have been damaging our chances (as a planet) of continuing to live and breathe. And most vintage scooters are surprisingly heavy polluters. Since most of them get great gas mileage, you would think they would have a light footprint, but the old two-stroke motor design creates vastly worse emissions than most modern vehicles. For example, my 1980 Vespa emits much more greenhouse gas per mile than a modern Cadillac Escalade or even the old Plymouth Road Runner I drove to high school. Old scooters are extremely bad for the environment.

A solution: Several years back, I came up with the (ahem) perfect solution. I put an electric motor into a vintage Vespa. And it came out great. Reliable, quick, reasonable range, and a blast to ride. But I did miscalculate a bit. It will run 28mph. And 28mph is not a realistic speed for getting around town where I live. It's too fast on a bicycle and way too slow for something that mixes with SUVs and such. (Also, my design work on the scooter left me without a place to park my size 12 feet while riding.)

So, I have two great Vespas in the garage, neither of which gets ridden much.

A dream solution: I mentioned Vespas, but I love most vintage scooters. For years I have kept my eye out for a good deal on a motorless Silver Pigeon or an Allstate Jetsweep/Cushman Road King because they both look like great electric conversion candidates - and so I could be cool like Bo Diddley. (See photo above.) Both of these scooters would provide more room for batteries and for access. And your second draft is usually a little better than your first, right?

A Silver Pigeon - so cool!

A Euro Turn-key Solution: Why am I telling you all of this? Because there was a thread on Endless-Sphere.com this morning that got me all excited. Yet another oddball Vintage Euro Scooter has been re-born as an electric. And, of course, I want one. I present to you the Cezeta 506 Electric! (Follow all of the links - cool stuff!)

Check out the Cezeta!

Another Euro Turn-key Solution: And, in case you want to see another modern electric vintage scooter that has been around a few years now, here is the e-Schwalbe: (You may want to translate this page.)

May the electric wind scooterize your hair!