Haul Stuff on Bike: DIY Upcycled Panniers (saddlebags, y'all)

Now, If I just had a bike rack...

Well, I did not win the $500 gift card for a Radwagon this week. (Then there's that cheap/broke thing.) On the same note: Xtracycle Leap - sigh, Yuba Mundo - sigh. My cargobike dreams have been including GeoOrbital Wheels lately too. Sigh.

So, I have been back to the poor-boy-DIY-haul-stuff-on-a-bike kick again. Motoby and Bridget both have rear racks, but I have still been backpacking it.

It was time for the next step - panniers.

{If you are from West Texas, you pronounce that word "pan-e-uhrs". If you are Knippa, you pronounce that word "pan-yays". (Knippa is from West Texas too, but he has been to France and sometimes sticks his pinkie out while drinking and critiquing coffee. [I am a little bitter with Knippa - he keeps sending me picks of the scooter rally he is attending this weekend.]:-)}

The adventure started a few weeks ago with:

1. a trippy Instructables-inspired dream
2. a trip to the Goodwill Pound Store for a few bags (pay by the pound)
3. a trip to the hardware store
4. a trip to the garage for a drill, a knife, a hammer, a marker, a screwdriver, and a wrench

Now I have two pan-yays, one from a messenger bag (low volume) and one from a sports bag (medium volume). I have less than $20 in both and each took about 30 minutes. I think I may have found my calling:

Mesquite Hugger's Home for Wayward Pan-yays!

Maybe next I'll go high volume with some kitty litter boxes!

May you haul a lot of good stuff and not drive your stinky, polluting car!

14 Random Pics, Updates, and a Mockingbird Serenade

 

 

1. This morning's sunrise - all taken on Salem Avenue on my morning bike commute. (Good ride!)
2. Table display from last night's Heart of Lubbock Community Garden Fundraiser (Much fun - donate!)
3. AJ article from Tuesday about Texas Agrilife's Russ Wallace and his amazing strawberry operation. (Be watching for the Strawberry Edition of the Lubbock Downtown Farmers' Market in the next few weeks.)
4. A blurry pic of our first tomato flower from the new MH Instructable planter.
5. Life springing (from what we thought were) dead prickly pear fragments on our back porch
6. Knippa rocking some cool shades from our epic adventure to the Goodwill Pound Store to get messenger bags for my bicycle pannier project.
7. What's left of my grandfather's armadillo sign (I have loved that sign for years)
8. The geckos are growing (in the compost box)
9. Things are getting cheap at the Sun Adventure Going-out-of-Business sale. It stinks that they are closing, but it is a great time for you to get ready to ride this spring and summer. Do yourself a favor - ride a bike as often as possible.
10. Lost and Found Goat on Lubbock Nextdoor this week
11. Feeling all legit with my new upcycled business cards!
12. West Texas Cycling Association bumper sticker spotted in the Covenant parking garage.
13. This giant soccer ball brought mirth to my Monday morning ride.
14. Little purple flowers from Saturday's Yellowhouse Coffee stroll. 

We have been blessed with lots of mockingbirds this season. This one made my day.

 

May your photos reflect growth, joy, progress, hope, and may they help you to recognize your blessings.

A Good(will) Surprise in Lubbock Recycling

Eddie Perez of Goodwill

 

Recycling. It's something we don't do terribly well in this part of Texas. So I get a little excited every time I learn about a way that recycling is going well here. I got a little excited today!

 

I went on a tour of the Goodwill Industries of Northwest Texas facility on 34th just east of I-27. There I learned that Goodwill has an electronic waste contract with Dell computers. Yes, there is an outlet for electronics recycling here in our dusty town! And there's no big procedure to it. If you donate unwanted, outdated, or non-working electronic equipment to Goodwill, they will try first to sell it in one of their stores or in their clearance store (the Pound Store), but if they don't sell it, they will package it up and send it to Dell to be dismantled and recycled. And that has me excited, but it does not stop there.

Goodwill also works at recycling all unsold materials. The tour took us through the salvage warehouse where they sort all unsold items. The metal items are sold to Jarvis Metal for recycling. Clothes and textiles (even stuffed animals) are baled, sold, and shipped to recyclers and resellers. Even shoes get the treatment. Eddie Perez explained to us that they work diligently at keeping donated items out of the landfill. He even spoke of finding new recycling opportunities such as CD's, DVD's, and X-rays. That's not to say that they are at 100% on recycling, but it's a world above what we normally see and they are striving to do better.

 

While there, we also had the opportunity to tour their document shredding facility. The bales of shredded paper are sent to secure facilities in the US to be turned into pulp and recycled. I was excited to learn that (walk-in) residential shredding is encouraged  (32¢ per pound) and they take unopened junk mail (they remove plastic windows and shred plastic credit cards and such). If you worried about it, they have provided an observation window to allow you to see your documents being shredded.

 

Yep, things are looking good for recycling at Goodwill and they do all of this while working at their Mission Statement: To Create Job Opportunities for People with Barriers To Employment. More recycling, more jobs, and a better quality of life for our town.

 

[MH sidebar: I need to head back to the Pound Store this weekend - I saw crutches and messenger bags there - the perfect ingredients for building the panniers from the MH post earlier this week. Such a great resource for us DIY upcyclers!]

 

It's a great day when you find out about great things going on around you. May you also learn great things about your neighbors.