Bikes as Transportation

I now have a Twitter account just for the topic of bikes-as-transportation. You can find me on Twitter as @BikesAsTrans. My hope for the account is to share related content from myself and others around the internet, as well as to provide short timely updates about my experiences with family cycling, cargo bikes, and electric bikes.

I also continue to post photos more regularly to my flickr stream than I do here. If you use a feed reader, you may wish to follow the feed of my latest bike photos, which usually include some short posts with them as well.

I look forward to posting more content here as well. This spring we added a second child to the family, and also added a Surly Big Dummy as my personal bike, complementing our existing bakfiets and my wife’s electric Yuba Mundo. There’s plenty to say about how these three distinct cargo bike options compare, contrast and combine. If you have a question about how any of them compare, leave a comment here and I’ll try to answer your question.

For now, here’s a couple recent photos from Flickr. Click through either for more explanation.

Larry from Bikeforth.org is one of my favorite cargo bike bloggers. He’s an inventor, a trail-blazer, and a well-spoken documenter. If you like my blog, you’ll likely enjoy his. Here are some of my favorite posts of his so far:

• On using 70 lbs of batteries to ride 240 miles in 2 days
• On wiring his gloves and socks into the bike battery for added warmth
• On building a solared powered e-bike
• On making a Bike Wagon Canopy for xtracycles
• and s a someone who also drives, owning up to his part in climate change and the BP spill

There are a number more worthwhile posts in there— poke around!

Smile and enjoy this catchy music video starring some students who readily trade in Halloween candy for purple pedal powered bicycle-blended berry smoothies.

If you’d like to buy your own bike-powered blender and maybe a bike to go with it, Rock the Bike has you covered.

• Two 45 Gallon Totes by Sterlite + the Go Getter bag provide 340 liters of hauling volume
• Up to 300 lbs of cargo reasonably hauled (in addition to the rider)
• Bar mitts keep hands warm without bulky gloves or mittens
• Schwable Winter Marathon carbide-studded tires for traction on ice
• Electric system provides up to 20 mph of assist reliably for 20 continous miles (longer if you pedal more)
• Much less effort getting up hills, even with a load.
• Bright front and rear LED lights are powered by pedaling if battery fails
• Super-stable double-sided kickstand
• Recharges overnight in the garage for pennies

We’re able to haul more stuff further, faster, with less effort and greater comfort than ever before (like loads of recycled computers, or two children and camping gear). Compared to the alternative of having a second car, the system more than pays for itself.

My electric Yuba Mundo was built and sold by Cycle 9. Trailer by Bikes at Work is expandable to 8 feet for longer loads, like couches. Combining this trailer with this bike currently requires a bit of custom welding.

boring photo of a 36v 15Ah battery in a Granite Gear Armored Pocket

I’m trying out a new battery box for our electric Yuba Mundo.

I used the weather-resistant compact file tote from OfficeMax. Inside I’ve placed our 36V 15Ah battery from Cycle9.com, which has first been padded in Granite Gear armored pocket. The padded battery fits snugly at the bottom of the box. Perfect!

The box has small handles, and I used this area to cut a small hole with a utility knife for the battery wire to come through. This placement means water would have to be going up to get into the box, so I’m expecting no rain and very little road spray could make in it there. ( Adding drain holes to the bottom could also be a good idea, just in case. )

box is accessible, removable, water-resistant, and easy to add a wire-hole to.

On top of the battery is just the right amount of room left over in the box to carry all of our standard gear— bike repair stuff, spare bungees and a couple of bike locks.

The handle of the box also includes a small loop where a travel-sized lock could be used to secure the box. Perhaps this is useful to prevent some kinds of malice, but considering the box is plastic and the whole box could be easily removed, it might not have practical value as a security feature.

Previously we had kept most of this standard gear in the Go Getter bag. This was problematic when combined with the “Peanut Shell” seat. I could not prevent the Go Getter from sagging off the running boards, putting the weight of the electric battery and a heavy bike chain farther from the center of gravity. Besides being poor for handling, it made the battery connection less reliable— once after going over a bump, the battery disconnected— not good!

detail of the wiring hole cut with a utility knife.

Now everything is in a small, secure package held reliably close to the bike. It’s an added plus that the whole thing is easy to disconnect and take with us if security demands it. (Although between the battery and bike lock, the box must weigh more than 15 pounds! ) The size and clasp system of the Go Getter bag make it not a practical option to remove, especially when combined with the Peanut Shell seat.

I’ve just put on the battery box today. Now I’ll have to see if it works as well in practice as I expect. Any others out there with electric cargo bikes want to add how you protect and secure your batteries?

UPDATE 2/26/11 The setup in the photo suffered some from vertical bounce. To solve that, I bought a 4 foot cam strap and wrapped it around the box. That stops the bounce, and it’s easy to loosen the strap when I need to get in the box. If I stand up and crank the pedals hard, there is still a unnatural sway, which I think is due to the weight in the box and the location. Having the battery weight centered would be ideal, but isn’t so practical when the child seat in place. This works well enough.

It was about a 16 mile round trip to the recycling point. In the scene above, I’d just found a second tree abandoned by the side of the road and strapped it on the trailer.

The temperature was perhaps 15F with a stiff headwind going out.

I was comfortable riding out using Bar Mitts with wool mittens inside, along with my usual assortment of gear. I have started wearing a waterproof shell over my softshell jacket for additional wind protection on very cold days.

Once I stopped and hucked the tree, I decided to take the long way home through the country to see the scenery. That plan worked pretty wheel until about mile 12, when I found myself at the bottom of a valley at the Abington/Salisbury intersection with a dying battery and about 120 lbs of bike to get home. Ah well, I succeeded at getting a good workout on a day I might have otherwise stayed inside.

“”There is no bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.” Ranulph Fiennes

We had a comfy ride to daycare and she reported that nothing was cold upon arrival, despite the sometimes 20 mph windchill generated from the moving bike at a temperature that was 15F to start with.

The ~3 year old is wearing a winter helmet with built-in ear covers, a “thick and thin” balaclava, ski googles, as well as some snow pants and snow boots. I’ve got a merino wool hat, face mask, OTG ski googles and a scarf. Neos overshoes help keep my feet warm on especially cold days, and bar mitts keep my hands warm while allowing me to wear modest gloves.

Sure it looks ridiculous to many. But I’d rather stay warm with a bit of extra clothing than to wear a 4,000 lb car for a short crosstown trip. I mean, when the primary reason you take a car on trip is a feature associated with clothing— like keeping you warm— then you are primarily wearing the car, right?

The electric Yuba Mundo works well asa kid & cargo winter bike. Recently I’ve been trying out Bar Mitts which so far seem to very effective at keeping my hands warmer while allowing me to wear thinner gloves inside of them. Compared to the bakfiets, the child needs to be dressed notably warmer. Since this photo was taken, we’ve also gotten some child ski goggles for her as well. In sum, we’re able to make cross-town trips comfortable at 15F (-9.4C) which is about as cold as it gets here in Richmond, Indiana.

The bakfiets makes it easier to keep the child warm with the greenhouse-like canopy, and the fully enclosed chain guard is definitely a plus for the bakfiets— On the eMundo the drive train got clogged with frozen slush in just about 15 minutes on a cold day— it was easy to clean out a little later with a stick, but no fun— plus the eMundo chain will need to be cleaned more after getting wet.

However, what the eMundo has going for it is a motor which allows me to get places faster and spend less time outside on very cold days. For that reason I currently prefer the eMundo to the bakfiets for most winter uses. The Mundo’s electric motor smoothed over the problem with the slush— while pedaling became “chunky” due to that issue, the motor could pull me along just fine without pedaling anyway.

Here’s same scene in a bakfiets from the previous winter:

Photo by Dottie, a lawyer in Chicago who bike commutes to work and writes for letsgorideabike.com. She has a great related post on how to bike commute in a suit.

The sweat threshold is the level of physical activity above which you begin to sweat. Bike commuters ride below the sweat threshold— sometimes just below it— to arrive at the destination presentable and without using special clothing for cycling.

In previous years I had done the Christmas tree recycling by bike, but this was first year I picked up the Christmas tree by bike. It was about a 15 mile round trip to the tree farm in Centerville, with snow falling and temps in the mid 20's.

The trip went fairly well, although the drivetrain got frozen slush in the derailleur, causing chunky pedaling. I cleared out the frozen slush at the tree farm, but it happened again on the way back.

There was a stiff headwind on the way back and my hands got cold despite wearing Windstopper gloves inside of overmitts. I stopped at the bike shop on the way home and and bought some Bar Mitts, which are like large mittens that go over the handlebars and shifters, and stay on the bike. I have high expectations for the ability to keep my hands warm and comfortable on cold bike trips. Bar Mitts do seem priced a bit high for a product that has a fairly simple design and is made in China. After I got home I found there are some similar products targeted at motorcycles that are made in the USA and cost less. I'll post more about the Bar Mitts once they've gotten some more use.