Bike Hugger

Redline Conquest Single Speed Proto [Flickr]

2008-11-22T16:46:28-08:00

Hugger Industries posted a photo:

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Sent from bMobile -- please excuse terseness.

Links for 2008-11-21 [del.icio.us]

2008-11-22T00:00:00-08:00

Drunken driver gets 70 months for hitting cyclist

Fixed Wood

2008-11-22T01:27:35Z

Bike art.

Uploaded by Rudy Malmquist | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

Bike Hero

2008-11-21T17:33:34Z

Coincidentally, saw this last night while browsing for Single Ladies Parodies and have been getting tipped to Bike Hero …

Good to see a gamer get outside and check out those lights. Tip: the video was produced by an agency.

Bike Hugger's Brain

2008-11-21T15:04:07Z

This just in from the fun with blogs department, an analysis of Bike Hugger’s brain, provided by Typealyzer.

Yes we’re doers, but there’s a disconnect of where we think we are on the brain graph, indicated by our logo. Need to work on more idealist words and project thoughts like, “soon SUVs will die off and more people will ride bikes” and “wish commuters would stop challenging me so much on Alaskan Way.”

Cyclelicious plugged in Bike Snob and learned that the anonymous blogger is a mechanic! The graph joins our other informative Degrees of Hugga chart.

Buy Nothing Day 08

2008-11-21T14:45:50Z

Buy Nothing Day is back on Friday Nov 28th:

Stock up early and come with us for a relaxing ride on Buy Nothing Day! Meet at noon on Nov. 28th, Friday, to burn off some calories from the national Day of Feasting while avoiding the crazed hordes of shopping zombies.

Honjos and hugga flaps

2008-11-21T03:12:26Z

Matt Haughey’s Trek Portland with Honjos and hugga flaps. Riding in the rain in style.

Uploaded by mathowie | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

Links for 2008-11-20 [del.icio.us]

2008-11-21T00:00:00-08:00

A Sea of Unwanted Imports - NYTimes.com
Sigh.
San Marco Vintage
Thank you for such a nice site.
WilloToons - Welcome
started a clothing biz from her illustrations
fortuitous
zaw artisan pizza in the raw Seattle Washington
take-n-bake pizza, delivered by bike.
Ideas Project
some ideas and stuff.

Urban Cycle Chic

2008-11-21T00:55:55Z

While we’re on the topic of nice looking sites, also check Urban Cycle Chic

London based urban bike fashion, cycle chic and bike recycling blog.

San Marco Vintage

2008-11-20T19:16:43Z

Thank you San Marco for such a nice site …

Hat tip to claypole.

Huggacast 72: Cargo Power

2008-11-20T14:00:36Z

195 pounds of Clip-n-Seals en route to Canada. Delivered by cargo bike to the mail dispatch. Made possible by Big Dummy, Xtracycle, and Stokemonkey.

The Rolling Jackass center stand stabilizes the bike for loading and unloading and parking. Look closely when I depart and you can see it flip up — dig the auto, snap-into-place action. The Clip-n-Seal boxes stack nicely. For a more awkward load, tie-down straps are better. I used them with Val’s help to move a futon recently.

Note that carrying this heavy of a load requires skill — watch the bike shimmy and the load bounce when I descend. While the Big Dummy has addressed most of our concerns about stability in the rear end, the front end is still whippy* underload. That’s a limitation of the headset, tube size, and length of the bike. If you were to put Bettie in a photog studio under lights and cameras, I bet you’d see the whole front end twist like a twizzle stick.

The next evolution in longtail cargo bikes is to stabilize the front end for better control and to resist twisting. I’d like to see gussets and reinforcing tubes and/or eventually a unibody frame like a motorcycle for longtails. Maybe cargo needs to go carbon (don’t laugh, it’s to get massive OS tube shapes) or take a tip from the Dutch bikes, and for heavier loads move the longtail to the front … Interestingly, in all my recent travels abroad, I didn’t see any longtails anywhere. A reader reported his lone longtail in Holland. Mark is writing a post about longfronts (or longheads) now. Granted that’s market forces and longtails originated with Xtracycle in SoCal, but its worth nothing that the Europeans and Asians are pushing cargo in the front with box bikes and trikes.

Another area for improvement or new thinking is safety and rider protection. Check the mass of tubes on the front end of Val’s Dreadnought. That’s saved him many times. Bettie threw me hard earlier this year and while rubbing my banged up knee, I thought, “this bike needs crash bars and possibly skid plates!”

When the eventual longtail cargo crash happens, a bike that weighs that much, should offer features to keep it more upright, protect the cyclist, and itself. Maybe that’s the aftermarket or the manufacturers themselves thinking with a rider-centric view.

*A bike feels whippy, when the front and rear end move opposite of each other, like a whip snapping around. It’s the opposite of stiffness or steadiness.

Clever Chimp

2008-11-19T20:47:34Z

That’s a photo shirt I think and possibly with some Warhol art treatment. Also coincidentally, I saw this today from CNN (a chimp riding a Segway) and of course, our friends at Clever Cycles started as Clever Chimp making the Stokemonkey.

And, of course, there’s this Paul Frank.

That completes the simian-themed post for today!

Uploaded by Petoto! | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.