Bikes As Transportation

The comments I get when cargo biking with kids

2013-05-16T12:52:25Z

I get a lot of comments when I am riding my Yuba with the kids. They are usually mostly positive and sometimes make me crazy with irritation. I occasionally have good responses to these comments and sometimes I just smile or shrug or try to ignore them. Here are a few from today.

Comment 1:

“I have the utmost respect for you. I’m just not in the shape to be doing that.” (said by another parent at preschool pick up)

My response: “The only way to get in shape is to just do it.” (I completely left out the fact that my Yuba Train has electric assist). Truth-I’m not actually in that good of shape. I’m not in bad shape, but I’m just a normal person. I swear. If I can do it then this person can do it too. It’s all in the attitude of, dare I say, laziness “if I stay on my couch I won’t get sore”. Yeah. That. Besides, the Yuba train is like the end result of working on biking confidence. Start small-just a bike for you, riding on the bike trail, then a trip to the grocery, then add accessories and kids and take it on a full round of errands. Seriously, if I can do it, then you can too.

Comment 2:

“Didn’t you have to special order that thing from Sweden or something.” (said by a parent at the playground.)

Response: “No, that’s our other bike.” Yes, we are that family with all those weird bikes and my friends know it.

Fortunately I have passed the threshold of wanting to be like everyone else so I won’t stand out as a weirdo. I can’t say I have completely embraced the weird parts, but I own them now. I am really conscious of the fact that we are raising our kids in a family that has some not normal aspects. I remember how much that sucked as a kid and so I try hard to make sure that our weird parts don’t make our kids feel like they are not “normal”. They aren’t old enough at this point to care about that stuff, but I’m hoping the fact that they get to eat (vegetarian) hot dogs and watch Dora (on the Kindle) will tide them over their teen years of being embarrassed by everything we do. I know some really awesome families with teenagers (now twenty-somethings) that seemed to skip the being-mortified-by-everything-their-parents-do stage. I am not so naïve that will happen in our family. I’m just trying to be ready. (Really that bike-the Bakfiets-was special ordered from the Netherlands, not Sweden. Cargo biking in Indiana is not a common choice and local options are limited. To give this area some credit there are more options available now than there were 5 years ago when we first started this biking with kids adventure.)

Comments regarding the origin of our strange bikes are frequent. We get asked whether we made them ourselves (ummmm, no, we are not that handy). We have pieced together the Yuba train from existing products (thanks to a friend who welds-once again, handy we are not), but none have been built from scratch. We also get the question (mostly from kids) “how much was that” to which our usual reply is “less than a car”. I really don’t need these kids to know how much bike we are riding around on.

Comment 3:

“I was wondering how you were going to do that. That bike is no joke.” (said by a parent at the playground). It was accompanied by a grunt of commiseration as I muscled 180 pounds of bike and kid off the kickstand.

My response was just to laugh. Yeah. No joke at all. It still makes me smile. Getting that bike, fully loaded, off the kickstand, is, indeed, no joke. More than once I have wondered whether I would actually be able to get it off the kickstand and at least once I was afraid it would tip over when it suddenly popped off. Once again, normal person here of normal strength. If I can do it, then you can too.

Comment 4:

“Cool bike.”

“Thanks.”

**As a note, I did not take any photos today. I often forget or neglect to take a camera with me when I go out. Mr. S. does a much better job of photo management than I do. Photos that accompany my posts will rarely be of the exact trip I am talking about.

A new bike for her

2013-05-11T11:59:03Z

I convinced Mrs. S she would enjoy riding bike that weighed less than the 100 lb cargo bikes she usually rides.

We were able to pick up a his-and-hers pair of never-ridden Panasonic Tourist bikes. The 1986 vintage bikes were hard to pass up at near yard sale prices.

She says all it needs now is a mirror, lights, a bell, a new seat and seatpost, some new pedals, a basket and a cute bike bag…

See Mrs S. first post about cargo cycling from yesterday.

How I found myself running errands with two kids by bike

2013-05-10T16:39:02Z

Welcome Mrs. S., a biking mother of two young children who is making her first post here.

I don’t consider myself a hardcore cyclist, but after completing the 30 Days of Biking challenge and now having signed up for the Endomondo National Bike Challenge I have to admit to myself that at this point I am bicycling with at least the same frequency that I am driving my car. I feel like I should write at least something about my bike experiences.

Perhaps I should confess at this point that I love to drive. I also love my car. Having never had a car newer than 8 years old and most frequently having traded in a 16 year old vehicle, my 2010 is like a dream. It looks nice, runs great, has loads of space, and has a cd player (how could I ask for more?). It doesn’t get bad mileage either, for a mini-van. But I don’t love buying gas. I also don’t love using up fossil fuels for trips that could be just as easy (or even easier) with my bike.

My 30 Days of Biking challenge has stretched my definition of what trips are as easy by bike as they are by car. It almost seems wasteful now to be in the car by myself (for instance, driving the 2 miles to work). Yesterday I did that because along the way I stopped and dropped off two non-working bikes and picked up two working bikes. It was a practical car trip but I still felt weird being in the car on a nice day all by myself making such a short trip. Downtown also seems too short a distance to bother with a car, as does my son’s daycare.

Today I put it together. When I visualized my day this morning I thought I would drive the car, but somewhere between that vision and actually leaving I realized that the bike was just as good an option.

First my daughter needed to go to preschool. The school is literally 3 blocks from home. I would have walked, but we were running late, so I loaded both kids on the Bakfiets for the short trip. For such a short distance I prefer the Bakfiets because it is easiest to get in and out of the garage.

After returning home and moving laundry around I needed to drop off my son at his daycare. I was still thinking I was going to drive. Because it’s fastest to drive, right? I have 2 hours between dropping off my son and then picking up my daughter again. Usually I am working on Thursday mornings, but classes ended last week and I gave the final yesterday, so this was my first completely child-free, work-free two hours in months. I wanted every minute (you know, to do things like pick up toys, vacuum, do laundry, and sort through the kids clothes to see what they still need for summer). Then I thought about it. It takes 1 minute to strap my son in the car seat*, 5 minutes to drive, 30 seconds to unbuckle and another minute to walk in the building (you know, all the way from the official parking spots). With my electric Yuba Mundo I can ride there in about 7 minutes, park right next to the door and it only takes 30 seconds to buckle/unbuckle and helmet the kid. In essence, biking might take 1 extra minute. One. So I biked.

Home again to do nothing** with my child-free one hour and 52 minutes, then it was off for phase two. I was going to drive for phase two. I needed to pick up my daughter from preschool, bring her to the kids consignment store to pick up summer clothes for both children (I think my son only had 2 pairs of shorts and it is getting hot!), then to a going out of business sale (everything 80% off today!). Finally, I needed to pick up my son an hour after my daughter. Definitely driving for this. I mean, who knows what I might buy at the sale and two errands and then all the way across town to pick my son up, all by noon? Then I reconsidered. Consignment store is downtown. School is between home and downtown, so I could pick my daughter up on the way, then the sale store is on the other side of downtown, but there is a good route between there and my son’s daycare. Did I really want to buy so much at the store that I couldn’t fit it on the bike? Probably not. If it wasn’t going to fit on the bike at this point I probably didn’t need it. So I biked. My daughter was very happy to hop on her Piccolo attached to the Yuba when I got her from school. She was thrilled to pick out several summer dresses and shorts at the consignment store (and try them all on). But it took too long. Trying on the dress options took too long. There was no way I was going to make it to the sale and still get the toddler. I would have run out of time even if I had had the car. Mode of transportation didn’t matter when it came to a five year old trying on 6 dresses in the changing room. We paid for two bags full of clothes and peddled off to the daycare (along a less than ideal route, but it worked).

As I was going I thought about what to do with my final errand. I knew the kids would be hungry. I needed to feed them. I still wanted to go to the sale, but it was not an essential errand. I considered skipping it. Going out to the daycare and then back to the store was a pretty significant detour, especially when I wanted to route us off the main roads. Going home after the daycare pick up to eat lunch meant I was not going out again today. I considered skipping the errand again. Then I remembered our favorite diner. We had not been there in awhile and it is only 2 blocks from the sale. I suggest my plan to my daughter (eating lunch at the diner, then hitting the sale) and she is all for it. My son will go along. As long as he gets fed he doesn’t care. So we go to lunch. We go to the sale, where I buy another two bags of merchandise as well as two containers of large wooden stakes (you know, for vampires***). I load the new purchases on to the bike and head for home.

On board items

At this point it is nap time. It is past nap time. By the time we get home (all of 10 minutes later-maybe) my son is nodding off and my daughter is almost at the point of being completely impossible due to exhaustion. If I had taken the car, we would have had an almost identical experience.

Except my son would have been riding facing backwards and would not have seen the train go by two blocks over.

Except neither kid would have noticed the ambulance (cool!).

Except the firemen in the fire truck would not have noticed us and waved at two awestruck children.

Except I wouldn’t have noticed how completely gorgeous and warm out it was.

Except my daughter wouldn’t have been able to get all her energy out peddling.

Except I got exercise while I did my errands.

A month ago I probably would not have attempted such a trip by bike. It would not have felt possible at the outset and I would have “wimped out” before trying such an adventure. I might have done one of those trips (gone to one store or picked up one kid), but threading those trips together feels like an accomplishment. It feels like growth. Like my definition of what bike trips are possible has been changed and stretched so far that when it bounced back to its confort zone it stayed bigger than it was to begin with. I wonder what trip I will take next month that seems too big today.

*If you are wondering why strapping an almost 2-year old in a car seat takes longer than buckling him into the bike seat you must never have tried wrestling a child (who would rather bike) into his car seat. Arms and legs flailing and yelling “No! Bike!” really slows a Momma down. It probably doesn’t help that he is still rear-facing in the car and that makes a car trip far less visually stimulating for him.

**Who am I kidding? Morning is my most productive time. I am incapable of doing nothing in the morning unless I got zero sleep the night before. If I am going to do nothing, that will be reserved for the afternoon (looking forward to my afternoon already . . . ).

***Relax, I am not one of those crazies. They are for my garden. You can always use some stakes for row markers, or short fences, etc. At 80% off they were cheap. Really cheap.

Electric Cargo Bike Camping

2012-12-11T18:02:56Z

I made this little video about an electric cargo bike camping trip I took with my family:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2PVDJ7lJqY

Why I Invented an Electric Bike for Carrying Adult Passengers

2012-09-15T03:26:58Z

“On June 4, 1896 in a tiny workshop behind his home on 58 Bagley Street, [Henry] Ford put the finishing touches on his pure ethanol-powered motor car. After more than two years of experimentation, Ford, at the age of 32, had completed his first experimental automobile…The two cylinder engine could produce 4 horsepower…achieving a top speed of 20 mph (32 km/h). Ford would later go on to found the Ford Motor Company and become one of the world’s richest men.”
—Wikipedia

I’m gradually reducing my car dependance. I enjoy traveling to meetings, hauling groceries, and taking my kids to their dental appointments all on my bike. But one of the few remaining compelling reasons for using my car is to carry adult passengers. For a variety of reasons my adult friends and family do not feel comfortable hopping onto my longtail cargo bike. Can bicycles ever fulfill the role of carrying adult passengers? I believe they can, and (like Henry Ford) I’ve built an experimental vehicle to test my conviction.

Here are the design goals I began with: build a bike that can safely and comfortably carry both a 200-pound driver and a 200-pound passenger at an average speed of 20mph. The bike should be able to go up and down a 20% grade. It should have a range of at least 20 miles. It should weigh less than 100 pounds, be less than 30 inches wide and less than ten feet long. And it should cost less than $2,000. I also have two significant design biases: I don’t think lightweight three-wheeled or four-wheeled vehicles are stable enough, especially on the steep descents in my town. And secondly I prefer that drivers and passengers be seated in-line rather than side-by-side, mainly because our autocentric society is none too kind to slow-moving vehicles that don’t fit on the shoulder.

What kinds of bicycles or tricycles have been built to carry adult passengers? The tandem, pedicab, and sidecar come to mind (see the photos below). Of these, the tandem comes closest to fitting my design criteria. I would argue, however, that the tandem has limited appeal for most adults. I can’t imagine my 80-year-old mom swinging her leg over the top tube and huffing up a hill pedaling in sync with me on the way to her doctor’s appointment. If not a tandem, pedicab, or sidecar, what then? What else is possible?

Well, the electric hub motor is forcing bicycle designers to reconsider what is possible. Hub motors are small, lightweight, and unobtrusive electric motors built into the hub of a bicycle wheel. They weigh between five and twenty pounds, yet have as much as thirty times the power of a human rider. Several advances have improved small electric motors recently, including better magnets and “brushless” microprocessor-driven motors. Battery technology has also improved dramatically. Electric bikes used to use heavy lead-acid batteries, the same kind used in cars. Now a six-pound lithium polymer battery (such as those found in laptop computers) can power an electric bike the same distance as a fifteen-pound lead-acid battery. These advances open bicycle design to many new possibilities.

Astute readers may object with a statement such as “If it has a motor, it’s a motorcycle, not a bicycle! Why don’t you just get a scooter instead?” This is a good question, not easily brushed off. It forces us to think about what we value in a vehicle, and to apply a name to that vehicle rather than try to fit an existing name. I seek a vehicle that is slow, narrow, and lightweight. It has to be useful–something more than an exercise machine designed to fit on a roof-rack. It has to be quiet and pleasant and pedestrian-friendly. Notwithstanding some attempts in the 1920′s to make motorcycles useful (see the gallery below) motorcycles and scooters tend to be unnecessarily fast and heavy, incredibly loud, and foul smelling. And for some reason (possibly having to do with their speed) they have pitifully small cargo space. For these reasons I say “No thanks” to scooters and motorcycles, and embrace the as-yet-unnamed class of vehicle I am building.

Over the past three years I’ve put many kinds of electric cargo bikes to the test (as have my blogging colleageages). My first bike has high torque. My second bike is capable of faster speeds. Lastly I’ve started building a third bike that has the best of both worlds. Allow me to indulge in some details. The first bike is a Surly Big Dummy with a Stokemonkey mid-frame motor. This bike has incredible torque. It’s like a winch on wheels. This is because the motor is geared down first with a chain to the crank and then through a second chain to the rear wheel. It can easily carry 400 pounds of people up steep hills. However, it suffers from what I call the “intimacy problem”: passengers must snuggle up behind the driver in a way that is just not socially acceptable to all but the most intimate of acquaintances. The Stoked BD is also somewhat slow. For me this is a safety issue–I dreaded making a left turn in busy traffic while going uphill with a load. I tried making the system more powerful but then ran into troubles such as broken chains and broken freewheels. The mid-frame motor is just not as elegant and trouble-free a solution as a hub motor.

So I built a second bike that is capable of carrying an adult and that uses a hub motor instead of the Stokemonkey mid-frame motor. I began by putting an Xtracycle extension on a mountain bike. The mountain bike has good quality shock absorbers and hydraulic disc brakes; I recommend both for any bicycle intended to carry adult passengers. I outfitted this bike with the largest hub motor I could find. This bike is fast–it’s capable of going over 40mph–but surprisingly it cannot carry a lot of weight up a steep hill. It is designed to have maximum power at a high speed.

I concluded that my ideal bike needs two hub motors: one fast and one high-torque. It’s kind of like a two-speed transmission for an electric bike. The fast motor will be most efficient on the flats, and the high-torque motor will shine on the hills. The fast motor should be a high voltage direct-drive hub motor in a 26″ wheel. The high-torque motor should be a “geared” hub motor in a 20″ wheel.

Another issue is pedals–does this vehicle even need them? They add very little power. The average human only produces about 100 watts of power, whereas a hub motor can produce 3,000 watts of power. Pedals seem superfluous. (In fact some Chinese electric scooters have removable vestigial pedals.) However, ideologically pedals add a lot. They make it possible for this vehicle to mix with other bicycles. They make it legally a bike. That’s worth a lot. Eventually our legal system will judge a vehicle by it’s weight and speed rather than its power source, and pedals won’t be necessary for larger ebikes. But for now I plan to keep the pedals.

Another design issue: how can I avoid carrying the extra weight of a seat if I’m not carrying an adult passenger? A tentative solution: the whole back end of my passenger bike is detachable. I can potentially replace it with back ends designed for other purposes: carrying cargo, carrying kids, farming implements, whatever. This design direction has been tried in the past–in the late 20s Dunelt motorcycles had detachable sidecars for various trades during the week which could be swapped out for carrying friends and families on the weekend.

So last month, inspired by Atomic Zombies’ Brad Graham, I set out to build a passenger bike in time for the Ithaca Festival Parade. It was surprisingly easy. I started with a bike that my kids outgrew. To this I added parts from a discarded “Mobo Triton” crummy adult trike. I welded together my own Xtracycle-like extension out of a length of two-inch square tubing. I bolted the extension to the bike at the bottom bracket and the dropouts. Then I added a 20-inch hub motor and the Triton seat to the backend. Lastly I replaced the bike’s front wheel with a 26-inch hub motor and presto, I was ready to go. The parade was a great success (see photos).

Did I meet my design goals? I haven’t quite finished the bike, so that remains to be seen. But so far so good: it weighs 84 pounds, it cost about $1,400 so far, and it has fair hill-climbing ability. I’ll keep you posted. It’s amazing what an amateur bike builder such as myself can accomplish. I think if cool bike companies like Yuba and Surly and Xtracycle embraced electric hub motors, they could create a new industry. Henry Ford had a similar humble start.

Real data from my solar panels and electric car

2012-10-08T02:39:31Z

My topic for today’s post might appear to be at odds with the main subject of our blog, which is how we can use bikes of various shapes and electrical enhancements to address practical transportation needs. However, if you’re patient enough to read (or skip directly) to the punch line, you’ll see how this relates.

We bought our electric car (a Nissan Leaf, which I described here) exactly one year ago, and we bought a fairly large solar panel array two years ago, so I now have enough data on each to draw some conclusions about their costs and benefits. As I look at the data, there are no huge surprises, but having this data in hand helps me understand how these might fit into our nation’s energy future. I hope my observations will be helpful to you too!

The solar panels

Our SunPower solar panels

Our solar panel array consists of 33 SunPower solar panels, with a combined maximum power rating of 7.4 kilowatts. In practice, we produce only about 80% of the max (just under 6 kilowatts at noon at the peak of summer) because the panels are not optimally oriented towards the sun. For optimal performance, we would have needed to stand the panels up on our roof rather than mounting them flat, which wouldn’t have looked nice for the neighbors. That less-aerodynamic orientation would have increased the risk of damage during the infamous wind storms that often howl through Seattle in November, so we decided to be conservative.

Since we installed them in May, 2010, the panels have produced about 6.3 megawatt-hours of energy each year. That’s enough to completely power the electric car, and still have about 40% of the output left to offset the electricity we use to run the house. In addition to reducing our electric bills significantly (we actually pay nothing for electricity during the summer), our local utility pays us 15 cents for every kilowatt-hour we produce during the year. Once a year, they send us a check for almost $1000.

Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Well, the sticky part of the equation is the initial investment. The price of solar panels has since dropped due to heavy competition from China, but at the time we bought them, the whole installation cost $50,000. Fortunately, there were a few incentives that reduced the cost. Our local sales tax was waived (a savings of almost $5,000), and we qualified for a federal tax credit that brought the final price tag to $35,000.

Even with the tax incentives and the higher-than-retail compensation we get from our utility for the energy we produce, we won’t recoup the cost of the solar panels for about 20 years, close to the length of the warranty on the panels. From a purely economic standpoint, justifying solar panels in Seattle isn’t easy: we are too far north, we have too many cloudy days, and an abundance of cheap hydro power makes it difficult for solar power to compete. There are places where solar power is a better fit. For example, my brother installed a solar array for his home in California. The stronger sun, more sunny days, and more expensive electric rates will make his system pay for itself at least 2 times faster than mine.

Many of the important factors in this cost-benefit analysis are changing fairly rapidly. For example, the cost of solar panels has dropped by about 10% since we bought them. More crucially, Washington state is supporting its own in-state manufacturers by offering a credit of 54 cents per kilowatt-hour of energy produced by locally-manufactured equipment, more than three times the credit I get. This could reduce the payback time to 10 years rather than 20.

Another interesting development is volume discounts for groups of neighbors that install systems at the same time. These discounts can reduce costs by around 20%. Perhaps solar in Seattle will become a no-brainer after all (at least until the 30% federal tax credit expires in 2016 – I can see a big rush coming as we get close to that date!)

Although our system was expensive, do I regret our decision to go solar? Not at all. I feel that this is one way my family can take practical steps towards reducing our carbon emissions and our impact on the planet. I do many things to minimize the time I spend driving, for example, but when I have to do it, I use electrons harvested from our own roof. It’s comforting to know I am driving in the least impactful way I can.

The car

We have driven the Leaf a little over 1,000 miles per month since we bought it. When I analyzed our utility bills, I was surprised to find it was adding less than I expected to our electricity consumption. Our average increase from the prior year was about 300 kilowatt-hours per month. Assuming we bought that power from our utility, it would cost about $27 per month (about 9 cents per kilowatt-hour with the surcharges we pay to use only sustainable energy sources). That’s less than 3 cents per mile, almost 8 times cheaper than driving our mini-van.

Every time I admire the Leaf’s smooth, quiet yet quick acceleration, I wonder why these cars aren’t more popular (although I see quite a lot of them in the Seattle area). There are two difficult problems: battery range and price. The 100-mile range drops to only about 80 miles in the winter. The batteries don’t produce as much power in cold weather, and there are places that are much colder than Seattle. Although the car is great for trips around town, it’s really out of the question for the 3-hour trip to Portland or Vancouver, BC.

With a list price of more than $32,000, the Leaf costs at least $15,000 more than comparable small passenger cars. But a new Leaf still qualifies for a federal a tax credit of $7,500, so the final cost difference is reduced by half. Compared to a $17,000 gasoline-powered car getting 30 miles per gallon, we save about $900 a year in fuel costs (assuming our cost for electricity and our relatively high cost for gasoline). At that rate, it would still take over 8 years to recover the extra cost of the car. To tell the truth, I don’t expect to be driving this car 8 years from now. I am confident that battery technology will improve enough that there will be more attractive options available in half that time.

There are a few mitigating factors, however. First, the cost of maintaining the Leaf is very low. There are no oil changes, no spark plugs, carburator, distributor, transmission, or radiator – almost none of the complex parts that you have to service and repair in a normal car. Even the brakes see little wear since you’re using regenerative braking and charging the battery if you brake smoothly. My first annual maintenance visit to the dealer cost $300 (they checked the battery, rotated the tires, changed the brake fluid, and detailed the interior of the car).

And maybe it’s not fair to expect the Leaf to save money compared to gasoline-powered cars. If you were to buy a new Toyota Prius, it would cost at least $24,000. Compared to the same car I used to benchmark the Leaf, the Prius will save $640 per year (assuming gas costs $4 per gallon), for a payback interval of 11 years. Given the costs of electricity and gasoline in Seattle, the Leaf beats the Prius!

Like the solar panels, the Leaf is a long-term investment that delights us and has environmental benefits. But we must face the facts. For a variety of reasons, this isn’t something that everyone can do.

What can we do?

Until now, I would say that the Leaf is a better fit for the Seattle climate than solar panels. Given the number of Leafs I see on the road compared to solar panels I’ve seen on rooftops (two other houses that I know), I think others in our neighborhood have reached similar conclusions. Perhaps that will start to change.

If you don’t have the money or the inclination to invest in solar panels or an electric car, is there anything else you can do? I bet you already know the answer to that. A bike with or without an electric motor is at least an order of magnitude more efficient than the Leaf, and has other fitness and societal advantages as well. Many of these are described in previous articles in this blog.

If you’re contemplating even small steps that you can take to improve the environment, I applaud you. These steps aren’t easy at the moment, but I see signs that make me hopeful. In the meantime, our individual actions can collectively initiate change that has eluded our world leaders and politicians. It would be tremendously empowering for future generations to look back on the challenges of this time and realize that positive results were achieved through the informed decisions of citizens, rather than grand treaties and government decrees.

Shawn’s Electric Yuba Mundo

2012-04-23T11:33:10Z

The author giving his touring bike a break

Today’s article comes from a guest contributor, Shawn McCarty of Venice, Florida. Shawn is an avid cyclist who has completed bike tours through various parts of the United States and Europe. His blog (aworldspinning.com) has some nice photos of his European adventure. And his custom electric cargo bike is amazing!

If you have biking facts, photos, or a story you think our readers would enjoy, let us know. We’re interested in presenting a variety of topics and points of view as we build our biking community.

From camels to e-cargo bikes

When I returned home after cycling over 5000 miles from Ireland to Morocco I no longer cared to own a car. What’s a bicycle trip to the grocery store if you have spent 5 months doing this?

The Funny American in Ireland

I resolved to be car free. I know my weaknesses and knew that when it got hot and muggy I would cheat. So I decided to build a bike that would not lead me to temptation, but deliver me from evil, especially when the Florida weather got hot.

My ecargo bike

An electric cargo bike would allow me to ride when it is hot, arrive decent, and carry everything. There would be no inner car/bicycle debate.

But this bike, to be a true car replacement vehicle, would need to travel 75 miles on a charge and tote a week’s worth of groceries and my girlfriend – all at the same time! My needs were more demanding than the products on the market could fulfill so I chose to assemble my bike.

I bought a Yuba Mundo frame with panniers and a front basket. I used a Ping 36-volt, 30-amp battery and a Golden Hub Motor that I have had on several other ebikes. I bought new Schwalbe Fat Frank tires. They are cushy and support 330 pounds per tire. I used a 7-speed internal hub that I had on another bike, and a 3-gear chain-ring in front. I added a car headlight sized 2200-lumen LED front light from Super Bright LEDs, and an LED truck flasher on the back. I converted the voltage to power the LED lights from 36 to 12 using a Green Galaxy Dc to Dc converter from Thunderstruck motors. The lights burn just 20 watts and add enormous visibility and safety. I use a Cycle Analyst as an energy gauge, and find it invaluable.

Rear light, a truck LED flasher

Front light from Super Bright LEDs

The battery compartment

The battery weighs 25 pounds and is mounted in the front basket. It helps balance out the weight when the tail of the bike is loaded. I would have preferred to mount the battery lower, but I needed extra space to carry a larger battery. Because the Yuba front basket does not turn with the handlebars, the weight is not noticeable once underway, and I can even ride with my hands off the handlebars. The front “hood” has proven to have other benefits, as there is plenty of space in there to manage the wiring and to store small valuables.

Hood open showing controller, battery management system, light switch, on/off switch, fuse, and 36- to 12-volt converter

Board lifted showing Ping batteries

One problem with the Yuba Mundo is that there is no place for adult passengers to put their feet with the panniers attached. So I built a couple of fold-out aluminum “wings” as heel rests. Later I will make a set of stirrups! Also, because the bag bottoms extend beyond their floor, the bags tend to slide outwards, pivoting from their top mounts. I put some small holes in their sides and zip tied them to the frame.

Cost efficient transportation

How efficient is it? At 6 cents per kilowatt hour, burning 15 watts a mile, an ecargo bike will travel 3200 miles, across the USA, for under $3.00. A 10-mile jaunt will cost less than a penny. Because of their low energy requirements, they can be easily charged by photovoltaics. Just connect whenever the bike is at home and your ride is powered by the sun. I once carried 380 pounds of golf cart batteries for my home photovoltaic system on my ecargo bike! How Green is that?

In addition, all the pleasures of cycling are yours when you ride an ecargo bike; the wind in your face, being outdoors, taking routes that cars don’t frequent, moving at a relaxed pace, the mild exercise. An ecargo bike still allows you to pedal as hard and go as fast as you can. You can ride with the motor on or off. But with cruise control and regenerative braking (like a Prius), you can also relax if you want a break.

It is nearly as fast as a car for short errands, say an eight mile round trip. Like cycling, you ride different routes, smaller streets, take all the shortcuts, ride bike trails and cut through grass. Whee!

On longer trips, say 50 miles round trip, it takes about twice as long as driving. The bike spends less time sitting at lights relative to the time spent moving, and hence is closer to the trip time of a car then you would think. At stoplights, the bike goes to the front of the line. Still, I sometimes get impatient. So I ask myself: How much time would it take for a workout and to earn money for gas, insurance, registration, car repair and a car payment?

Safety

Statistics show that cycling is very safe. I have ridden on several multi-month tours, and have never even had a close call. The data and statistical analysis firm Failure Analysis Associates, now Exponent, did a study of fatality rates:

Remember that these statistics include children on bicycles. Riding defensively with foresight of how drivers might behave, using lights and a safety vest for visibility, using a rear view mirror, riding courteously and obeying the traffic laws, all push the odds even further in your favor.

And what about the health benefits of the exercise? According to Pedaling Health, an Australian publication, a person who bicycles six hours a week reduces his chance of death by coronary heart disease alone by over four times as much as he increases his chance of death through a traffic accident.

Mayer Hillman of the British Medical Association has estimated that the total health benefit of cycling is twenty times the risk. The risk of pulmonary heart disease is 1000 times greater than the risk of death from cycling, and 3000 miles a year on a bike would go a long way towards preventing it!

Just for the fun of it

Now I’m always looking for opportunities to ride. I am reminded of when I first got my driver’s license. I was always asking my mom if she needed anything at the store:

Mom, do we need a loaf of bread?
No.
How about a half gallon of milk?
No!
How about canned ravioli? I don’t see any…. Give me the car keys, I’ll go get some for you!

Grocery shopping in Venice, Florida

Computer Lab by Bike

2012-04-23T11:31:34Z

Today I got to combine a couple of my interests: cargo cycling and e-waste recycling. Almost five years ago I helped found Richmond, Indiana’s Hardware Co-op. The Hardware Co-op is a re-use and recycling program for e-waste. The project has operated at a fairly small scale until the last year, when we’ve been attracting more donors and volunteers. Today the project had our first event presence– a booth at the local Earth Day celebration.

Our booth consisted of a thin-client demo lab, which showed how some systems from the Windows-98 era can be made to perform at modern speeds. It works by sending most processing to a server, like the old mainframe systems with “dumb terminals”.

Using the Bikes-at-Work trailer seen the background of the photo above, I carried over 3 desktop systems, a laptop, a 32 inch display and some other supplies. While our booth was effectively two blocks from a parking lot, I was able to roll the trailer through the door and right up to our booth. Had I carried the equipment by car, several trips back and forth to the car would have been required to get all the equipment inside.

Cargo-cycling and recycling have been a good match for in the past few years. Below are some more photos of computers-by-bike that I’ve taken.

A weekend of family biking firsts

2012-04-10T01:31:07Z

On Saturday morning my 4 year-old got to take her first ride on the back of our Xtracycle, using stoker bars instead of a kid seat. She loved it. That was no suprise, but I enjoyed it more than I thought as well.

I expected it to feel more loosey-goosey without the constraint of the seat, but it actually felt more stable and easier to ride. I’m guessing that’s due to three factors: First, the weight of the seat has been subtracted, and replaced with some rather light handlebars. Second, her weight had dropped about 6 inches, lowering our center of gravity. Third, I expect her ability to lean side-to-side more may have contributed to a more natural feel. We’ll continue to use a kid-seat for her on our electric Yuba Mundo, but I expect we’ll use the stoker bars for most trips on the Xtracycle now.

I didn’t get a good direct shot of this ride, but here she is in the background, as we rode to see off a Warm Showers guest, Dominic from One Bike One World. Warm Showers is a hospitality site for touring cyclists.

Later in the morning, I hauled my first big load of plants on the Xtracycle. My wife unexpected acquired some garlic, onions, daylilies and cat nip at a community garden. There was capacity to spare on the Xtracycle, with room left my daughter to still ride on the deck and hold on to her handlebars.

The open, waterproof design of the Freeloader bags made the remaining dirt easy to dump and spray out.

On Sunday, we had another first: both the children on the Xtracycle!

I had a favorable first-impression of trying this as well. The second child felt more like an incremental increase in required effort, rather than doubling. We took a detour on the way home to ride on the Cardinal Greenway some. All three of us enjoyed the ~4 mile trip without any breakdowns.

Finally, here’s one thing that didn’t change this weekend: When my wife’s using her electric assist, I still can’t catch her, even when she’s carrying two kids. It’s not such much that her top speed is faster, is that her average speed is faster.

So, instead of getting a photo of her en-route with two kids, I had to settle for shot when she had finally stopped and I had a chance to catch up:

If you are looking to ride more or improve your fitness, consider buying your spouse an electric cargo bike and trying to keep up!

Biking with kids: crashing and learning

2012-04-02T16:07:08Z

Yesterday I wrote about my 4 year old’s success with her first cross-town bike trip. I closed with a promise to tell the story of her ride with an unfortunate ending the day before.

Here’s that story, with more thoughts on kids and bike crashes.

We had ridden about 1.5 miles uneventfully through Richmond to drop off a package at the Post Office. A Cardinal Greenway trailhead is practically behind the Post Office, so we proceeded to ride up to Springwood Lake Park. Heading home, she had ridden just over 4 miles when she was suddenly thrown over the handlebars in a tangle of body and bike.

It seemed like the safest of conditions: She was on a flat stretch of paved trail, with no one else close to her (except for me following her). I soon found there had been a singular rock on the trail– a golf ball-sized stone that had a similar color to the pavement. She impacted the front of her helmet. I think she would have had no injury at all, except she had recently bumped and bruised her forehead on a fall while she was running. This time the helmet pressed against the bruise and made it hurt.

I had not had the foresight to bring a kid seat on my bike to carry her home, so her bike trip ended there and she got picked up in mom’s car.

This was not her first crash in her relatively short history of learning to ride a bike.

She once went down a grass hill a little too fast and went over the handlebars when they twisted to the side. Another time she slid out going too fast around a gravel corner on a sidewalk. While these are always hard to watch, they are valuable lessons to have had at low speeds when the consequences have been minimal and parents have been nearby. Her response is always is to return and try again. As a result, her riding style has already been tempered to be more aware and moderate: she looks out for gravel, slows down for turns, and brakes going down hills to keep herself at a safe speed.

I was not as fortunate to learn about gravel in turns under such safe conditions. I really “got it” in my early twenties when I took a sharp turn off a well-traveled street at full speed. I went down hard and fast at more like 20 miles per hour, and had no one around to help scrape myself and my road rash out of the street before the next car might come. Fortunately, the intersection was empty at the moment.

As a parent, I can’t remove the risks of cycling for my child. I can help create an environment where the stakes are lower, and support and encouragement are available to recover from the mistakes and accidents that are bound to happen.

For my daughter, the risks must be worth it, as she continually asks to go out and ride. I think she’s developing rapidly as a cyclist because of her early failures and accidents, rather than in spite of them.

For more on young children and bicycles, I recommend the post Start ‘em Young by Henry Cutler, as well as the Totcycle blog, particularly, Is Family Cycling Safe?.

What are you thoughts on kids and bike crashes?