My cargobike is a snowmobile!

Last night (Nov 23) we had the Seattle's Snowpocalypse of 2010. We needed a grocery run for our Thanksgiving holiday, and I, loving cold weather and ice as I do, decided to attempt a trip to the store on my cargobike.

This trip was on relatively flat ground, and only 2.2 miles roundtrip. I had a safety precaution to go slow enough that if I did lose control I could just put my feet on the ground and wrestle the bike to an upright stop.

Going there had some slippery moments. Didn't go down, but did feel the tires lose traction. Then I loaded the bike up with two gallons of milk, chicken, beer, etc, etc. $107 worth. By then I had a little experience from the ride over. The rest of the trip was a hoot(i.e. fun). The extra weight, plus driving in a higher gear (4th and 5th), worked to an advantage just like in cars. It took a certain amount of discipline -riding the bike with "ice driving rules"- but wow was it fun in a unique visceral sort of way.

Yet another way in which cargobikes do what no other bike does.

One year with the cargobike

Last week was a milestone, it was the second time to haul a big pumpkin home for Halloween. Last year (2009) the ride home with pumpkin was one of the first trips for our new cargobike. So now a year has passed and a review of my life with this bike is in order.

Daily Use

The main good news is it is not gathering dust in a the back of a storage shed. I ride it daily -to work, to the grocery store, and to carry my son his school and various activities. I enjoy the rides. I've skipped a few rides and taken the bus when the weather was especially windy and wet, and missed the pump I get from riding.

Hills

I climb hills like the rise from the Ship Canal to Greenlake, and the lower northeast side of Capitol Hill taking my son to school. I did climb most of Capitol Hill once, but walked the bike one block. To readers I caution that the cargobike might not work for commutes with steep hillclimbs. For me, in hilly Seattle, it gets me to everything I need to get to.

Maintenance

One bike tube replaced due to slow leak. Spent $5 for that tube. That's it. No other maintenance. Oh, and I left it parked outside for weeks. Strongest bike in the world.

Wrecks and Spills

I've went down only once. It was on Westlake Avenue and caused by going over the trolley tracks too fast in the rain(my son was not onboard, I'm much more cautious when he is around). I have a long negative rant about those trolley tracks to be posted someday. It was not the fault of the cargobike's design, many bike commuters are reporting spills on these [expletive] tracks. I ride over rail tracks almost daily in other parts of town and have no problem.

Does my son still like riding it?

Yes, my son consistently likes riding it. He started riding as passenger around 1 1/2, and every ride has went fine.

Rock star treatment

Everywhere I go, people comment about it. From people that look around 150 years old, to tourists, to anyone else.

Cheap advertising campaign on cargobike

Through the years I've seen graphic advertising on vehicles -VW Beetles, Mini Coopers, Hummers, and of course city buses. I've been thinking my cargobike gets so much attention -there's often a few people looking it over where ever its parked- why not do graphic advertising on it?

I have a book I'm trying to promote, and I'm trying to stay close to $0 as possible on the marketing costs. I have an ideal bike for attracting attention. So why not put my own ad on it?

Then I got to thinking about how much a custom poster sized sticker would cost, and guessed it might be between $50 and $100, and I didn't even want to spend $20. So I decided to make my own poster and tape it to the bike.

Well, here is my very rough, very homemade, very hillbilly attempt at a serious marketing campaign. And if you want to know more about the book, here's the official page with free PDF of the book: http://athena-techne.appspot.com/ .

SDOT installs my requested bike rack

Months ago I went through the process to request a free bike rack from the City of Seattle [here]. Today it was installed on the sidewalk in front of our apartment. Love it. Thanks City of Seattle!

Drag Racing: Cargobike vs South Lake Union Trolley

Most assume a Dutch cargobike makes a poor drag racing vehicle. On Monday morning I proved otherwise. I went by the South Lake Union Trolley just as it was beginning its route at the Westlake Center. I stayed consistently ahead of it until it turned direction and left Westlake Avenue. It was thrilling.

A little context mayhelp explain my victory. This light rail is on the street, so it stops at stoplights. It would catch up to me at stoplights, and I would out pace once we got a green light. Key to my victory is an ever so slight a downhill grade, not truly a downhill, but a small loss of elevation, which helps the cargobike move forth like a jet fighter.

A family and their "car"

My son playing around the cargobike

Beer and grocery run for the holiday weekend. A Shiner Bock bakfiiets holiday weekend.

Looking for local Metrofiet owner

Anyone in the Seattle area who uses a Metrofiet [link] want to engage in some good natured competition with my Bakfiets? No, not drag racing or a Tour De Seattle. I think it'd be fun to make a series of Youtube videos with them side-by-side and their respective owners bantering about what their bike does well or not so well.

Contact this.is.lance.miller@gmail.com if interested. I should add I'm not a bike shop owner or in any other way invested in the bike industry other than as an owner of my cargobike. So this is just a sincere quest for fun.

Gears

I'm riding in the top (8th) gear now. I've had my cargobike for a month and half now. The first several weeks I rode it on flat grades in 4th ot 5th, never above 5th other than while cruising downhill.

As you can see from my last few postings, I'd gotten fixated on testing and training myself on hill climbing. The grades were 2-7° and a little over 300 foot climb. I did this daily for the first 5 weeks of owning the bike.

I credit the intensity of the hill climbing for transforming my flat ground riding : in 8th and fairly fast. With this new speed capacity for my legs and lungs my casual runs to the store, on the flat Burke-Gilman trail, are now enough of a workout.

....and exhilaratingly fun.

Leisurely ride to the beach

Nothing significant for the biking world press today. Just a photo from my morning ride to the beach. It was 35° F., perfect to me, and I noticed my leg power has increased enough to pedal the cargobike in the highest gear (8th) on flat ground. It's my 48th birthday and had a nice, leisurely ride.

Center of Attention

Today my son North and I went for the same hill climb I geeked out about with too much information regarding elevation in this blog entry. When we got to the top of the hill on Phinney Avenue N, we paused in front of Rudy's Barbershop for me to put back on my warmer shell for the windy and cooler ride downhill. While parked there, we had everyone in the barbershop, and drivers on the street, all smiling and pointing to us while saying something to those around them.

This is what its like everywhere I go on the bike. Usually when parking at the Fred Meyer, I get in a conversation from someone who wants to know more about the bike. Today it was both when we went in, and came out. I've been stopped on the street by a mother who wants one to carry her twins.

The bike wins smiles and accolades every where I go. That is an endorsement of some kind, maybe an expression of people's desire for new solutions to their daily routine. Maybe in the 1960's the same might have been shown towards Honda scooters or VW Beetles. Anyway, I know in our current era of nervousness about oil, our spending money and the environment; this cargobike illicits some sort of aspiration in those who see it pedal by.

New record elevation climb: 374 feet

Today I rode the bakfiet from Fremont Ave at 35th Street to Leary Way at 3rd Ave, then to 3rd Ave and 65th Street, then a turn up an 8% grade on 65th St that climbs to Phinney Ave. I had to get off the bike and pushed it up the most steep few blocks to the top of the hill. I did this at a pace about as fast as pedaling in lowest gear anyway. Finally from there it was all downhill back to Fremont Ave and 35th Street. 

1. 47.650414° N 122.349844° W 62 ft
2. 47.65475° N 122.360744° W 36 ft
3. 47.666486° N 122.360659° W 177 ft
4. 47.675935° N 122.360659° W 213 ft
5. 47.675849° N 122.354307° W 341 ft
6. 47.664954° N 122.354007° W 364 ft
7. 47.664896° N 122.350016° W 341 ft
8. 47.650588° N 122.349758° W 69 ft

$118 in groceries and a big 22 month old boy

We've had our cargobike for a little over three weeks now. I've been riding it daily for fun/exercise or for true utility such as getting groceries or taking my son to the community center. Today I set a new personal record for load carrying capacity. I can't give the weight carried, but I can give the US dollar amount: $118. Along for the ride was my son North, who weighs over 30 pounds.

We rode on nearly flat terrain of the Burke-Gilman Trail for 1.2 miles, from the Ballard Fred Meyer to Fremont. Honestly, the only time I could feel the weight was when not pedaling it. Once the bike was underway there was not much to notice. On tabletop flat land I could have pedaled this amount of stuff all day.

It was fun having a big diaper box and lots of groceries filling the cargo box, made me feel like I was driving a serious rig.

A trip to Mommy's office for a family lunch

My goal is to have the whole family together for lunch everyday at my wife Jenni's office. Today was the first test run of it. Our son loves her work area anyway. It was really nice. I think it'll be good for us, and will give my wive a real break and a chance to reconnect with me and our son in the middle of a crazy business day. Before getting the cargobike lunch dates like this weren't practical.

Almost ready to go to mom's office
Lunch in mom's work area is so cool.
Ok, back on the bakfiets and going home.

Commiting to Biking: Class and Age

Considering biking for all of your transport? Its an easy choice if you're one of those slender single people living on a bike trail leading from dorm to classes. What about the rest of us?

I'm going to out some of my personal life to give an example of who can do it.

We are a very middle class family making between 40 and 50K, which in a major west coast city is lower middle class. I am 47, married, and we have a 21 month old son. I am the "pedaler" of the bike that gets our toddler around town and groceries home.

We chose strategically as to where to live. There's no freakin' way would I say you can live just anywhere and do everything by bike. But thats why they make U-Haul trucks, so you can move to where pedestrian/biking is honestly doable.

We didn't just get rid of a car, or have it stashed for times of cheating a human-powered commitment. We've never had a car since becoming a family. Work is 1.2 miles away along an urban trail, and our main store is 1.2 miles away on another urban trail. We were committed pedestrians before becoming committed Bakfietsers. Thus, getting a bike that can carry a toddler and groceries feels like a expansion of our world, not a compression.

$3000 for a bike is something serious, especially in the post-mini-depression the US went into after 2008. We make less than 50K per year. Outing myself a little more here: I'm not choosing costly things to symbolically save the global environment. I'm pretty much an all-pragmatic, not into symbolic ethical acts. All that said, I chose the Bakfiets as our family SUV for the next ten years or more.

Thats our story, our situation, and our solution.

Climbing 155 feet / 47.24 meters

All proponents of cargobikes admit a caveat: cargobikes are heavy and a challenge to pedal up a hill. I bought ours knowing this.

One place I wanted to transport our toddler to is the Green Lake Community Center. It is on a higher elevation than our home in Fremont along the waterway.

Today we set out for Greenlake, and made it fairly easy! The climb in elevation was 155 feet. We did most of the hill climb along 15th Ave NE. I was huffing and puffing at the top, but that was expected. I got the bike in part to get more cardio work anyway.

For Seattlites reading this and considering switching to all-bike transport, I recommend studying the lay of the land of this city to understand a harsh reality for bicyclists: you can't just live anywhere and bike anywhere (with ease) in this city. Especially with a Bakfiets. The good news is there are regions of the city that have flat are doable grades for bikes. The most notable is the Ballard-Fremont-Westlake Avenue-Downtown circuit. Once I moved to Fremont I saw the massive waves of commuters that go from Ballard/Fremont to Downtown. I recommend anyone committed to biking or considering a Bakfiets for family transport look into living/working along this circuit.

My son North's first ride in the Bakfiets

My son is 21 months old. He cried the first time I placed his bicycle helmet on him. I had bad feelings about the first ride, especially with helmet on, so my plan today was to place him in the cargobike and only push it along -just a gentle introduction to bike riding. Everything was surprisingly going so well after a few blocks that I braved placing the helmet on him. He cried for mere seconds. Then I put on my helmet and started pedaling the bike.

North was totally happy. At the start, and through the whole trip. We were on the Burke-Gilman trail, and he was calling out to the birds as we went along. We rode on through Ballard, and to the Ship Canal Locks. On the way back we stopped at Fred Meyer for groceries, and a picnic snack of strawberry yogurt for North. We went to my favorite little vista park along the Ship Canal for a snack break. Then it was on home. Even at the last North was visibly enjoying the ride.

Dear Bakfiets, we love you.

The Great Pumpkin

My wife took the day off from work so we could carve pumpkins as a family. I brought home a good sized one and a mini one, along with a weekends worth of groceries.

Totally Rad!

After my first night parking the bike at home, I found this note on the seat.