Mar 31, 2010
Xtracycle hiding in photo foreground calls out need for transportation synchronization in Seattle and beyond.
A discussion over info@xtracycle.com email this morning. Thanks Brian.
Brian:
As a Radish-owner (and pea pod pilot) I wanted to send along this article from The Seattle Times that has nothing to do with either. The article’s photo, however, includes a shot of a passing Xtracycle. I love to see these things getting numerous enough to show up in random shots of bike paths…
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011474918_montlake30m.html
Have a good one.
Xtracycle:
Thanks for the photo – funny how the article is all about cost/complexity of light rail, with the simple elegance of the bikes on the bike path in the foreground. Guess it’s all part of the solution, but sometimes, it seems, we humans like to make things more complex than they need to be.
Brian:
I completely agree about the complexity. Light rail is definitely part of the solution up here, creating non-car transportation options for people. But it is a fabulously expensive and inflexible (i.e., only goes to points A, B, and C) option. The bicycle can frequently cut through that complexity like a hot knife through butter.
Brian
Xtracycle:
Yeah – they really have to work together. Go Portland MAX! Wow, what a great system.
I’ve been lusting after a Radish to haul my 4-year old around, but wasn’t sure if it would be good on the hills of Seattle. But I see that Brian is from Seattle … so I’ll take it that the Radish does ok. Maybe that person in the picture could be me one day, hauling the 4-year old on the Radish and biking alongside my 8-year old.
I am from Seattle, and haul my 4-year-old and his 2-year-old brother around on the Radish — the older boy in front with a stoker bar, the younger in back in a pea pod LT. Carrying that load up a hill requires, as you might expect, a little more effort. But I’d wager that it takes much less effort than hauling them in a trailer. I’m not riding up the counterbalance on it, but I stuck with the 8-sp gearing that came stock on the bike and am getting around fine.
A triple chain ring up front might make things easier, but the gear range on the 2009 Radish tends toward the low end and ok for even pretty steep hills.