Every Day Adventurers

The Bay Area is enjoying an Indian Summer, finally. After a bout of chill-tempered weather, a scorching week and more bleh, we’re finally getting the hot days and cool nights signaling harvest time.

The weekend started with a photo shoot for the new Donkey Boxxes. My Big Dummy hauled the mini-cooler bag by Timbuk2 with refreshments for the crew and models, camera gear and changes of clothes filled out the remaining FreeLoader space. We rolled through various parts of San Francisco, even climbed up to Lombard Street and had a nice carve down.

Following the photo shoot, I ventured to the free Michael Franti and Spearhead’s Power to the Peaceful music festival in Golden Gate Park. Not in any rush, I decided to drop it into my lowest gear and chug up some of the tallest streets I could find. Spinning to win, I slowly, persistently climbed to the top of The Presidio. The workout makes pedaling my wife and friends from BART much, much easier. :)

The festival is an amazing experience. Festival vibe, without the festival price. Only donations are requested, no invasive personal property searches and freedom to leave and re-enter the festival. I wish more music venues would follow their lead.

Heading out of the festival I ran into a San Francisco couple with kids in tow. Literally. Mom had her Xtracycle, outfitted with neon pink leopard print, while dad finished dialing in the trailer with their two children. The pair have ridden two Xtracycles, in San Francisco, for the past 6-years, been to Burning Man a few times with them, and now are family biking with them too. Kudos and applause!

After saying our adieus, and waiting for a friend to spill out of the crowd, I enjoyed spotting the bicycles that attended Burning Man. They stand out in the sea of bikes due to the powdery white coat of dust on tires, chains, frames. Even spied another old-time Xtracycle and a sticker bike that reminded me of my adolescence.

Before leaving, I noticed that FreeLoader bags at festivals double as trash receptacles for event goers. At least they’re not dumping food or other soiling items.

Rounding out the weekend of haul, I donated used clothing, completed grocery shopping at the farmers market, snagged more cat food and made a laundry run (282 liters of clothing) to the local laundromat. My thighs were tired, but my soul energized from a perfect late summer weekend.

Mike Cobb is a Portland, OR based Xtracycle rider, mechanic and general suave dude touring the European continent as part of the Pleasant Revolution. These are his adventures.

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Speaking of Scotch, a couple days ago, I found a fifth of the stuff, decades old (?), 90% buried in the soil of our roadside hobo camp (Bratislava, Slovakia). Drank it up with water and honey (with abandon).

In Budapest currently, having a devil of a time repairing the (3rd) broken frame. For the first (2), I splinted, then found access to awesome DIY metal shops w/MIG machines in Berlin and Vienna, respectively. Tried campside brazing this morning with insufficient flux and insufficient lots of things. FAIL. Now seeking welding service….

I am more determined than ever to assemble tools and materials for SUCCESSFUL campside brazing in the future. Mark the words…

Vienna just caught on with the fixie craze 5-8 years ago and the tallbike craze just 1-2 years ago. The Bike Kitchen is opperated by a gang of bike punks who wear “colors” in the form of heavily adorned flourescent green safety vests. Aside from the safety vests (which I love), the Vienna bike punks have recreated a big chunk of the Portland bike punk scene. Strangely cozy and familiar.

Cool kid fixie panda

Hofi of Heavy Pedals, Vienna, Austria

My fixie for a day and Hofi's Heavy Pedal Express

My morning with Hofi – delivering high class sandwhiches and bread to business Vienna. We swapped bikes a couple times – a locally made 70′s road frame converted into a cool kid steel toeclip fixie and my favorite iteration of the Long John – Larry vs Harry Bullit. The custom Bullit box folds flat w/o tools (Designed by Hofi).

Dremel + Car Muffler = New Frame Lug

Cutting up a ground-score muffler for frame-repair lugs. Battery-powered Dremel – yeah!

Ben Sollee, Marty, Katie and Jordon kicked off their tour across the United States, playing shows, seeing fans, friends and family and “re-humanizing” the musical experience. Ride on!

This tour is not about going “green,” even though it will have a smaller over all carbon footprint than a more traditional tour by van. Instead, its about re-humanizing the pace of the road. The bicycles provide the limitation on a local level. However, we have to be real. I have a family and we all have bills to pay so we can’t afford for this tour to be a musical vacation by bicycle. And, it’s important to us to demonstrate that biking to our business can be financially sustainable. We want biking to be a compelling choice to other businesses and artists. So, through some trial and error we’ve discovered a few things.

Discover some of the few things the crew has discovered at Ditch the Van Bike Tour Blog.

Ian Ritchie, a chef in Louisville, KY, delivers homemade “soup by cycle” after his own experience losing his job. Now he delivers his culinary delights on his Surly Big Dummy Xtracycle cargo bicycle.

Ritchie says he started his one-man business after being laid off. “I had trouble finding a job, you know, with today’s economy not too many people are hiring,” he says.

So after doing a little research, he began his operations at the end of winter. He says, “I just decided to cook some soup one night and go around and deliver it to make a little money.”

He started by delivering to a few friends, then word got around. So he’s been delivering a few more bowls of soup each week.

His business is not yet profitable, but he hopes to make it so as cooler weather approaches and there is more demand for his product.

The name of the business is SoupByCycle. Customers can order on line at http://www.soupbycycle.com. Mondays he spends shopping for the ingredients, Tuesday he spends the day cooking, and Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are delivery days — about 25 miles of cycling in the hot summer weather each day.

“Everyone I run into seems to like soup, and I love making soup,” he says.

Soup delivered by bicycle – FOX41.com Louisville News Kentucky Indiana News Weather Sports.

Over at the RootsRadicals garden, the ‘Rads have shared some knot tying information that’s pretty helpful for lashing your cargo bicycle load.

Fat Rob suggests,

I find the bowline and the truckers hitch to be most useful when securing a load.

The bowline ties the end of a rope to whatever, it can be loosened and untied easily when it’s time, yet it won’t let go before it’s time.

The truckers hitch will cinch down and tighten a load, giving a 2 or 3 to 1 mechanical advantage.

Learn the bowline and trucker’s hitch with these animated instructions courtesy Grog’s Index. Devian also suggested learning the complicated knots to slow a would-be thief down. Of course, a knife will end any frustration quickly, but most criminals are in search of easy pickings. When tying two ropes together the double fisherman’s knot is handy.

Other options outside knot tying are CamStraps with bungees falling behind due to their stretchiness for heavy loads (and that whole hook-flying-through-the-air-aiming-for-your-eye-thing*). That being said, cargo bungee nets are very useful, especially the ones that lock your gear.

Of course, let’s knot forget the ever useful buckle straps on the FreeLoaders. Here SpokenWord demonstrates the over-top method of securing cargo on top the deck.