Every Day Adventurers

Living in apartments allows you to see other humans’ living habits a bit closer than you’d usually like to experience. I live in a quad-plex in Oakland, in a neighborhood that’s gentrifying and has seen worse days.

Oakland, and the Bay Area in general, have always been on the cusp of the next Green/sustainable revolution. In the past two, three years we’ve gotten a cool curbside composting program going (although I’d rather see the stuff get trucked to the Oakland Port where giant digestors could capture all those high energy vapors of composting instead of letting it waft into the air as they drive it tens of miles away to rot in open fields contributing green house gases to the atmosphere) and our recycling is thorough and impressive (Berkeley just upped their investment with new bins).

I also take pride in limiting my impact on our shared environment. I don’t own a car, I ride my bikes (Xtracycle Big Dummy included), I compost all our food and paper wastes, recycle, take short showers and grow some of our own food. So it pains me to see my neighbors tossing perfectly good recyclables into the trash, or food that could easily be composted in the trash or old clothes that just need a simple wash getting dumped instead of donated. That last one just happened, and in a big way.

We have large Murphy bed closests in our building. Suffice it to say, they hold a lot of junk (mine is full of bike parts and stuff). My neighbor’s daughter was cleaning out her closet, which seemed to have been collecting things since middle school (she’s 18 now). Bag after bag was filled with clothes, shoes, books, pencils, pens, etc. All about to be trashed! Had I not had the (un)pleasure of looking at the garbage from our kitchen window, all that stuff would’ve ended up in the landfill. We have thousands of people who can use the items she was tossing out. Our economy is still shedding jobs, unemployment is through the roof, and coming from parents who lived on food stamps during Reganomics, I’m sensitive to such non-chalance.

So, I dug through her stuff, salvaging what could be donated. I encountered her as she was taking out even more items(!) and explained that almost all the stuff she was tossing could be donated. I also took the opportunity to explain that recyclables belong in the recycling container. I still need to talk with her mother and her about the needs for all of us to take more responsibility for our waste and pull as much of it as we can out of the waste stream and return, reuse, recycle it.

Here’s my load, about 80 lbs of shoes, shirts, pants, jackets, books and other odd ends that I pedaled over to the East Bay Depot Center for Creative Reuse on Telegraph and a local thrift store.

Loads of Donation Items Being Reused Instead of Dumped

Every little bit counts. :)

Bill Kiely’s Big Dummy is no stranger to sun and sand, as he and his family hit the surf via bike on a regular basis.  He shared some of his ‘Big Dummy’s Big Wednesday’ photos with us:

Xtracycle Big Dummy on Spring Break

Not only can an Xtracycle get you and your surfboard to the beach, but it’ll help you dry your towel as well!  Keep on ridin’.

the family steed

As most Xtracycle owners know, doing more with your bicycle and less with your car instills a feeling of independence like no other.

Your ability to tackle the day’s requests of errands, tasks and trips by using your bicycle and your own power instead of pollution causing, money draining automobiles builds a self-reliance that only grows with time.

So, I totally relate to Michael’s enthusiasm about his wife stating, “I think I’d like to get an Xtracycle.”

While I’m happy to hear that another American is thinking about using our cargo bikes, I’m more excited because I know what a positive impact owning one will have on her life.

Irene, Michael’s wife, I’m sure already knows about the benenfits of cargo bicycle ownership, her husband rocks out on a Big Dummy already. But, just as my wife knew of the benefits and utility of my cargo bike, she didn’t quite ‘get it’ until I built up her first Xtracycle this past fall.

Normally I’m the one who hauls her, our groceries, our laundry and other tasks of substantial size because my Xtracycle is easier to access and it’s what we’re used to. However, recently I went away for a trip to see my grandparents and Alicia, my wife, was stuck with laundry duty. Instead of lugging it piecemeal to the laundromat by short bike, she utilized her FreeRadical and finished the task without hassle or inconvenience.

On our nightly reconnect by cellular, she proudly informed me that she tackled the laundry using her Xtracycle. I asked how it went and she said, “Piece of cake!” :) She’s using her Xtracycle more and feeling empowered by the capability of her steed, and I’m excited to see her sharing the same sentiments that I felt in my first months of Xtracycle ridership.

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Read Michael’s full post on why they’re going car-light and upgrading their family to a two-Xtracycle family.

My wife and I live in a small apartment with five of our bicycles living with us. The first moment of zen came when I realized I was tall enough to store my lighter road/mtn bikes horizontally against the ceiling, but my Big Dummy still took up a commanding amount of square footage.

We recently shifted the rooms around and need that precious footprint to be reduced. Problem was, I need to store the Dummy on it’s tail, but maneuvering a wheel-less Big Dummy like that was bound to scratch and damage the rear bridge tube. What I need were some casters to allow me easy positioning and storage of my Xtracycle cargo bike in a vertical position.

I sketched up a design diagram, chatted with Ross about some potential pitfalls, and dove right in. Was a bit hasty about the initial two prototypes, but finally ironed out my issues with the third version.

Now I can easily bring the bike inside, hold the rear brake, lift up the wheel, TailWheels make contact, and then I push on my MagicCarpet with my knee while still holding the handlebars to get it into full, mobile and upright position.

It’s also been a boon for use on BART and elevators. No more scratched paint or dented tubes!

Ride on!

View more detailed comments for TailWheels on flickr.

The Xtracycle platform’s coolest feature, IMHO, is its modularity and ability to customize the platform for specific tasks. Numerous Xtracycle riders have utilized the plug-n-play features of their X’s for years. Wes Trout, an Xtra owner for 3 years, has taken customizing his Xtracycle to an impressive level.

We’ve occasionally interacted via the RootsRadicals Yahoo! Xtracycle user group, but recent record snowfalls and his newest invention, the Snow Plow, caught my eye and I had to get more details on his projects. Read the full interview below about how Wes started his own business, Shifting Gears, catering to the needs of businesses seeking sustainable solutions for their needs, and his perspective on cargo cycling culture.

Wes Trout with his cargo bike snow plow

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