Xtracycle rad-dad, Anthony's customized KickBack legs
Customizing our rides is one of the many things that draws us further into cycling culture. Sometimes it’s the perfect paint job, a well-worn leather saddle or that crazy doll you found in the gutter that now rides with you every where you go to help you identify with your bicycle.
For those rockin’ out KickBack, you can customize your ride some more. Use any tubing with a diameter of 7/8″ to replace the stock legs, but please use high-strength aluminum or steel if you’ll be carrying precious cargo like passengers, children or Fabergé eggs.
In the tutorial video below Nate demonstrates how to achieve a wider stance for your KickBack using steel cruiser handlebars. If you happen to customize your KickBack, please post some photos here or on our Facebook fan page. Ride on!
Xtracycle Dad, Anthony, chopped the ends of his Stoker Kit and used the ends to widen his KickBack stance to carry his two boys with added safety
Jason Jamnik, a 22-year-old college student from Naperville, IL, works as a pizza-delivery boy man. Except he’s not delivering pizza the traditional way (in a beat up Honda Civic blasting teenage-angst rock), he’s using his Surly Big Dummy to get those pies to their final destination.
His customers are given two options for delivery: carbon-consuming-car or carbon-saving-cycle. Choosing the latter option saves them the $3 delivery fee, and helps their keep their community carbon-clean.
We don’t know yet if Jason is using our PizzaLoader design to help him deliver his pies, but we look forward to finding out!
Update: Well, looks like Jason IS using the PizzaLoader on his routes. Check out his comment below to see how he pulls it off. Thanks, Jason!
Jason about to deliver a hot pizza to a hungry customer Photo: Danielle Gardner/STNG
Our entire staff at Xtracycle commutes to work by bike. Some of us ride over 10 miles and that means multiple opportunities for glass to become buddies with our tires and inner tubes. On top of that, our HQ are in North Oakland and sometimes our fellow neighbors like to use the street as a testing ground for seeing how well glass bottles bounce.
In the spirit of Bike to Work Day/Week/Month/Year we wanted to help improve our fellow commuters commute by cleaning up the glass and various trash we encounter on our ride to work. We hope you find the time to wake up a little earlier to sweep up the shards of sadness on our streets.
A long time Xtracycler wrote to RootsRadicals recently asking for help on getting his Whatchamacollars (WMC) fitted over his Big Dummy uprights. We mention in the WMC instructions to use a liberal amount of grease on the contact faces for installation, and also suggest using a large flat head screwdriver to gently pry the bottom clamp open. The reason the WMC is such a tight fit on the Big Dummy is due to Surly’s use of a slightly larger upright tube diameter, roughly 1mm larger than the FreeRadical uprights.
Unfortunately, using the screwdriver method has the chance to mar the WMC faces and can cause scratching of the Big Dummy uprights when installing. We asked around to see if people have found a solution to this problem and Nick Sande, product control at Surly Bicycles, sent us these photos.
Using a nickle between the lower clamp you can screw in the bolt, start on the threaded side of the WMC, and slowly screw the bolt into the nickle. This allows the clamp to expand as you tighten, thus opening the clamp the extra millimeter or two. You can also use this technique with the upperclamp if fitting the V-racks into the WMC proves difficult. And we still suggest using grease to ensure a smooth installation.
Sorry, again, for the hassle, hope this fix works for you and your Big Dummy.
Week two with the Big Dummy: Honey, can I borrow the truck? Jess took the BD so she could bike pool with the coworker she’s trying to convert. Things went pretty well and a good time was had by all.
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