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.
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.
The snobbiest cyclist out there lashes Surly’s Big Dummy Xtracycle cargo bicycle after a 6-month ownership:
I do, however, want and need to carry crap, and the Big Dummy immediately proved to be very capable in this regard. In fact, I was surprised to discover that it soon seemed indispensable to me.
Of course, the only thing that makes this decadent orgy of cycling smugness possible is that I have a relatively safe place to store this bicycle at street level, which is not the case for many people in big cities (unless you’re a wealthy person with a hyphenated name–even in 21st century bike-friendly New York, smugness is a luxury). Also, while I’m comfortable trawling the streets of Brooklyn with it and even locking it up occasionally, the stock Big Dummy is an expensive bicycle, and it’s too lavishly-appointed to leave unattended in a place like Manhattan for long periods of time. For the same functionality (assuming you have the room), you can obviously bolt an Xtracycle to a crappy old mountain bike, or just get the Big Dummy frame if you’re one of those people with a bunch of spare parts, since it’s got provisions and braze-ons for pretty much everything.
Read the full review atBike Snob NYC.
Snag your Big Dummy here.
On our RootsRadicals Yahoo! Group, poppamando shared with us this little diddy. Enjoy!
Thinking about getting the Peapod LT, thinking about the BP oil spill in the Gulf, apologies to the Beatles…
Asked my girl what she wanted to be. She said Daddy, can’t you see? I wanna be healthy, have planet that’s clean, But you can do something in between…
Daddy you can ride a bike. Pedal power’s what I like. Daddy you can ride a bike, and we can be car free. Ding ding a ling ling, yeah!
Told my girl that my prospects were good
she said Daddy, it’s understood.
A clean environment is more than just fine,
It gives me a chance to live a long time.
Daddy you can ride a bike. Pedal power’s what I like. Daddy you can ride a bike, and we can be car free. Ding ding a ling ling, yeah!
I told my girl I can start right away
When she said listen Dad I got something to say
Just one less car is a fantastic start,
and lets get our friends to take on their part.
Friends you can ride a bike. Bad balance? You can get a trike. Friends you can ride a bike, and we can be Oil free. Ding ding a ling ling, yeah!
Bike When You Can blog
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