Been a LONG time since I've posted anything.

So I thought this would be a good time to mention a 4-day cycling event in my hometown.  The High Point Cycling Classic is the US National Criterium Race taking place in downtown High Point, NC, Saturday evening, July 27.







www.hpcyclingclassic.com

Follow the link for all the info.  Co-happening with the Crit races is the 4-day event:

" “The Bicycle: Art meets Form” is an inaugural celebration of the art of cycling that, in its various facets, presents a unique event for those passionate about the craft and history of fine lightweight bicycles… both vintage and modern. On this weekend, the most respected craftsmen and aficionados will join to display, discuss, analyze, ride and enjoy this special "tool" known as the bicycle."



There will be food / beer / wine, KidZone play area, Bike Swap meet, charity rides, Kids' ride on the race course with the Pro's, art exhibit celebrating the bicycle, movies, and a general festival environment for the whole family to enjoy.

Come if you can.  Meet some folks who really enjoy the bicycle in all of its forms and functions.

Brainstorming ways to get others on their bikes

So it's been a couple of months since I got my Yuba. I'm enjoying riding around carrying stuff and making a few shopping trips here and there. Lots of folks have asked me questions about it, and I try to keep some cards or stickers on hand that advertise Cycle9 so maybe they can get some more business, create a new cargo-cyclist, create some more business, and on and on.

Lately, however, I've been thinking how great it would be to have a semi-organized ride on Saturday mornings or afternoon to go to the local Farmer's Market. Every weekend in my area from June through September there is some kind of charity ride or race with a variety of routes that include the century crowd and the 25- to 35-mile crowd. That's great for people that want the competition or the joy of helping out the Charities. I'm curious if there are folks who would enjoy a leisurely ride to the farmer's market to get some healthy exercise and carry back some fine locally-grown food to provide healthy eating choices for their families. For me, it would be fun to have a group ride (safety in numbers) to get in a dozen or so miles of riding, plus the fun family time of cruising around the Farmer's Market and checking out the goods.

Another thing I've considered is an informal guided tour of the local Greenways. Many people I run into have no idea about how many miles there are, or where they go, or what's near the Greenways that might be interesting. It makes me curious how many MORE people would ride if they knew what venues were readily available and how nicely kept they are.

Another useful trip I've considered is using a bicycle to pickup food for the local Open Door Ministry. They serve hundreds of meals twice a day, and they must surely need the ingredients for those meals to come from someplace. It's about 10 miles from the Open Door to the Farmer's Market, so it could easily be pedaled, and using a cargo bike, easily transport big boxes of produce and fruits back. I wonder how interested some of the homeless folks would be in earning a bike by making that ride several times during the week, to bring back food to the place where they eat. Maybe an opportunity there, get some non-profit or a local philanthropist to donate cargo bikes for use by the people to help bring in their own food. Hmmm. Interesting.

Ride of Silence

I rode in the local Ride Of Silence on the 20th. Here's a link to local coverage: http://tinyurl.com/rideofsilence09news14

You can see me, in the video of riders, very briefly ride by with my VA Tech jersey on.

I hope you all had the opportunity to participate in this type of Ride in your locale. I think it's very important to try and raise awareness of motorists. One nagging question about the Ride is this: when we're riding en mass through the streets, and somebody on the sidewalk or in their yard yells out "hey what are you doing" or "what is this for" we really can't yell back "it's the Ride of Silence to honor cyclists who have been injured or killed by Motorists!"

That's unfortunate. Because I think many of the people who see a few hundred cyclists, escorted by Police --thank you Greensboro Police Department-- riding down the street are genuinely interested in what it's all about. I heard some guy tell the kid beside him on the sidewalk "that's that critical mass thing." Wrong. It's not at all like critical mass. I hope the Ride Of Silence never gets the bad press that Critical Mass rides seem to pick up. I've ridden in three of Ride Of Silence events. I think next year I'll make it a point to curl off from the group and provide a little education to interested onlookers. I might even suggest to our local organizing group that we provide some little cards that we could hand off to people, not pepper the streets like a ticker-tape parade, but individually hand them to people who show interest. We even had a group of three kids that fell in line and rode with us for a mile or so. It was two kids on BMX-style bikes with another kid riding on the rear pegs of one bike. None of them had helmets, but at least they were interested. Again, most of us kept quiet even though they asked repeatedly what this was all about. We rode right by a huge "celebration in the park" in the downtown area where one of the local news shows was celebrating a "birthday" and had a bunch of tents and stuff about two blocks from our start/finish point. There were numerous opportunities to promote the Ride if we had something to hand out, since we weren't supposed to talk once the Ride started. One other option might be to ride around the local ballpark. Our local team had a home game on Wednesday night, started at 7:05, and the park is just a few blocks from the start/finish point. That's my very small gripe. We may have missed some opportunities to make a greater impact. Overall I really enjoyed the Ride and certainly enjoyed seeing all the cyclists out on such a wonderful evening. The temps were just right, with not much wind. The route was great, and the Police made it go very smoothly for us.

If you get the opportunity to participate next year, please do. The more cyclists seen on the road, the better our steel-clad bretheren will be acclimated to moving in concert with cyclists, rather than in opposition.

Pulled the Trigger! I joined the cargo cyclists.

I finally did it, after months of contemplation, research and living vicariously through others on the 'net, I've bought my first cargo bike. I got a Yuba Mondo from my friends at Cycle9 in Carrboro, NC...a stone's throw from UNC - Chapel Hill.

My reasons for choosing the Yuba are as follows:

Wanted a bike that could easily handle the load of two kids - nearly 100 pounds total presently.

Wanted solid frame, rather than a two-piece item.

Wanted least expensive that met the above needs.

I had rented a yuba last fall that came equipped with a front hub-motor. It was a nice setup but a little heavy and seemed like it had a noticeable amount of drag when not using the motor for assist. A motorized Yuba with a good long-life battery would have cost too much money for me to spend right now, so I went with the out-of-the-box basic 6spd model, from 2008. That saved me a little money, and some wait time for the 2009. So now I'm hooked! This thing rocks.

My son and I have already taken our maiden voyage, a short trip of about 2 miles to our nearby Greenway, then another mile or two on the Greenway and back to the house. It was great. He loved it, and wants to do it every night now. He's 50 pounds, so the uphills are a little slow with my old engine and pistons, but I can do it without getting off and walking, so it can only get better from here.

Here's a pic (on my poor phone-cam) that shows the cool gazebo and lake where we stopped to throw / skip some rocks in the water.

You aficionado's of the Yuba will note the Xtracycle FreeRadical bags on there. Right, they don't fit exactly the same way on the Yuba's rack as on the xtra V-racks. I bought a used set of these for about $60, and I took a hint from someone on the RootsRadical forum, and found an old 2 ft. wooden dowel lying in the garage, put the FreeRad loops up through the Yuba's frame and slid the rod/dowel through the loops on top of the Yuba's top rack. It holds just fine, and the buckle straps at the bottom corners of the FreeRad wrap around the bottom bars of the Yuba's lower racks. My son can put his feet in the FreeRad bags which helps assuage the fear of him getting his feet caught in the spokes - which he did last year with the rented one, due to a father-son error in judgement on the fitness of our home-made seating contraption. Live, hurt, learn. It's part of being a boy/man. As my colleague at work likes to say, "you gotta be tough when you're dumb."

So, at about 1/3 the cost of a Big Dummy, I have a steel 440-pound capacity cargo bike that I can easily fit a toddler and a 7 yr-old on, and still have room to load stuff and use my bike instead of my motor-vehicle to go places. I don't have to think about fancy components to satisfy my "build" and I think there are some fine plans for Do-It-Yourself seating arrangements that will pass the new safety inspector (mom.) I've sent one of the FreeRads to our friendly neighborhood seamstress to see if she could open the loops and create some type of closure for them, so I can maybe ditch the dowel. I'll use them both for awhile and determine which method of attachment works the best.

I won't win any speed records, but I never did before on any other bike, so I can live with that. Getting the family involved in some Pedal-powered activities is what I'm after.

I'll try to post a little more regularly now that I've got something to talk about. :) And I'll get some better pics up of the two attachment methods.

Longbikes at Interbike

Here are the Longbikes I have been able to find on the 'Net that were at Interbike.

If you've seen others, especially new this year, post links in the comments please.

Top Left = Kona Ute Right Side = Gary Fisher El Ranchero
Center Left = Surly Big dummy
Bottom Left = Yuba Mundo

Here's one more, maybe my favorite before riding the others, due to evRANSgelism:


This is the RANS Hammer Truck. Note the crankforward format, like my RANS Street, and the similarity to xtracycle construction of the rear rack. I've read that it's not xtracycle products but RANS will try to make use of X products where appropriate.






It looks like the bike industry is starting to get that people want to haul stuff and people with them. I'm all for that.

I'll get some more info up as soon as possible, that El Ranchero Concept bike looks very cool, and has a built-in seat and stoker bars even the passenger doesn't get to pedal.

Street Smarts

Here are some photos from my local Greenway with the Rans Street:

It sports the Rans Rear Rack, Avid BB7's, Nitto albatross bars and the polished riser spun 'round toward the rider.





















These are pix from my phone, so they aren't as clear as I'd like. The photos certainly don't do the metallic red color justice. It is quite a good looking frame, even it there were no other components on it.

I've been on a couple of "training rides" in preparation for the Tour To Tanglewood MS150 Ride, in Central North Carolina. We'll ride 90 miles over two days with a wonderful campout after the first 45 miles. The rest of my rides have been mostly along this greenway, which I can get to by cutting through a couple of nearby subdivisions, where I can easily make a 10-15 mile ride from my door to the greenway and back without having to load it up in the car. I like being able to ride my bike to my favorite riding area. My goals now are to get my city to provide spurs off this greenway to make it more utilitarian, that is to give cyclists destinations they need and want to ride to IN ADDITION to the picturesque ribbon that rolls quietly through a dozen miles of a large city and winds through several Industrial/Office parks. I'm also working on an idea to get a local University to start a "borrow-a-bike" plan like the ones I've read about at Ripon College and Duke University.

The Rans Street is a wonderful platform. There have been no comfort issues, no soreness aside from muscle soreness from healthy use, and I've ridden more this year so far than I have in the last 15 more years combined. That's what the Crankforward format can do. For people who have found typical mountain bikes and road bikes to be uncomfortable, the Rans design offers a true alternative that's similar enough to the standard upright bicycle that you have no learning curve! People who have taken my Street for a ride have come back smiling talking about how easy it is to ride. It's the joy of cycling like when you were a kid, without having the kid's body.

More folks on bikes around here. Life is Good, or at least Better.

I see more people on bikes these days around my town. Mostly they're not the lycra-wearing, riding-for--fitness types. The new folks I see are riding cheaper bikes, mostly mountain bikes, from non-bike-shop venues. The big box stores are selling more bikes looks like to me. I'm not really a bike snob; but I see some problems with bikes and their riders. The bikes are not well-fitted to the riders. The bikes are mostly equipped with fat, knobby tires. The riders have no idea how to adjust the handlebars, the seat height, the seat angle, or even to install the wheels properly with a quick-release lever. I saw a group of three riders trying to put a rear wheel in on one of the bikes and they said it had fallen out 3 TIMES ALREADY on that ride. I showed them how it worked and they thanked me. I wondered how many bikes are sold in the big box store without even a 10-second presentation on how to work the bike.

I see older people (ok my age or a few years older...40 to 50) riding flashy new mountain bikes riding down the sidewalk or shakily starting out across the intersection at the wrong time against the lights. They're all bent over, knees higher than their butts, reaching way too far to the bars. I can't imagine how they think that is what cycling is about. I just want to stop and chat with them about the sizing and differences between bicycle types. If I can start up a conversation with them, I usually tell them about some good websites they can visit, I wish I had a little business card printed up with the site URLs and some little pictures. Not everybody can visit websites, or surf the internet effectively. Surprise.

Maybe the best approach is to ride around and look for these "new cyclists" and provide some assistance/leadership in the cycling community. I'd say almost any of these "plain-clothed" cyclists could use a quick review of how to install a wheel or how to adjust the seat to a reasonably good height. Mentioning the good karma of carrying a few tools and a tube, even if you don't know what to do with them, is a good idea. If they get stuck on the side of the road or bike path, at least a good Samaritan could help using their own tools and stuff.

Of course, the next obvious thing about these new riders is their total lack of any provision to carry stuff. I see them riding down the street w/ a plastic bag swinging from their hands/handlebars. They swerve and jerk down the road looking like an accident waiting to happen. Few of them wear a helmet. Most of them have pants legs dangling down in the pedal/chain/wheel area. It's painful to watch.

If you tell them there's a better way to secure stuff and ride, then in the next breath you say it costs $400 for the Xtracycle on top of the cost of their bike, or $900 for the Yuba Mundo, or $1900 for a complete Big Dummy, they look at you like you just landed from Mars. I bet that Tahoe/Suburban/Explorer/Armada sitting at the house in their driveway costs about that much in two months. Where is the button you push to change a person's version of value? I read an article regarding the servitude of Americans to their cars where the average American pays $378 / month on their car payment. That doesn't count the gas, the insurance, the upkeep, the washing, or any other stuff you put in it.

Looks like we've got a long way to go to use the bikes we have for more utility purposes. Just parking the car doesn't help that much, we need to sell it, and buy something more appropriate.