We already have seen the impact of Cargo Bikes. Have you?
Check out this post on Grist.org
6 Reasons Why Cargo Bikes Are The Next Big Thing
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Tag Archives: commuting
You Won’t Believe What This 80-Year-Old Did on Her Bike Friday
EDITOR’S NOTE: It has been nearly five years since Dolores McKeough sent us this email, reminding us that it’s never too late to chase your dreams!
Hi, I got home 24 hours ago.
What a fantastic, beautiful summer. The adventure, fun, stress, friends made, country seen, and on and on.
The trip started innocently enough with friend Cathy in Tampa on April 3. It ended yesterday after I biked from Malibu where I was camping with three companions, whom I met in Big Sur, to Santa Monica where I folded my Bike Friday into it’s suitcase (after I took the wheels off since it had been serving as my trailer).
So many good things happened on this extravaganza trip including the folding experience in Santa Monica. I didn’t want to disassemble the bike on the beach, although it was a beautiful day, there was too much sand.
So, I went to the REI store where Robbie, the bike repair manager, suggested I use part of his work space. What a generous offer. I took him up on it and had the trailer wheels and attachment off in no time. I then folded the bike (taking the accessories off is the most time consuming part of the process) and put it in the suitcase (the former trailer).
The suitcase with the bike weighed in at 52 pounds at the airport (even though it was two pounds over the allowance Suncountry let it go). My duffle bag with camping stuff, clothes etc weighed in at 28 pounds. And, I had two carry-ons.
So I figure the bike plus all my stuff was about 85 pounds. That’s a lot of weight to ride across the country and partly up and down two coasts. But, I did it and feel great.
I just added it up! I think I rode about 1,000+ miles from Mt. Dora, Florida, to Williamsburg, Virginia; then 4,500 TransAm miles from Richmond, Virginia, to Florence, Oregon; then 1,100 miles from Florence to Santa Monica California.
That’s 6,600 miles on my Bike Friday with 85 pounds, from April 3 til August 29. That impresses even me.
As you know it is not simply the miles that count but the terrain, the road surface, the elevation, the weather …
It was wonderful. The picture was taken North of San Francisco. Note the long sleeves; the weather did not warm up til Santa Barbara.
Dolores
Win a Haul-a-Day on Bicycle Times
Jordan and Eli Bishko won the Family Division of the Eugene Disaster Relief Trials on a Haul-a-Day in 2015.
Do you feel lucky? Do you feel like a winner? Would you like that to be you in the photo on your new Haul-a-Day?
Check out the Win a Haul-a-Day contest on Bicycle Times
You only have one week to enter. Good luck!
7 Steps to Buying a Bike on a Budget
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Before opening Bike Friday in 1992, Co-Founder Alan Scholz owned and operated a few bike shops, and spent time as a national level racer. Here are his expert tips on how to spend your money wisely when buying a bike.]
By Alan Scholz
Here are the basics I learned long ago about buying a bike on a budget, in order of importance.
1. Make sure you get a good frame in the right size. Get help making sure the frame fits your body by someone who is knowledgeable about fitting. Look for the best frame you can afford for the right type of riding you plan to do. Nothing else matters as much if you are on a budget. Everything else can be upgraded later if you are short on funds. Good designers, cyclists, and shop employees know this. It’s a good test of their basic knowledge.
2. Ride the saddle if it came with the bike just long enough to see if you can put up with it. If the bike does not come with saddle and pedals, thank the designer. That means they invested that money into the frame and wheels for you! Get a saddle that works for you — it is worth the individual focus. Price and weight are not good criteria to use to choose a saddle. You need to test ride a number of saddles and buy one that is acceptable.
After you have been riding a while, you will be ready to trade up to a better saddle. When your butt is new to cycling, an acceptable saddle is as good as it gets. When you can ride 15-25 miles a day regularly get a nice saddle if you feel you need a different shape. Don’t believe anyone who says “this is a men’s saddle, or this is a women’s saddle.” Get one that fits and feels good. Ignore the rest.
3. If you can afford it, get a good set of wheels. After getting a frame that fits, wheels that are relatively light will give you by far the most bang for your buck.
4. If you are pushing your budget, buy cheap heavy tires. You will be replacing tires eventually, and then you can get some good tires. Wearing out tires will happen sooner than you think. That’s when you can buy better tires. You will be best served to really enjoy your bike, although frame and wheels will do the most toward that goal.
5. Next change your steel stuff out for entry level alloy if you must limit funds. Steel chainrings, brakes, seatposts, and derailleurs are a dead give away that they are sub-standard for someone who wants to be a real rider and can afford more than the minimum frame and wheels. They may work fine but they were put there to save money and they are heavy. Your motor cannot be changed. Weight matters. Used parts are often a good choice, but you need to really know parts design. Brand is not always a clear indicator. Ask a knowledgeable friend or expert consultant.
6. If your ship has come in, you can be picky but not arrogant about parts and prices. People who ”buy” into the sport usually do not become good nor happy cyclists. The most pricey and light gear will not perform for you out of the box if you have not already gained top level skills to utilize and appreciate them. From the experience in my shop days starting hundreds of folks to cycling, it takes as a minimum, three progressively better bikes as an adult to get to the top level, best for you. It doesn’t matter how much money you have.
7. Full Custom is usually not available or understandable to you until the third level of bike and thousands of miles. Small custom builders must charge 2-5 times as much as off the shelf mass produced bikes. If you do not know that they still mostly make less than minimum wages doing so, you will not appreciate their output anyway. Your best choice then is to buy an off the shelf imported bike and think you got a good deal. All small manufacturing concerns, one person to 60 people are squeezed by this math. Imports are cheaper because the factories are larger and they have the economies of scale. But they often also practice a lack of respect for good design that a small custom builder will have. Inexpensive or dear, a bike can serve you well if you take the time to choose. Take a ride with the local bike club and you will find there are far more important skills than a full wallet to keep up.
Bicycle Times Haul-a-Day review
The February 2015 issue of Bicycle Times has hit the newsstands, bike shops and homes, and it has their review of the Haul-a-Day in it. Check it out!
Reviewer Adam Newman says:
“I enjoyed the practicality of the Haul-a-Day because when unloaded it didn’t have the massive cruise-liner feeling that many cargo bikes have. The majority of the long-tail bikes I see here in Portland are ridden by women with children on the back, and Bike Friday says it is targeting these customers with a bike that is lighter, more maneuverable and less intimidating than a “full-size” cargo bike…
“That’s not to say it isn’t up to the task of serious carrying capacity. I used it to shuttle hundreds of wooden stakes around a cyclo-cross course and the saddlebags easily accommodated the extra-long cargo. As further proof of its bonafides, the Haul-a-Day made a splash at the Portland Disaster Relief Trials, a day-long competition for cargo bikes and riders to simulate the (sometimes crazy) support that a human-powered machine can provide when disasters strike. Tasks include carrying a wooden pallet, five-gallon buckets of water, and a carton of eggs. Bike Friday engineer Willie Hatfield took the win on a Haul-a-Day with a wild paint job.”
Here is Adam’s online review
Test Ride a Haul-a-Day in Chicago!
Bike Friday is proud to announce we will have two new dealers in Chicago, Green Machine Cycles and J.C. Lind Bicycle Company.
The Haul-a-Day is available for test rides now at Green Machine Cycles.
J.C. Lind will have a Haul-a-Day soon!
Haul-a-Day offers solution
Here’s a blog post from Ride Adelaide Cyclists in South Australia about choosing the Haul-a-Day as a solution to transport children.
One Customer’s Bike Friday Experience
A fleet of eight Family Tandems sat in the Bike Friday Showroom awaiting delivery to the Northwest Association of Blind Athletes.
Want to know what it’s like to stop by Bike Friday to check out folding, travel and cargo bikes?
Read this blog! It’s called HinesSight: How Things Look Through Oregonian’s Eyes
Just Deserts
The desert scenery swept into my view like the opening scenes of a good old fashion Cowboy Movie.
The subtle pastel colors of sand and towering Saguaro cactus against a brilliant, nearly cloudless blue sky felt as comforting as an old pair of jeans.
As my tires left the hum of pavement behind and dug into the sandy gravel with a confident crunch, all my senses spiked, like coming home again. Sights. Sounds. Smells.
I’ve been lucky enough to pedal the Haul-a-Day up the hellish grades of Seattle down at Pike Place Market, zip along with traffic through San Francisco’s busy Market Street, and enjoy Eugene’s Willamette River Bike Path.
While the bike certainly appears perfectly suited for those typical urban challenges, those trials don’t necessarily mesh with my true dreams.
No, my idea for a Haul-a-Day is out and away from the places most people would envision for a Cargo Bike.
So during my week-long stay in Arizona for El Tour de Tucson in November, I got the opportunity to take a Haul-a-Day for a spin on my terms.
That meant four hours of riding the bike path until it ends and hitting the open roads to head out of town, away from humanity, heading for the hills.
Since people often ask about how far you can ride any of our Bike Fridays, I wanted to give it a real test. The endurance test.
Any bike can feel good for a block or two. Or a mile or two.
Once minutes turn to hours, I feel the true test of a bike begins.
Let me toss in right here that I spend most my riding hours on a Bike Friday Llama, previously donned with 2-inch Schwalbe Big Apple tires that have been replaced by 2.2-inch Maxxis Holy Rollers with knobbies. To summarize, light bikes with low friction don’t appear on my radar screen. Results may vary for others.
Aside from the fact I was riding on flat pedals instead of my usual clipless pedals and shoes, the ride was as good as any. As Bike Friday dealer Mike Jacoubowsky said when he returned from a short test ride with the Haul-a-Day, “It has that smooth Bike Friday ride.”
When the road began to rise, I thought, like many, it would be a chore to lug this much bike uphill (the Haul-a-Day starts around 32 pounds, and with everything on my version including my load, it was probably pushing 40 pounds). It didn’t feel that way. That my tires were a slick 1.75 (thin for me) might have had a lot to do with that. Still, it felt sweet. Smooth.
Bouncing on and off the gravel on the side of the road proved to be a breeze (one of the reasons I like wider tires — giving me the ability to make a quick dive if necessary, and yes, I did have to do that way out in the desert). The longer wheelbase took away the chaotic sensation of hitting gravel. I felt totally in control.
By the time I rolled back into town, I had a new goal. Get way out, and way away.
On my drive back to Phoenix, the Saguaro National Park offered the perfect opportunity.
I parked at the Visitor’s Center (I’ll insert here that a Haul-a-Day fits perfectly in the back of minivan without having to take off wheels or shorten the handlebars or saddle) and pedaled back down the road to the dirt Bajada Loop.
As soon as I hit the dirt, my regard for the Haul-a-Day launched into the sky like a rocket.
Although the 1.75 tires weren’t quite wide enough for the deepest gravel and sand sections, the bike performed better than I expected.
Riding down the roller-coaster hills felt more like being on a toboggan as a kid back in Wisconsin. Charging up the hills felt normal, although I mistakenly expected the weight on the back rack would help give me a little more traction than a typical mo9untain bike would.
As I rode I could imagine my camping gear strapped to the back, and my black lab running alongside. That’s my Haul-a-Day vision.
Bike Friday IT Recycles on Haul-a-Days
Members of the Bike Friday IT department, left to right, are Walter Lapchynski, Noah Young and Eamon Walker.
When it came time to back up their talk with action, Bike Friday’s IT department looked to their Haul-a-Days.
With an every growing pile of old technology equipment piling up, a trip to Next Step Recycling was in order. Enter the Haul-a-Days.
The IT boys packed up three Haul-a-Days to the gills with used equipment.
Walter made good use of the front frame mounted plate.Then they hit the road.
