Friday, September 18, 2009

Cargo, and Electric Cargo Bicycles

These were interesting articles. I think you will like them, although there is quite a bit of information here, and you won't be able to read through them in a minute or two... or if you do, you have scary good reading abilities.

The lady that is writing this has several small kids and routinely commutes to work on her bike. She does a lot of shopping, and kid transporting as well. One really interesting thing that she said was that riding and electric bike is often considered cheating by regular bikers. She was in a relay type race on her non-electric mountain bike, and worried that she would let her team down as she might not be as highly conditioned..... but it turned out that because she rode her bike day in and day out, and pedaled all the while, that she was a strong member of the team, and was never passed by another rider. Persistence and consistency - again!

A Quiet Revolution in Bicycles: Recapturing a Role as Utilitarian People-Movers (Part I)
A Quiet Revolution in Bicycles: Recapturing a Role as Utilitarian People-Movers (Part II)

Have fun. I doubt that we will go electric in our little flat town, but it is good to know about. There is a lot of information in the second part on parts, motors, options, controllers, etc.

One thing that keeps me from riding a bike to work is the worry of riding along the highway. She mentions in Part II that a bike route really isn't the same as a car route. Usually a biker will want a lower speed, lower traffic road. We find this is true when we are tooling around in Delta. Back streets, school yards, alleys all give us a road without competition with the cars.

Thursday, September 10, 2009