Category Archives: cargo

April 13, 2012 · 7:13 am

Bungee net: best bicycle accessory ever?

Bungee net unscrunched (with business envelope for scale)

For a long time we were hacking our way through carrying stuff on our bike. If it fit in a pannier: great. If it didn’t: not so great. We started experimenting with bungee cords when we carried our Christmas tree home on the Kona MinUte. But things slid around. The Christmas tree was okay with enough cords, but a bag of groceries or a box of CSA vegetables was a disaster.

I don’t remember why I thought to try a bungee net. It may have been during the period when I was scouring Amazon for any recommended bicycle accessory that would help us carry things. (I have an Amazon Prime membership through work, and during this time I tested the patience of both my office receptionist and of Amazon’s generous return policy.) I think the bungee net cost maybe $6. It is possibly the best money I’ve ever spent on my bicycle.

Yet another day when I overestimated my pannier and ended up with an extra bag of groceries: bungee net to the rescue

Most of my grocery shopping happens at work—there are three grocery stores within walking distance, hooray for urban living, and they are never crowded on weekdays at lunch time. But I tend to overestimate my ability to carry groceries on the bike, even if I remember a second pannier, and frequently ended up putting the bike on the shuttle and carrying a couple of bags of groceries and some boxes on board. This is a hassle and the timing never worked well. Enter the bungee net.

I have yet to discover the limits of my bungee net. We have used it to carry a box containing 20 pounds of apples on the rack, various bulky items including a bulk pack of pull-ups (when the preschool still demanded them for naps), and I strap paper grocery bags directly to the rack when I go out of town and come home to discover that no one has been to the store in my absence so we need milk and fruit and vegetables and cheese and yogurt and cereal and bread. We used it once to hold a balance bike on the MinUte deck. Nothing has ever fallen off, except for one time when we neglected to use all four hooks.

Bungee net rolled up for travel, usually in one of my pockets

Now I think that every bicycle should come standard with a bungee net, maybe as a gift with purchase. Some of my more intrepid co-workers have used one to strap items directly to their bicycle frames. I carry mine on trips where I’m not sure I’ll be riding a bicycle, just in case. Is it the best bicycle accessory ever? It’s definitely in contention.

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April 6, 2012 · 8:55 am

Destinations: Splendid Cycles

Little shop, big idea

I really had no idea what to expect when I visited Splendid Cycles. You can’t tell much about a bike shop will be like from a website (assuming one exists), although you can get a sense of what they sell. And I liked what they were selling. Joel, one of the owners, seemed pretty nice when I emailed him (and turned out to be just as nice in person). Yet visiting the store made it clear how much I have been missing by relying on the internet to learn about cargo bikes.

The average bike shop I have visited tries to have something for everyone, and that often means aiming directly at the market of people who are thinking about getting a bike for the first time. But it is fairly difficult to hit the price point that novices think is reasonable for a new bike (as I’ve mentioned before, based on talking to non-riders, of which there are many up the hill in my neighborhood, that price is: $100). But almost all bike shops seem to have a few bikes near the front door in the $300 range or so, not too overwhelming for the perennially broke college student, but a pretty stripped-down machine by any measure. The other day while chasing down my daughter in a bike shop I overheard a family discussing why two bikes that to their eyes looked identical were priced at $350 and $700 respectively. Like me several months ago, they had no idea.

Ahearne Cycle Truck: not a kid-carrier, but hauls other cargo

However cargo bikes are more expensive than other bikes. At their cheapest, new cargo bikes run about $1,000. The price difference reflects the fact that these bikes are capable of doing much more than carrying a student around campus. When you’re hauling real weight, on other places than the seat, everything has to be somewhat higher quality and differently designed, or you end up like my colleagues who tried to put child seats on their bikes and immediately broke all their spokes. And as cargo bikes become more capable, and as you add more accessories, like child seats and cargo bags, their prices rapidly rocket past that $1000 mark even for the least expensive models.

(As with everything else, handy people have more options. People who feel comfortable working on bikes can pick up bikes or trailers or Xtracycle FreeRadicals on craigslist and turn them into something greater than the sum of their parts. I admire their skill, but I’m not one of these people. And I would guess that in this I’m like most parents, unless by happy coincidence they happen to be bike mechanics or living with one.)

Big Dummy with BionX: definitely a family-friendly bike (also: seating for visitors, nice touch)

Which brings me to Splendid Cycles, because it is the only bike shop I’ve ever seen that is exclusively selling bikes that replace family cars, but that still retain most of the advantages of ordinary bicycles. For our lives right now, visiting Splendid Cycles was a revelation.  We don’t use our bikes just to noodle around the park on weekends (although that’s fun too), we use them to move ourselves and our stuff and our kids around town. I had always assumed that this required certain compromises: going more slowly, adding after-market accessories to make a Franken-bike, giving up going up and down hills, or being unable to get the bike inside if you live above ground floor. You can get a heavy Dutch bike if you live on the ground floor, in the flats, and don’t mind going slowly. Or you can cobble together family bikes from child seats and odds and ends like we’ve done and maneuver through traffic and actually make it up real hills, slowly, if you’re strong. Or you can go to Splendid Cycles and be blown away by seeing a dozen bikes that don’t require you to make those compromises.

Metrofiets cargo bikes

Splendid Cycles carries Metrofiets cargo bikes, which I had heard of but never seen in person before. As cool as they are, I realized immediately when I saw them that a Metrofiets would never fit through our narrow basement door. (Less than one minute in the shop and I’d already justified a trip across Portland.) The Winther Wallaroo looked even better for carrying kids, with outstanding seating, but had the same problem from my perspective: unlikely to make it into our basement. They carry Ahearne Cycle Trucks, which look pretty clever for carrying cargo but are not really designed to carry kids, so those aren’t our bikes either.

They had a Big Dummy, which is designed to haul kids, among other things, and another one of which I used to carry my own kids across Seattle a week later.

Bullitts, both with and without child seat

And rounding out the kid carriers, they had a bike I’d never seen before, the Bullitt. From the perspective of a city rider, this is probably the most interesting bike they sell. The Bullitt is narrow and lightweight; even with the child seat on it could probably be carried it up a flight of stairs. It can make it through traffic pinch points and climb hills. It is not perfect for our needs; the narrow child compartment probably limits its capacity to one of our (now older) kids. On the other hand, you could put a trailer-bike on the back (Joel’s great idea, not mine, he was full of them). It could be a great dad bike, but I can’t imagine riding it while pregnant; it does not have a step-through frame. But if you’re done having kids it would be something to consider.

Wallaroos, rigged for all-weather riding

Walking into Splendid Cycles opened an incredible sense of possibility; there were so many bikes we’d never imagined that could do what we wanted them to do. Our kids would have loved this shop; getting them out of a Wallaroo, once spotted, would be almost impossible. And to top it off, at Splendid Cycles they know a lot about electric assists, which make these bikes reasonable options for people who live on hills. I didn’t understand the strengths and limitations of the BionX and whether it could handle San Francisco elevations when I walked into Splendid Cycles. Now I do, and yes it can. Overall I learned more about both cargo bikes and electric assists in person at Splendid Cycles than I’d learned in hours of reading reviews. It was amazing to be able to talk to Joel, who wasn’t figuring this out as he went along like we’ve been; he’d already thought about what was involved in riding with kids or cargo in traffic and on hills and had put together a half-dozen bikes, which were sitting right there, with electric assists, to solve our kinds of problems.

This kind of expertise and fit for our needs comes at a price. And at one point that kind of price left me in shock, but I now realize that these bikes are worth it. They cost as much as the first car I drove, but that car was a junker, whereas these bikes are as reliable as bicycles can be.  Furthermore, the bikes are more practical for moving around the city than that car. These are true car replacements, except we’d never have to worry about parking again.

Thanks to Matt’s bike maintenance class, we’ve recently learned more about the compromises manufacturers have to make to get the price of cargo bikes down around $1,000 (crappy brakes, tires more likely to get flats, etc.), and we’re now spending money to upgrade the MinUte to become more like the bike we want. So in many cases it’s a choice between paying up front for quality or paying later for repairs and upgrades. There are legitimate reasons to choose one or the other, but it wasn’t a choice we realized we were making at the time.

From my perspective, Splendid Cycles isn’t a Portland destination so much as a destination in its own right. It would justify a trip to Portland by itself for the right family. I met a father from Eugene visiting the shop who’d decided just that. It was definitely worth visiting given that I was already in Portland.

Worth the trip

Joel pointed out that Oregon has no sales tax, and that having Splendid Cycles ship a bike somewhere would cost less than the sales tax in less enlightened locales. I am an employee of the state of California and thus feel guilty for even mentioning such a thing, but for less tormented souls, this is yet another reason to talk to Splendid Cycles about cargo bikes.

There are lots of reasons to be impressed by Portland’s bike culture, but its breadth still amazes me. I never imagined a bike shop like this could exist. Splendid Cycles has put all its chips on our kind of bicycles. It is a bet that the world will change to make space for many families like ours, and that one day hauling kids on bikes will be as unremarkable here in the US as it is in cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen. I don’t think this will happen here while our kids are young enough to ride on our bikes, and I am envious that Portland can support a shop like this. I wish there was a Splendid Cycles in every city.

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March 27, 2012 · 9:49 am

Electric assist: BionX PL350

Portland's bike shops make me want to gut myself in envy

I am not usually good at getting to the point, so let me try here: I am so buying the BionX.

Despite the fact that I have speculated about electric assist a lot, until this week I had never tried one. I knew enough to know that I wanted a pedelec system (which works only when you’re pedaling) rather than an off-on throttle (where pedaling is irrelevant). Otherwise I might as well just buy a scooter. I just want to be a little stronger, so that going uphill is less of a Bataan death march at the end of a long day, or to ride with my daughter to preschool.

Surly Big Dummy with BionX

So before I went to Portland I wrote to Splendid Cycles, knowing that they carried cargo bikes with electric assists. Joel, one of the owners, said I was welcome to take one of their bikes up a hill in Portland (and they do have some hills there). They could not have been nicer, all their bikes are amazing, and most of them would be appropriate for hauling kids and/or cargo up the side of a mountain. I ended up riding a Big Dummy with the BionX PL350, a system widely praised in reviews, apparently the most responsive of pedelec systems. It adds about 17 pounds to the bike, counting both the motor and the battery. (BionX also has a 15 pound version with comparable power and a longer battery life. It costs more.)

Todd on the Bullitt (I took this picture for his wife)

Joel rode an assisted Bullitt, which is very cool in its own right; it was the first box bike I’ve ever seen in person that I have thought would be practical in San Francisco, as it is lightweight and narrow (and fast). Because my kids were already in up in Washington with my mom, I was cargo-less. So I brought my friend Todd along. Todd and I went to grad school together and although we are both pretty junior he’s now the chair of his department at Lewis & Clark. Guess which one of us makes our advisers proud? But he remains a relentlessly good sport about the crazy things that I propose. At 145 pounds, Todd is cargo overkill, the equivalent of almost four kids. But better too much weight than too little; my kids are growing.

Todd doesn’t really ride bikes, so Joel carried him in the Bullitt while I was figuring out how to use the BionX on the way to the hills. And I carried him back to the shop on the Big Dummy.

Most of Portland, to my mind, is pretty flat. The neighborhood streets we first rode on certainly were; on those streets, on an unloaded Big Dummy, turning on the BionX was wildly entertaining, but hardly seemed necessary. You turn it up and you go a little faster. It’s like magically getting stronger without the bother of having to train. There are four levels on the way up, which are activated by pushing the + button. I perceived them as ranging from “I barely notice anything” to “I barely need to pedal.” There are also four levels in the other direction (push the – button), for regenerative braking to charge the battery a little; this was fun, because it meant that I barely needed to use the brakes.

And then we got to the first hill. Todd hopped off the Bullitt and onto the Dummy. From a dead start on an incline, I could barely move the bike. With the assist on level 1, we were moving slowly. And with it ramped up to level 4, getting both of us up the hill was like going up a slight incline with an unloaded bike. It was unbelievable. On the way down, the regenerative brakes slowed us to a crawl even though together with the bike we weighed ~350 pounds.

On the second, steeper, longer hill, still with Todd on board, I was already moving on the way up, and managed to make it about 100 (very painful) feet before I switched on the assist. Near the top of that hill I was back at level 4, moving pretty quickly, and laughing so hard I couldn’t speak. And it was at that point that I realized that I would, if necessary, give up almost anything else I owned to have this assist.

Although there are hills in Portland, the city has built switchback ramps to make the climbing easier. Let us take a moment and contemplate this.

The BionX doesn’t take the experience of hills away; it was still work to get up that second hill. But even with a person who weighs more than I do on the back, on a heavy bike, going up was manageable, and it didn’t make me want to die. It made we want to find an even bigger hill and storm up that one too. I didn’t want Todd to get back in the Bullitt; it was more fun to talk with him on the Dummy. He commented that the motor was completely silent. “If I didn’t know it was there,” he said, “I’d just think you had really strong legs.”

With Todd on board I ended up keeping the assist on level 1 or 2 for the stop signs, even on the flatter ride back. Starting a bike loaded with kids has always been slow for me; it takes time to get that much weight moving. But with the extra boost of the assist, we took off at the intersections at the pace of a racer.

The BionX has some quirks. Some of them are counter-intuitive. It is responsive to pressure on the pedals, so to get more assist on the way uphill, I learned to shift up to a higher gear. The harder I pushed, the harder the motor worked. This happens automatically at intersections, but on the hills sometimes I geared down low enough that I wasn’t getting as much help. I suspect gearing down to reduce the assist would actually be a useful way to train to ride hills unassisted if one were so inclined.

There is an awful lot going on at the right handlebar grip on a BionXed bike; occasionally I found myself changing the assist level when I meant to shift gears, or shifting gears when I’d intended to brake. I’m guessing that this kind of thing is temporary.

Finally, the motor cut out once. We were on a flat street, fortunately, and when I asked Joel what happened he said the sensor had jogged loose. He nudged it and the assist starting working again. There is a reason it is so twitchy, evidently, but I didn’t understand the explanation. However it is also apparently possible to set up the control so that it doesn’t cut out like that.

Todd drove me back downtown after our ride, patiently listening to me babble gibberish, which was something along the lines of “OMIGOD OMIGOD OMIGOD!!!” I couldn’t stop grinning, not even when I was sideswiped by a jogger on the walk back to the hotel. I found myself laughing randomly when I tried to explain what riding with the BionX was like to other people. I’m laughing now.

The BionX would change our lives. A lot of our remaining driving miles are, “No way am I riding up THAT hill” trips. Joel said he’d taken a fully loaded Bullitt+BionX up a 25% grade. We have a hill like that near home and we find alternative routes even when we’re driving. He noted that the BionX could get overheated on steep, extended climbs (>20 minutes) in hot weather, at which point it would reduce the assist level to protect the motor from overheating. But our hills are short and broken-up with stop lights, and it never gets hot in San Francisco. With really serious cargo loads an EcoSpeed would be better, but two kids and groceries are evidently not what people have in mind when they talk about serious cargo.

How much do I love this assist? I would have bought one on the spot if it would work on the Breezer, even if I had had to talk Splendid Cycles into prying one off of a bike in the shop. But I will have to give up my Breezer to use a BionX; it won’t work with an internally geared hub. That’s not going to happen right away—there’s the non-trivial issue of figuring out what bike to ride instead—but it is most assuredly going to happen.

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February 22, 2012 · 3:47 pm

Thinking about electric assist

Okay on the flats, but for the hills we'll need more power

If I could name the #1 thing that makes parents we know in San Francisco who’ve never attempted family biking perk up and say they want to try, it is the words “electric assist.” The other week I said those words in passing to another mom at our daughter’s preschool who has almost no experience riding. She has now told me every day that I’ve seen her since that she is hounding her husband to shop for an electric bike for them when he returns from his current business trip.

Discussions about riding bikes in San Francisco always involve hills, to some extent. This is especially the case if you live, as we do, on a mountain. Mt. Sutro: it’s right there in the name. It burns us, Precious! We’ve learned to ride them, but these hills aren’t easy. If we lived higher up the mountain like some of our neighbors, I would be riding an electric bike right now. Nonetheless hills are at least consistent. Unlike the wind or the traffic, they are predictable. They aren’t going anywhere. I keep thinking that people can get used to anything, but there are destinations in the city we avoid unless we’re driving. And there are times we give up. Last weekend Matt couldn’t face the prospect of riding to the hardware store, which is halfway up the other side of our hill, leaving him the unenviable choice of riding up and down and back, or down and up and back, or driving. Despite the hell that is finding parking in that neighborhood, he drove.

It's easier on the way down

Our friends have a Big Dummy to take their kids to school, and they live on Lone Mountain. They take their kids, their groceries, and on occasion each other, up Lone Mountain. And they tell me they push that bike a lot. They are philosophical about it and call it upper body training. They are opposed to many electric assists for environmental reasons, but they are the exception. Our friends who live on Potrero Hill or nearer the top of Mt. Sutro have said they’d be riding their bicycles daily if they had any idea how to arrange an assist. I myself had no idea. But our kids are getting heavier, and I think it’s time to learn. The only other semi-practical option was suggested by my brother-in-law, who noted that Lance Armstrong became a much better hill climber after getting cancer and losing 20 pounds. I suppose that I could conceivably hack weight off my own frame for a year or so at the same rate my kids were gaining without losing much leg strength. But as a woman in America I really don’t need any more reasons to obsess about body weight, and this strategy would only work for so long anyway.

Option #1a: Buy a new electric bike. There is a new shop (and some established ones) in San Francisco dedicated to electric bikes. But when I look at their bike lines, they do not seem practical for family use. Most seem to lack basics like rear racks, and overall remind me of the Bikeyface cartoon about “ordinary black lace panty” bikes (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Perhaps one day this will change.  But the word on dedicated electric bikes is that the bikes themselves are often cheaply made. To keep the price point less terrifying, the money is in the motor.

Option #1b: Buy a new electric cargo bike. Both Kona and Yuba make electric cargo bikes, the Electric Ute and the El Mundo, respectively. These are obviously suited to family use, and they are both respectable manufacturers who primarily make bikes rather than slapping some bike components onto a motor. These bikes are expensive relative to the non-electric versions (all electric bikes are expensive) but they seem to offer some economies of scale; the electric versions cost less than it would cost to buy a non-electric version and add a comparable motor to it. If you’re looking for a new cargo bike, these seem like competitive options. However we have a cargo bike that we like, and living in the city makes us reluctant to commit to a really long bike like the Ute or the Mundo.

Option 2: Add a motor to the bike. This is the direction we’re leaning if we electrify: we have bikes we like right now, and if we wanted to upgrade/change bikes later, we could move the motor, potentially sparing ourselves the cost of upgrading more than once. But the market for add-on electric assists is massively confusing to me. Older reviews suggest that some manufacturers offered pedal assist (e.g. BionX, Stokemonkey) and some offered throttle assist (e.g. eZee, nearly everyone else). Not sure what’s up with the random capitalization by these manufacturers. What that means as I read it:

  • pedal assist motors make you stronger as you pedal, but won’t work unless you’re pedaling
  • throttle assists operate with a switch on the handlebars and move the bike along whether or not you’re pedaling.

But evidently this is moot now because primarily pedal-assist motors now offer the option of moving your bike whether or not you’re pedaling (BionX) and primarily throttle assist motors now offer what some are calling “the European option” of only working when you’re pedaling (eZee), a term which I can only assume refers to some legal restriction on electric assist bikes in Continental locales. As a bonus, the major brands all seem to offer head and tail lights that plug into the battery. Whoo hoo!

As a result I have started thinking about electric assists in the simplest possible terms for a total noob like me: front wheel, back wheel, and inbetween.

Front wheel motors

You can buy these all over the place, including on Amazon; eZee is apparently the market leader. The El Mundo uses an eZee motor; some models are evidently powerful enough to move a loaded cargo bike. An important caution: You shouldn’t put a front wheel motor on an aluminum front fork. It will break while you’re riding and fling you headfirst onto the ground. GOOD TO KNOW! This is mentioned occasionally on sources like online bicycle forums and on the websites of what appear to be reputable electric bike shops, but is not routinely mentioned in the advertising for these motors. The electric assist market is a Wild West indeed.

Costs for these motors seem to range from $400 or so for a low-power version with heavy batteries (not cargo-bike friendly) to $1500 or so for a high-torque version with lighter weight batteries. Installation not included, and given that people are evidently mounting them on aluminum forks on occasion, I would be inclined to find a reputable bike shop for installation even if I weren’t hopelessly unhandy. Who knows what else could go wrong?

The Kona has an aluminum fork: no front wheel motor on our MinUte. The Breezer has a steel front fork (the specs said “chromoly” which I had to look up, because in case it’s not totally clear by now, I’m clueless; another option is to see if a magnet sticks to your fork, if yes, your fork is steel). So we could put a front wheel motor on the Uptown.

Rear wheel motors

The market leader in rear wheel motors is apparently BionX. It is primarily a pedal assist motor, but the newer versions claim you can use it without pedaling if you want. The BionX motor comes in various powers, some suitable for cargo bikes and hills, others less so. BionX appears to be sort of the Apple of electric assists; expensive and incompatible with other systems, but stylish and easy to use. The newest versions have cool features like locking the rear wheel when you walk away with the console, making the bike more difficult to steal.  Reviews suggest that riding with the BionX is a lot of fun; you pick a level of assist (25% extra to 300% extra) and when you push down hard on the pedals, the battery sends out that much extra power to make riding easier. This would be super-handy at stop lights as well as on the hills. This motor only works on bicycles that use a derailleur on the rear rather than an internally geared hub.

Cost seems to range from $1000 for a system that might not move a loaded cargo bike uphill to $2000 for the top-of-the-line system with lots of torque and security features, installation not included.

My Breezer has an internally geared hub and I like it: no BionX for the Uptown. The Kona MinUte has a derailleur so we could put a rear wheel motor on it. How can you tell if you have an internally geared hub? It’s like true love; you already know.

Inbetween

Let’s say you have an aluminum front fork and an internally geared hub and no desire to buy a new bike. Or you are carrying very heavy loads. Apparently there are also motors called mid-drive motors that attach to the chain. They are recommended for cargo bikes because they have a lot of torque. The only two I have heard of are the EcoSpeed and the now-out-of-production Stokemonkey. The Stokemonkey, if it were possible to find one used, is pedal-assist only (a discussion of the pros and cons of this for one family, relative to the eZee kit, is here). And evidently really, really powerful; it took a loaded cargo bike up Russian Hill! That’s over a 30% grade.

Costs are heart-stopping even for electric assists. The EcoSpeed runs over $3k. Installation is evidently challenging. It’s not for the faint of heart, unless of course you live in Portland, where all these motors are made, and where presumably any bike mechanic could install one with their eyes closed in exchange for a pint of artisanal beer sold from a Metrofiets.

Should we get an electric assist? I don’t know. They’re expensive, and that’s daunting. But we’d probably ride a lot more, and that is worth something too. We fear the hills more and more as the kids grow. We are fortunate that there are at least bike shops in San Francisco that seem to specialize in electric motors. Both Big Swingin’ Cycles and The New Wheel will put a BionX on a bike, and Electric Bicycle Outlet will install an eZee kit. Maybe it’s time for us to actually visit one of them.

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February 15, 2012 · 1:27 pm

Loaner bike: The Yuba Mundo v4 (hello, goodbye)

Two cargo bikes squeeze into a bike rack...

Last night the loaner Yuba Mundo went home to Marin. It was fun while it lasted. I had, until a couple of weeks ago, never ridden a real longtail before, and as I’ve mentioned, it takes some getting used to. Our friends who were used to riding a Surly Big Dummy liked it a lot. “It carries three kids and you don’t even notice! And it’s cheap!” They are, of course, very used to riding with two kids on the back. In fact they rarely do anything else. My brother-in-law hated the Mundo. “I hate this bike,” he said. It was unclear whether it was the bike itself or the experience of riding any kind of long bike with two kids on the back. With hindsight I lean toward the latter.

After riding it for two weeks, the Mundo grew on me. I conclude after this experience that big bikes have a significant learning curve. If you’re in the market for one, especially as a first bike, it’s something to consider. A case in point: I dropped the Mundo with both kids on it. In front of our local bike shop. The bike shop guys ran out in horror and offered us their shop Ute as a loaner to get home. It was mortifying. At first I thought it was just me, so it was reassuring to hear from Family Ride and A Simple Six that this is one of those things that just happens sometimes. The kids were unharmed although startled. I now put this experience in the same category as dropping the baby off the bed. When I was in grad school my advisor told those of us who were expecting that one day, a while after our kids were born, we would put them on the bed and they would roll off. “It happens to everyone,” he said. “I’m telling you now so you don’t beat yourself up about it. They’ll be fine.”

Fully loaded

I really liked having the ability to carry two kids and a load of groceries in San Francisco (and this is particularly appealing for younger kids who need child seats). It is pretty amazing. People who live in flat areas with no hills to speak of love their box bikes (bakfiets, Madsens), but almost everyone agrees that those bikes won’t climb real hills, and getting down them on the other side raises safety issues. San Francisco has real hills. The Mundo may be heavy, but it cranks up the hills; I never had to walk it. Based on our experience so far, I now believe that people who live in hilly terrain should buy bikes from companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area, or maybe Seattle.

(There is evidently one exception to the “box bikes won’t climb” rule, the custom Metrofiets. Down in SoCal, Bike Temecula is riding a Metrofiets with a BionX electric assist. Although that bike is unquestionably one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen on two wheels, it is not cheap. A Metrofiets with kid seats costs $5k WITHOUT the electric assist [update: Metrofiets notes below that the price is just under $4k; Splendid Cycles lists the box with child seat as an add-on for $665 and a harness as an add-on for $100]. We could buy normal bikes with electric assists for everyone in our family for that kind of cash. Or a used car, were we so inclined, which we are not. Where we’d store any of those things is a different question entirely.)

There are things I would change about the Yuba Mundo. My personal pet peeve is dynamo lights; I think all family bikes should have them, and the Mundo does not (it’s not even an option). In San Francisco, the bike should be fitted with disc brakes (this is an option, and not an expensive one, either). The child seat mount would be infinitely better if it were possible to slide the seats forward and back, possibly on rails? I would have preferred the Peanut seat about 6 inches forward from where it was, because it leaned beyond the rear tire, which made the bike wag. And when I had only my daughter on board, I would have liked to slide it all the way forward, which would have made it much easier to get up steep hills and to talk to her.

There are also a lot of things to like about this bike just as it is. It can move major-league weight, way more even than other long tail bikes. And you don’t even feel it except at the starts and stops. This is pretty amazing, especially considering the weight of kids and their gear. My two kids together are ~80lbs stark naked, but outside the house they always have clothing on, and on any kind of trip we add in lunches and book bags and toys. The weight adds up fast, particularly if you want to stop and pick up groceries. (And if the weight gets out of hand as the kids get older, Yuba sells an electric version, the elMundo.) The Bread Basket was unnerving to ride with at first, but absolutely awesome. When it was loaded up I barely noticed riding over potholes or Muni tracks. Our son loved the soft seat cushion and wants one for the MinUte. And the bike acoustics are good; this may sound like an odd concern, but it’s useful to be able to hear the kid in the back. Our kids liked riding on this bike. They called it The Beast.

Yuba sometimes bills the Mundo as a minivan replacement, but I don’t quite agree with that. Minivans are plusher. The Mundo reminds me more of a pickup truck; stripped down but effective at moving stuff where you need to go. Yuba is like the Ikea of bicycle manufacturing, peeling off everything optional to keep the bike at a price point that does not make novice riders laugh in disbelief. As long-term recovering cheapskates (we’re so cheap that we bought our Ikea furniture on craigslist, given that the kids are going to trash it anyway), I like that there’s a cargo bike manufacturer with this business model.

In contrast, a bike like the Surly Big Dummy is more of a station wagon concept car, which can be customized to do anything you want, but only if you know what to ask for and can swallow the price. The minivan of bikes is the box bike.

Classic San Francisco pinch point

Would we get a Mundo? No, but that’s not a knock against it, but a statement about our lifestyle. We wouldn’t get a Mundo for the same reason we don’t have a back yard. We’ve made a choice to live in a large city, and that choice involves some compromises. We have, by city standards, amazing bicycle storage, but even we had to rearrange that space around the Mundo.  San Francisco has serious traffic, and maneuvering a big bike through it led to some frustrating moments; another bike would whiz through a pinch point in front of me, and I would realize I had to wait until it cleared. Parking the bike, even at bike racks, always involved a little jiggering around tight corners and other bikes—I was in that situation when the Mundo fell over. There is a lot of starting and stopping in the city, and that is difficult with a heavy bike. The Kona MinUte, we’ve realized, may represent the outside range of bikes that we can handle in San Francisco. I wasn’t surprised when the Yuba rep told me that most of their customers lived in inner-ring suburbs or smaller cities. That seems like this bike’s ideal stomping ground. The Costco run holds no fears for the Mundo.

We are lucky devils indeed to live in San Francisco, and being shut out of a few categories of bicycle seems like a small price to pay for the privilege. I’m glad we had the chance to try the Yuba Mundo, and although we won’t miss figuring out where to put it, all of us, especially the kids, will miss having the chance to ride it sometimes.

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February 10, 2012 · 1:03 pm

These are the ways we ride to school

First day of first grade

We have found that our son’s elementary school contains an embarrassment of riches (for the record, this is an under-enrolled Title I public school in San Francisco, not the usual candidate for perceived awesomeness, a complete sleeper of a school). These riches extended, we learned this year, to a range of bicycle commute strategies with kids.

Bicycle commuting to school in San Francisco is not like it is in other locales. Kids enrolled in lower grades can’t usually ride on their own, due to traffic and hills and distance; this is a citywide school, and some families are coming from quite far away. Moreover, the after-school programs at our school are mostly off-site, and students take the bus from the school, meaning that there’s no way to take a kid’s bike along after school lets out. Finally, we haven’t yet had bike racks installed at the school (we’re on the list) so there’s no place to leave a bike even if kids could ride. The teachers who ride bring their bikes into the school building, but this isn’t something that would work for a bunch of kids.

So typically we all have to ride with the kids with us somehow, and as I’ve mentioned before, city people rarely use trailers (they ride below the sight line of cars, tip on uneven pavement, don’t fit in the bike lane, etc. etc.) That means kids on our bikes. It is more challenging than the run-of-the-mill bicycle commute to school, but it’s worth it. We are often ad hoc, but we are ready to roll. Herewith, a morning’s worth of photos; an incomplete list of the ways we ride to school.

School bike #1: Bike Friday triple tandem

#1 (and by far the coolest):  Bike Friday triple tandem. Our PTA treasurer and his partner ride this bike with their daughters, who are in kindergarten and 2nd grade. They say it is the best way to commute with two kids to school in the city, and I believe them. It is easier for their dad, who is about 6’ tall, to captain, than it is for their mom, who is more like 5’4”. She reports that she needs help on the hills from the girls and she needs to concentrate while riding. The girls have to synchronize their pedaling with the parent who’s captaining; this is, I am told, not necessary on all tandems, but it is necessary on the Bike Friday [update: not exactly true; my brother-in-law wrote to tell me that any tandem could be retrofitted to have freewheel cranks that let one rider stop pedaling]. Our kids desperately want a triple tandem.

How they afforded it: They used to ride the girls to school on a tricked-out Kona Ute, which they bought and modified by hand while their youngest was still in preschool. They sold the Ute to finance the tandem, which they got for about 1/3 the list price by buying it used on eBay after searching for a used triple tandem for some time. The seller, based in LA, was unwilling to ship it, but they had a cousin in LA they visit regularly. He picked it up, and on their next visit, they took it home with them. The Bike Friday packs up in a suitcase!

How they store it: Bike storage is no joke in San Francisco. The girls’ aunt lives on the same block they do and has extra storage space, so they keep the big bikes at her place (they also have an adult tandem that they found used for free and had their bike shop fix up).

School bike #2: Surly Big Dummy

#2: Surly Big Dummy. Our friend Shirley takes her girls (1st grade and 2nd grade) to school on the deck of her Big Dummy. While they’re in school, she takes the Dummy out to do errands. I have talked about the Dummy before. It is a fun bike.

How they afforded it: They have a car that was in a horrible accident and needs several thousand dollars in repairs. Last year, they decided to skip the repairs and drive it until it failed and buy a Big Dummy (plus another bike to come) with the money they saved. When the car dies, they will be car-free.

How they store it: “It’s a problem.” They have a very small garage space with their rental apartment and squeeze the bike alongside (I presume that they don’t care about the finish of the car as it’s effectively totaled). When the car finally dies and is hauled away, however, they’ll have a very generous bike stable.

School bike #3: Giant + spare saddle on the top tube

#3: Giant with a spare saddle. One of the kindergarten dads has bolted a spare saddle to the top tube of his bike. He puts his daughter on board and takes her to school that way. When I talked with him about it, he said that although his method was totally inappropriate for long rides, their commute to school is a gradual descent over about 10 blocks and so he just coasts slowly the whole way, then drops her off, pops off the spare saddle and commutes to work.

How they afforded it: He had a spare saddle lying around anyway: this modification was free. If you had to buy one, I don’t know, $10-$20?

How they store it: No extra storage needs; it’s just a normal bike with a saddle on the top tube!

School bike #4: Kona MinUte

#4: Kona MinUte: I’ve written about our MinUte before. We ride our son to school on the back deck; we added stoker bars and some foot-pegs. This is a great bike and a flexible set-up.

How we afforded it: We bought bikes in lieu of a second car we’d been saving to buy (thank goodness).

How we store it: The MinUte isn’t much longer than a normal bike and thus has no real storage issues; Matt keeps it in a shared cubicle at his office, for example. But at home we are rich in space suitable only for bicycle storage thanks to a vituperative 50-year grudge match between the university (we live in university housing) and the local neighborhood association that prevents the partially-conditioned basement under our building, which the university was legally obligated to make ADA-accessible, from being used for a more practical purpose such as housing, or, for that matter, parking more cars.

School bike #5: Breezer Uptown 8 with Bobike Junior

#5: Breezer Uptown 8 with Bobike Junior. I haven’t written much about riding with the Bobike Junior before, as it usually makes more sense for Matt to ride our son to school on the MinUte. But with his recent injury, I’ve been handling the daily trip to school, while Matt walks our daughter to preschool then takes the N-Judah to work.

The Bobike Junior takes some getting used to, as the seat rides high, which makes the bike more tippy. It felt unstable at first. But as I’ve gotten used to it, I’ve come to love this seat. My son rides very close to me, almost as close as a backpack, and I like that when we start the ride, he hugs me from behind. It is easy to have a conversation with him because he is so close. I can turn to talk with him at stoplights and he comments on the ride, encouraging me to go faster downhill (I’m cautious; I don’t have disc brakes). It is a bit of a hassle to fit a pannier underneath this seat, and once it’s on, it encroaches a little on his foot pegs. Nonetheless, I will happily ride with my son on the Junior until he won’t tolerate it anymore.

That said, I have a suspicion that this seat might be less appealing to a shorter rider. I am 5’7.5” (to be painfully precise) and that is apparently tall enough that I can handle loads put higher on the bike without much trouble. When our friends with the triple tandem had their Kona Ute, they report that the mom had trouble handling the bike with the girls up so high on the back; she is ~3-4 inches shorter than I am. I’ve noticed that shorter people often mention they prefer to keep the load down lower, but on the other hand, there is a metronome effect. The lower loads are more stable, but if you lose control, it is a nightmare righting the bike again. The higher loads are less stable, but if you lose control, it is much less trouble righting the bike again (assuming you are tall enough). I find that I like the ease of righting the bike given that my kids bounce around a little, but some people prefer just the opposite. This is not something I’ve seen discussed much but I suspect it may be part of the reason people have strong opinions about the Xtracycle/Yuba lines (lower loads) versus the Ute and regular bikes with child seats (higher loads).

How we afforded it, how we store it: See above, blah blah, didn’t get a planned second car, it’s a normal-length bike so no atypical storage concerns, but we have tons of bicycle storage space as a side effect of a long-running town-gown battle.

These are some of the ways we ride to school. And this explains, I imagine, why our kids are begging to get a bike as obscure as a triple tandem.

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February 6, 2012 · 10:51 am

A long day on the Yuba Mundo

Yet another relative I talked into trying out the Mundo

A week ago Saturday we decided to ride the Mundo everywhere we went. This was maybe not the smartest move on a bike I wasn’t used to, but I figured it would be a way to learn. Also, on Saturday mornings we take the kids to swim class across town, near where my sister and brother-in-law live, which meant we could get their opinions on the Mundo, and see them for brunch. And then we figured we could pick up some groceries at Rainbow while we were in the area. Total overkill, but I’m all about overshooting my comfort zone.

We don’t ride much on the south side of the city. Once we got to the Panhandle, the entire route was flat, almost disconcertingly so. This must be the part of San Francisco where people ride fixies. On the other hand, although there are bike lanes and sharrows, the traffic down there is terrifying. It’s all giant trucks and long straight wide roads that encourage speeding and there are overpasses with freeway traffic thundering over at every turn. The whole experience of getting down there was nerve-wracking. It was a relief to reach the campus, which has a large protected quad in the center near the entrance to the pool, a bicycle and pedestrian oasis in a neighborhood that still hasn’t really transitioned away from industry.

After swim class we headed to brunch at Brickhouse, a child-friendly café with bikes hanging from the ceiling, including a push me-pull you tricycle with handles and pedals on both the front and the back (see link; as its practical value was nil, why not hang it from the ceiling?) And from there we headed to Rainbow to pick up groceries and downtown to get our mystery box from Mariquita Farms.

The Mundo I’m riding has Yuba’s new Bread Basket. This makes it possible to carry both groceries (on the front) and children (on the back). The inability of most long tail bikes to carry both kids and groceries is something that’s irritated me for quite a while. In general, if you put kids on the back, the bags can’t carry a week’s worth of groceries, because that’s where the kids’ legs need to go. I’ve found it hard to accept these bikes as being a true replacement for a car, let alone a minivan, either of which can carry both a cartload groceries and children at the same time. We don’t typically have time to split up these errands; we shop on the way home from work. I suspect our experience would be different if one of us was a stay-at-home parent, but that’s not how we roll.

It's not just me that finds it disconcerting

So the Bread Basket is a total score of an addition to the bike. However, because it is attached to the frame, and it does not move when the handlebars and wheels turn, it is deeply and profoundly disconcerting until you get used to it. I tipped the bike over twice learning to ride because the Bread Basket’s steadfast unwillingness to reflect my steering made me try to yank the handlebars too far over. I accept that it’s the right decision to put it there because its attachment to the frame means you can casually dump unbelievable weight in there, but it still freaks me out a little.

So at Rainbow, I piled about two bags of groceries in the Bread Basket, including:

  • Small bag of cumin
  • 1 bunch of green onions
  • 1 bunch of parsley
  • 2 lbs russet potatoes
  • 1 lb of cheddar cheese
  • 1 block of cream cheese
  • 1 box of Ak Mak crackers
  • 1 lb of garganelli
  • 3.5 lbs of flour
  • 1.5 lbs of raisins
  • 1 lb of couscous
  • 1 lb of rye flour
  • 1.5 lbs of dried anasazi beans
  • 1 lb of dried ayacote morado beans
  • Cupcake and chocolates for kids on the ride home

The Yuba Mundo haul

Isn’t that just fascinating? I can’t believe we’ve become such hippies; we might as well start eating dirt after a credibility-busting haul like this. Then we added a bag with our jackets (not needed for this ride), my daughter’s wet clothes after an accident at the grocery store, my U-lock, wallet, keys, etc.  The kids climbed on the back. At that point I was riding very, very slowly, but I’ll admit, I was impressed that this was possible at all.

I forgot the milk, of course. Fortunately we live near a range of bodegas open 24/7.

Matt’s Kona was pulling its weight as well; he was carrying the mystery box, which contained:

  • 1 bunch carrots
  • 1 daikon
  • 1 head savoy cabbage
  • 1 head escarole
  • 1 large bunch white turnips
  • 1 bunch red radishes
  • 1 lb peanuts
  • 1 large bag baby tat-soi
  • 2 heads cheddar cauliflower
  • 1 bag of limes
  • 2 heads couve tronchuda
  • 1 bunch formanova beets
  • 1 20# box of apples (bungeed to the deck)

The Kona MinUte haul

We had doubts about what on earth we were going to do with the couve tronchuda (answer: gyoza). I digress. On top of that, we stuffed in his jacket and U-lock and the kids’ swim gear. Don’t let anyone tell you the MinUte’s not a real cargo bike. And then we rode 4 miles home.

We were really, really tired, despite the thrill of accomplishment. As other riders commented, “You’re not even getting any help from those two.” So true, but our daughter was passed out in the Peanut at that point, so it’s just as well. The Peanut is a bear of a seat to get kids in and out of, but I like the support; 5-point restraints, full leg shields, and even some side bracing for naps. This is a much better seat in every way than the other deck-mounted seat we’ve used, the Co-Pilot Limo. (Our other rear seat, the Bobike Maxi, mounts to the frame and as a result has pros and cons relative to the Peanut.)

The Yuba is a heavy bike, even heavier with all the stuff we had on it. I found myself really resenting red lights and stop signs because I hated losing whatever momentum I’d gained and having to start from a stop.  Getting to the Panhandle path was a relief (no stopping). With a long uninterrupted route, it would have been much easier. That’s not the kind of riding we do most of the time, however. On the other hand, riding this kind of bike, loaded up as it was, meant that the entire city of San Francisco formed a cheering section on our behalf. Families walking through the park yelled, “Look at that bike!” and “That’s so cool!” and drivers kept stopping next to us, rolling down their windows, and filling me in on activities on the back of the bike (“Your daughter is sleeping in her seat!”) I find San Francisco a very friendly city in general, but on days like this it really lays on the charm.

Despite the fact that I blog, which could only be viewed as a desperate bid for attention, and haul my kids around town on my bike(s), which is attention-getting whether you want it to be or not, I have mixed feelings about all of this. I often prefer to ride quietly, solo, to work with all of the other less interesting bikes (although I miss the conversations with my kids when I do). But for a more hardcore family biking advocate, a Yuba Mundo would be a formidable weapon indeed.

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January 30, 2012 · 10:42 am

We have a visitor! (Yuba Mundo)

We have continued the string of injuries with Matt now out of commission due to an errant dodgeball at one of our son’s classmate’s 7th birthday party. Hello again, N-Judah.

Hello, Mundo! Let's go for a ride

However. A while back a representative of Yuba Bicycles, just across the bridge, wrote to ask whether I would care to borrow one of their bikes and write about what it was like to ride it in the city. Would I! But honestly, it seemed implausible. Let’s be clear: I know almost nothing about bicycles. This cannot be overstated. Many days, I am just grateful that I managed to get to work in the morning without tipping over.

(The other days I have been known to tip over. It’s less common than it used to be. At least I am strong, and get compliments from my son when he’s riding the Bobike Junior that “You go up the hills faster than Daddy.” Yeah! I’m sure that has nothing at all to do with the fact that my Breezer weighs 10 pounds less than the MinUte. Cough, cough.)

And yet, fortuitously, despite my skepticism, I picked up this loaner last Friday. It has taken some getting used to. I have an internal hub on my bike and this does not. I had no idea how to shift, you know, like normal people, and for the first ride, we sounded like the bicycle equivalent of a car without a muffler. In my defense, someone informed suggested that the gears probably needed adjustment, which I am about as qualified to do as I would be to repair the Mars Rover.

Even outdoors, it kind of dominates the landscape

The Mundo is a big, big bike. It is heavy, and lurks in our basement like a small car. We are extremely fortunate that we can keep our increasingly ridiculous (albeit temporary) collection of bicycles in a very large locked ADA-accessible garage. Thanks to 50+ years of battles with the local neighborhood association, the university is not allowed to use the space to add another parking place (other residents’ preference) or a studio apartment (university housing’s preference). Thanks to a major flood last year that left everything 6-12 inches underwater for a few days, no one on our block, ourselves included, has the boxes of random crap on the floor anymore that typically litter garages. As a result it’s like a bicycle bar scene down there right now, assuming that people in bars were regularly U-locked to standpipes, that is.

Because I am all about overkill, we decided to see just how much we could do over the weekend on a bicycle that I cannot lift, can just barely ride (getting better…), and yes, tipped over. More than once.

So on Saturday morning we rode 5 miles to our kids’ swim class, to brunch with my sister and brother-in-law, to Rainbow Grocery to stock up, downtown to get a mystery box, and then back home. Our daughter slept for most of the ride home in her child seat. I learned that the bike lanes and traffic South of Market are flat, but terrifying.

Saddle up!

On Sunday we went to Golden Gate Park to see the Sunday Skate and meet friends from school with their Big Dummy, where we rolled up, unbelievably, right next to another Yuba Mundo. Then we stacked various combinations of our four kids on different bikes and rode them around until it started getting dark. The Yuba Mundo lacks dynamo lights, which has also taken some getting used to. I learned that my kids can hold a thought in their heads longer than I had thought possible, assuming that thought is: “Can we get roller skates?”

Further updates on all of these experiences pending. Riding this bike has been a fascinating experience. Having other people ride it (family members, friends, all of whom are more informed than I am) has been even more so–their opinions vary dramatically, based largely, it seems, on how much experience they have riding cargo bikes.

I thought I got a lot of comments about my ride when I was carrying one kid, but it’s a whole new world carrying two and a few bags of groceries. Perhaps a signature moment of San Francisco was while we riding near the ballpark. A City CarShare Prius carrying two white-haired couples came to a dead stop in the lane next to us, at which point all the passengers started waving wildly to my kids while chattering in Cantonese. Presumably they were saying “Would you look at that bike!”

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December 19, 2011 · 3:35 pm

Christmas tree by bike

Picking the best tree

I never realized until I began reading family bike blogs that there is a whole… thing about carrying home Christmas trees on bikes. Subculture? I’ll admit that it looked wildly cool to me. I am impressionable like that. Granted, Matt is Jewish, but it’s a California Jewishness, where significant proportions of his family haul in pine trees and call it good as long as they use a lot of blue ornaments. Our son identifies as Jewish but would probably have foresworn centuries of faith if that were necessary to get a tree. So we had a weekend morning and we got a tree.

The easy way to move a Christmas tree home by bike, for a given quantity of easy, seems to be to dump it into a box bike. We don’t have one of those. Neither do we have option #2, an Xtracycle Freeloader. However we do have a stubby cargo bike. And we have a lot of bungee cords. Problem? No problem! I proposed before we left that we bring the tree home on the bike and Matt looked at me like I was completely insane. I pointed out that last weekend we’d watched a tree fly off the top of an SUV on the freeway, landing in a shower of fragrant kindling, a sight that made quite an impression (as did watching the couple inside put their faces in their hands as they pulled over). Also the lot isn’t far from home; plenty close enough to walk; I told him if it were a bust he could bike home in less than five minutes and come back with the car. He rolled his eyes and agreed.

Lighter than a first grader!

I walked over with the kids and the stroller, Matt biked over, waiting for us at each intersection. When we got there, my son picked a 6’ tree in less than five minutes; in the next five minutes, two other people asked to buy it (our tree was the best one). After it was wrapped up, the guy working at the lot asked where our car was. We said we brought a bike, and it was sitting right there. He said, “That’s nice” and asked us where our car was. We clarified that we wanted to bring the tree home on the bike that was sitting right there. He looked at us like we were completely insane. Then he tried to stand the tree up on the back deck. Less than a minute later, we had laid it down and bungeed it to the back deck. It was surprisingly solid. “Well, this is a first for me,” said the Christmas tree lot guy, visibly impressed.

Matt biked home, we walked home. When we got back he’d unloaded it, walked it upstairs, and locked the bike in the garage. Easiest Christmas tree shopping expedition ever! No needles in the van to vacuum up, no fighting for parking at the lot entrance (people were already honking at each other when we arrived—happy holidays!) and no stress. Plus we got the usual strange looks from the neighbors. Awesome!

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December 15, 2011 · 2:18 pm

Bakfiets on our hill!

The other day while I was waiting for the shuttle on campus I saw a mom riding a Bakfiets with a kid on board. I wish I’d had my camera. She was slogging up the hill and looked tired, but I was still astonished, as I would never have imagined that it was even possible to get an unladen box-bike up that hill, let alone one with a kid and several bags inside. I had assumed that even attempting such a thing would result in the kind of exhaustion that leads people to fall right off the bike. I myself have had those moments even on a traditional frame.

When she got closer I saw it had an electric assist! Now there’s a good idea. Wildly expensive, but that would make going up hills with cargo pretty manageable. And it doesn’t resolve the problem of braking on the way down, but maybe there are ways to upgrade the brakes as well; I don’t know. It would probably cost a second small fortune.

I think with my oldest now six years old and tall for his age we made the right decision in not getting a box-bike, but in hindsight an electric box-bike would have been a blast when my two were smaller.

 

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