2 Wheels Maybe

Here at 2Wheels, we love electric cars. Any car that runs without a tailpipe and runs on renewable energy - that's good stuff! The electric car is not the weapon to fight climate change, but one of many steps to get us closer to a livable world. My First West Texas Tesla 2013 But here in Lubbock, the electric wheels have turned slowly. Last Sunday's front page I've kept a daily watch for electric cars in Lubbock several years now. Three years ago I was starting to get excited. I was seeing more and more - three to four per day. In a town with a quarter million people, it may not sound like much, but it was a start. An LBK Electric Car Spotting from 2014 Lately, though, it's been slipping. I've been mostly seeing one per day. There has been a big shift in what I'm seeing. Now I see more Teslas than Leafs and Volts. My daily spotting is scattered pretty evenly among the Tesla Models 3, S, and X. I've been driving a lot more lately. I'...

The DIY-Huffy-cruiser-resurrection obsessions (Hufferklunk and KargoHuff) continue to rage in my head and amble in the garage, but there has been progress on both. With apologies to Robert M. Pirsig You know that old question What would you do if money and time were no issue? ; would it be awful to answer that I'd build mediocre bicycles out of crappy bicycles? The big progress has been on the klunker. Its first draft is complete! I had a few hours on Sunday and was able to finish running the cables, dialing in and adjusting the derailleur (a first for me), changing the chainring, changing the chainring back, adding pedals, and taking lots of short test rides.  Success-ish! The ride is pretty sweet and the gearing is low enough that I may actually make it up a few hills without getting/falling off and pushing. All that's left is adding sealant to the tires and taking it out to the trails for a real test ride. Woohoo! I love it when a plan comes together...

Yep, my most recent distractions have been variations on the klunker. I've always been fond of upcycled vehicles, the ones where you take something old and uncared-for and turn it into something useful and enjoyed. Cafe racers, resto-mods, rat rods, lowriders, bobbers, all of them have caught my eye over the years. And the klunker fits right in. About forty years ago, some people in California started using old balloon-tired cruiser bicycles and modifying them to become the prototype for the modern mountain bike. If you do an image search for a klunker, you get something that looks like this: That's a whole lot of DIY retro-coolness! But wait.... Yep, at least eight of those are not DIY - they are new! Sure enough, for those of you with klunker lust who'd rather ride than wrench, there are options out there, and some are relatively affordable. The Retrospec Sully For a little over $300 you can have a well equipped klunker with retro looks and qu...

 Admittedly, it's been a while, but it's a bit of a tradition around here to share low-cost DIY cargo bikes that pop up on Craigslist. Most often, they appear in Austin. You've got to appreciate that Keep-Austin-Weird mentality showing up in eco-friendly vehicles!   Lately, the pickings have been rather slim, but this silver beauty recently materialized and I knew I had to share it with you:    This one looks pretty clean and simple for a DIY bike: it's all one color, it looks pretty symmetrical, one gear, one brake, a seat that cradles your bum. Not bad. Here is the text from the ad:   So there you have it, a $125 shopping-cart cargo bike. You know, if you added a 3-speed rear hub, you could take it more places (and climb a few hills). Or...you could add an electric rear hub motor and go lots more places. Or you could just be satisfied with the thing just like it is.   The First 3-Wheeled Shopper Post   The Second 3...

A few weeks back I had one of those significant birthdays, so my wife bought me a significant birthday present. What did she buy? She bought me the ability to burn less gas more consistently to practice what I preach to experience the world outside rather than angry isolation in a box to thumb my nose at the West Texas wind (my cycling nemesis) Still don't know? Okay, she bought me an electric bike. A really cool electric bike. Here it is - a Juiced OceanCurrent .   Like me, the OceanCurrent is very simple - no suspension, disc brakes, easy controls, and an 8-speed drivetrain. It's not blue-toothed or GPS-ed or self driving. Like me, it has a large seat. It has fat tires that roll easily. (I tire easily too.)   Here it is after I added the rack from DFC (Local Bike Shop).   And I must say, Juiced got this bike right. I wanted it for a dependable, low-cost, relaxed commuter with a little old-school style, and it is excee...

I got to ride it a few miles last Tuesday, and I was reminded how an e-bike can be a wonderful thing when you're facing a Lubbock summer. It was 99 degrees outside. I was riding into a 15 mph wind. And I was travelling 15mph. And it all felt great! Other than the PAS not working, I knew it was finally, truly, an e-bike I could ride. So I took it for a ride on Wednesday, and it was once again pretty darn cool - for about half of a mile. And then the battery died. Actually, it still had voltage (38 volts) but the amp-hour capacity was depleted. In real-world terms, my salvaged battery cells aren't up to the job of hauling me and the bike more than a few miles. In West Texas terms, they were rode hard and put up wet before I got 'em. So, I ended up ordering a small stack of these from IMR Batteries . So, after the new cells arrive, it's time to rebuild the battery pack (again).  The battery pack folly list: $80 worth of used cordless ...