2 Wheels Maybe

So there I was researching a new post about two new electric cargo bikes on the market when I ran across something truly shocking - a youtube video of a pro rider putting a Mongoose Envoy Cargo Bike to the test on a mountain bike trail. What the heck? Really? A Mongoose cargo bike? Wowser!!! So, I clicked the link and dumbfoundedly watched a thing I never expected to see going up and down and over and such with happy music playing in the background. I went straight to Mongoose.com and found nothing. So I went to the google and found Canadian Costco. And I started scheming about getting my Canadian buddy who's a bit of smuggler... (Just disregard that line.)  Yep, $500 Canadian from Costco So, I figured it'd be a while before they hit the real world and watched the video again: A British MTB/Trials rider wheelying a Mongoose cargo bike on youtube?!! Then I went back to the google and found evidence of at least one that is already in the real worl...

Upcycling, we love upcycling around here, especially when you take something old, unloved, and (possibly) polluting and turn it into something useful, appreciated, and green. With that in mind, today's post features two very tasty Honda cycles being reborn as modern electrics. The first is new to these pages, but the guy doing the conversion is not new around here. Micah Toll is the driving force behind EbikeSchool , a writer for Electrek.co, and part of the team responsible for the Vruzend (battery building) Kit -  the kit I used to build the battery for the e-Klunker. Yep, Micah shows up a lot around here. He recently posted a video about a new project he's undertaking - a vintage Honda conversion. The 1st installment This is a video to get your juices flowing. Okay, to be clear, this is one of those videos that has me Jonesing to get back to work on one of my old projects. He has other videos about commuting on a GenZe scooter and about acquiring a CSC City Slic...

It's been a busy time at Casa de Mesquite Hugger - not much time for building bikes, but we're getting closer. Grizz was nice enough to bring the Huffy out of storage for me. From humble beginnings... In some earlier versions, I changed the forks to add cantilever brakes, added a rear caliper brake, and added a derailleur to use as a chain tensioner. For now, those will all stay. I've decided to build it as a 7-speed. I wanted to go with an internal 3-speed, but the internet consensus is that internally geared hubs don't hold up well to dirt and torque on mountain bike trails, especially for those of us who are gravitationally challenged. I also gave a lot of thought to running a single-speed, but I'm no superman when it comes to climbing hills. Maybe at the end of summer I'll be stronger :-) I keep looking at klunkers online, and a lot of them are really beautiful. This bike won't be that. The goal is a junky, low-money bike to ride and to rid...

The didn't-make-it-this-time  Indiegogo campaign So, how did I miss this one the first time around? A big, bad, electric BMX straight outta Fort Worth - bring this thing on! As I keep looking at klunkers, I keep running across the big-boy BMX bikes. I keep thinking I want one. In the early '90's I bought my first mountain bike, and I enjoyed it a great deal, but I remember an initial disappointment when I realized that it was not just a bigger BMX with gears. The geometry was all wrong for wheelies and hops and jumps and such. Back then, there were companies making Big-Girl BMX bikes, but I wasn't aware of them until much later. A 26" Redline Big-Person BMX (for us retro dorks) So, I gave up wheelies and hops and spent a lot of time on my mountain bike, but the 10-year-old in me was always a little sad about the whole thing. (Which may explain why, forty years later, I've become obsessed with klunkers, Big-Being BMX bikes, dirt-jump bikes, and ...

Find the original here As a kid, I was a bike snob. I could not imagine riding a Huffy! I was kind of a jerk back then. But I grew up, started paying my own bills, and figured out that I would never be a professional cyclist. These days, I'm still kind of a jerk, but I'm quite happy to ride a Huffy. Any day I'm lucky enough to ride rather than drive is a good day. I've actually grown quite fond of the Huffy cruisers. Huffy Number 1: FrankenHuffy! My first (successful) electric bike build was based on a Huffy Cranbrook. I bought it on Craigslist for $50 because I wanted a heavy steel frame to support a lot of weight in batteries. The batteries went into a toolbox in the middle of the frame. A really heavy brushed hubmotor was shoehorned into the front fork. The bike would run over 20 miles per hour and had a range of six miles IF you were conservative and pedaled a lot. It would stop in half a mile. And it destroyed its first tire in two w...

As the official news gatherer for this here blog, I find myself perusing a lot of info about cargo bikes, with and without electric assist. Most of it, though, comes from bicycle news sources and local human-interest pieces about small bike-based businesses or suburban families who loved them so much that they sold one or both of their cars.   Lately, I've been running across more main-stream media about bikes that haul (stuff and people). And the gist keeps leaning to a few common notes - save money, get healthier, rescue the planet, and find more joy in life.   In case you find yourself cargo-curious, here's a new article that came out in Forbes about a guy who gave up his $70,000 Mercedes for a $4,000 electric cargo bike. You know me, I had to share the cargo-bike propaganda:   Find the article here   Meet the Tern GSD    The other big piece of cargo bike news today came in an email from Rad Power Bikes - the purveyor of my mos...

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...