2 Wheels Maybe

It's no surprise to regular readers that I'm a bit obsessed with cargo bikes. In my regular forays into the internet cargo bike jungle, I kept running across images of the Portal Longtail Cargo bike. I think it was even the first cargo bike I ever saw with a PTO. But every time I started to add it to the list of desirable longtails, I remembered there was one big problem - you could not buy one in the states or have one shipped over. Fortunately, that has changed. The main Portal site Good news, US cargo bike fans! You can now buy one stateside for $875 and get free shipping! (That's $124 less than the awesome Yuba Mundo Classic!) And there's a philanthropic BOGO as a huge bonus for us save-the-world types. What's this philanthropic BOGO thing? Toms Shoes Philanthropy Like Toms (and Bobs) shoes, when you buy a Portal Cargo Bike, the company donates a second bike to a Nepalese entrepreneur to help them in business. So, when you throw a le...

When I was kid growing up in Odessa, I never realized how cool it was that there were so many nifty old microcars around. (But I always thought they were the coolest.) I remember seeing one Messerschmitt driving, I located two BMW Isettas in backyards, and I drooled every time I saw the two Austin Minis. The first Mini was a Brtitish racing green Clubman Panel (across the street from Bowie Jr. High) and the second was an old Mini Cooper in full race mode - BBS wheels, fender flares, rally lights, and a racy three-tone paint job (blue, yellow, white). It even had racing numbers on the doors and lots of stickers in the quarter windows. (Strangely, it was also across the street from a junior high - Bonham.) So cool. To this day, I still very badly want an old mini - but these days I want a classic electric Mini . That's not to say I don't like modern Minis. I've test driven a handful of them and enjoyed them all, but they have not yet become as (or more) appealin...

Normally, I like to write about odd and unexpected vehicles, but today I'm writing about a rare and unexpected occurrence - a reader not only used the comment feature but also asked a couple of questions. This is exciting stuff! The Pigeon Projects (Where I Talk too Much) My e-Vespa Years ago, I converted a vintage Vespa scooter to run on batteries. I replaced the original running gear with a rear hub motor and replaced the fuel system with a 48 volt battery pack. And it was mostly a success. But I made one minor miscalculation - I ended up with a scooter that would run only 28 miles per hour. And Lubbock is pretty much a 40 mph town. Even on residential streets, West Texans have little use for dorks inconsiderate enough to run less than 35. The Vespa has been ridden very little, but no one has run it over! I learned then that the biggest drawback to using a hub motor is that the only practical way to add speed is to add more voltage.  But I had already spent a l...

Happy Memorial Day Weekend, Friends! A few posts back, I wrote about the virtues of a simple e-bike for commuting. The electric drivetrain makes a bicycle into a more consistent tool for getting to work while still getting some exercise but not arriving absolutely exhausted. Plus, and it's a HUGE plus in my book, you're not sitting in traffic burning gasoline. I feel very fortunate to have one and wanted to share the opportunity with you when a few are on sale. GenZe Nearly New Sale ($649-899) Early on, I was a big fan of the GenZe 100 Series. When it came out, it was technologically impressive and very competitive in pricing and features. After a few years, though, companies like Juiced and Rad started offering more powerful and flashier e-bikes at lower prices, and the GenZes fell off my radar for a bit. But I've still kept an eye on them and have remained impressed with their consistency and reputation for quality. A while back, I even had the opportunity to ...

For a guy who writes so much about this stuff, I've made a poor showing of riding to work on Bike to Work Week , but I did ride to work yesterday and today. And these are two days that point out the beauty of commuting on a very basic e-bike. Yesterday morning, the weather was gorgeous - low breeze, temp in the low 60's, the sun was shining. Riding to work on pretty much any bicycle would've been really nice. Nine hours later, I went to leave work. It was overcast with winds gusting up into the mid 30's (miles per hour). I was really thankful for the e-bike! Learn more on yesterday's MH post This morning was a little different. It was overcast and the wind was blowing north pretty steadily at 20-30 miles per hour. My commute to work takes me south and west. Every time I turned south I understood why wind generators are such a good idea in this part of the world. Every time I turned south, I was thankful for a 48 volt battery and a 500 watt motor and a...

(Getting it out of my system) The Scrambler Jones It happens more often than I want to admit. I go through a season of jonesing for a motorcycle to ride. It doesn't make financial sense, it doesn't make logical sense, and I know that if I had one, I would not ride it much. But I dearly miss the feeling of riding a motorcycle along a windy road on a beautiful day. The latest jones has been slightly different - it's still retro and it's still electric, but this time it's dirtier - I'm jonesing for a scrambler. When I look at what's commercially available, there's not much other than one very desirable bike - the Fly Free Smart Desert. Yes, I straight up want one. The Fly Free Smart Desert But they finished the pre-sale and haven't started the post-sale (and I could not afford either, snagit!) Subtract the surfboard, the ocean, the cool helmet and jacket and goggles - that could be me! What else is out there? I've ...

Matt and I try to meet for coffee once a week. We like to sit outside at J&B coffee to talk about life and literature, teaching and religion, and the need for people to treat others with compassion and understanding. We also talk about things with wheels. We both really like things with wheels. But there're times... Find J&B here This week, we met on Saturday afternoon. It was beautiful outside. We sat on the corner facing east. My favorite parking spot at J&B Unlike most Lubbock coffeehouses, J&B isn't situated on a major road. It's in a mostly residential neighborhood near the university. While there's a lot of traffic, there's no high-speed traffic, and the traffic is vehicularly diverse. Everything from Citibuses to Lime scooters rolls past J&B all day long. More so than usual, this week's conversation was filled with long pauses, but they weren't dramatic pauses or reflective pauses, they were noisy traffic pauses....