Join the Cargo Revolution
Do you love your cargo bike? Has it changed your life? Your family? Your town?
Join me in producing an authentic crowdsourced document of a cultural revolution in progress. I’m seeking submissions from cargo bike folk all over the world to combine in the form of a feature length documentary. Send me your video, audio and photos by uploading to Youtube and emailing me a link. More info at www.lizcanning.com. Watch the trailer, visit my site, send me an email and learn how to become a co-director!
Hey Orlando, we have a budding cargo culture! It’s October. It’s cooled off. It’s time for another S-Cargo ride! Let’s join Liz’s project and add Orlando to the radar of great places for bike transportation.
Love it. Makes me want to find enough uses for a cargo bike to buy one or two, but I’d have to move some stuff out of the garage first…
First, I am all for celebrating all types of human powered transportation including cargo bikes. And although I really enjoyed the movie trailer I couldn’t help feeling that she was putting down the bike trailer. From her website regarding bicycle trailers, “I stuffed the kids in there and suffered through the ride home until I was actually afraid to try it, by which time the kids made it clear they’d had enough—too small, too low, behind all the action-NOT a BIKE.”
Liz, everyone has their own preference, but there are plenty of us that have children who enjoy riding in the bike trailer. Others have storage space issues. Bicycle tranportation is marginalized enough as it is without having to also overlook this segment.
Vincent, I’m with you. Cargo bikes seem to be a great idea with the electric assist and having the “cargo” in front where you can see “it” (and interact with “it”), but I think the bigger picture in this day and age is the capacity of the bicycle with a trailer or a built-in cargo capacity to do serious work if we adapt our lifestyles to make use of it. I have owned only one personal bicycle at a time and prefer to maximize flexibility in one bicycle. My next personal bike, to own in addition to the one I have for solo use, will be a tandem, to which I can still attach a trailer. To focus on the XtraCycle or other special designs seems to be more of a commercial pitch and doesn’t serve the bicycling-for-transportation community as well. Still, such a focus will serve.
Vincent and Todd,
Excellent points! Trailers (for cargo or kids) are a much more flexible and lower-cost entry into utility cycling. One of the ways we’re hoping to encourage utility cycling in Orlando is by introducing people to the simplicity of trailers at S-Cargo rides. A $150 trailer that can be attached to any bike when needed is a much lower barrier to entry than a $2000 cargo bike.
I ordered a Big Dummy to replace my stolen LHT & trailer. I’m looking forward to it, but I’m sure there will still be times when a cargo trailer is the better tool for the job.
Look forward to seeing you with your new Big Dummy at the next S-Cargo ride. Let us know when the next one is!
In the works is an S-cargo jack-o-lantern ride for halloween weekend. More on that soon!
Hopefully, I’ll have the BD for the First Friday ride this week.
That would be great. I am definitely interested in doing the ride!
I’m game. Where we going?
I’ve been toying with the idea of getting one of those gorilla gardening carts as an easy trailer, although I’m sure it’ll be a lot heavier then I could otherwise get. I see them pop up on sale ~$60-70. Just need a hitch.
Will, those small diameter, wide wheels aren’t made for speed, and I think you would have some real stability issues in turns.
I built my own flatbed trailer using a kit from Wicycle. You procure the tubing locally.
Very versatile especially for my needs. Hauled lots of items ranging from recyclables, coolers, shade tents, other trailers, dogs in their crates, cases of motor oil, 5 gallons of diesel fuel, and even have a skewer mount for hauling a bicycle.
Cargo Bikes and Cargo Trailers ROCK!