Cargo bike Musings

I've been trying to live this car-lite lifestyle for a while now, and while we have gotten to the point that the insurance company requires to prove that we drive our car as little as we say, there still have been some forces that make getting stuff by car so much easier I fallback to that.

Getting to SF continually is one of those intractable issues as it really requires upgrades to the overall mass transit and any other solution is either significantly slower, or has has very harsh consequences in small changes in schedule (The last train on Sunday is 9:37pm ... missing that is expensive.)

That said some problems, getting chicken feed, and other hauling tasks seemed fixable with the right bike. 

Introducing the Surly Big Easy e-bike, carrying 100 pounds of chicken feed.

 The feed store is about a 6 mile bike ride, and it took about 20ish minutes to do in this setup (averaging 14-15 mph), loading the bike took probably 5ish minutes.

Bringing 7 folding chairs and an empty cooler home from a BBQ, ride was only 3 miles but done slower (10-11 mph) as I was a little more worried about the cooler not liking a big bump.

Overall this really seems to be a good solution to this problem, the e-bike is very normal riding, very easy to handle and with over 1300 miles on it, and only had to oil the chain once, it's looking reliable.

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