Caring Cargo?
Many cargo trailers, each with its own numbered plaque, are wheeling around Vancouver, BC, in honor of community activist and environmentalist Isobel Kiborn, who passed away on February 27, 2008.
Members of the Cargo Bike Co-op have already purchased and donated trailers to housing co-ops, a bike dance group and a documentary film-making group to memorialize their friend and help more locals carry heavy loads by bike instead of automobile.
And a little bit of good gets done in the world.
For more information visit cargobikecoop.org
Trigger-Happy?
Not seen nearly so much these days, this trigger shifter at one time signaled that you had a state-of-the-art gearing system on your bike.
No longer limited to a single gear and coaster brake, you now had at your disposal a lower gear for uphill grinds, and a higher gear or two for fast flat and downhill cruising.
Housed in the rear hub, the gears were protected from the elements and pampered by clean and constant lubrication. With minimal maintenance, which consisted mostly of an occasional squirt into the oil port, these hub gears could last many, many years.
Bicycle tourers and those carrying heavy cargo rejoiced, but others pondered whether this multitude of gears marked the end of ‘real cyclists’, just as some people in later years pondered how they could possibly use more than the 64 kilobytes of memory in a Commodore 64.
Little did either group know what radical developments the future would bring.
A Well-Tuned Ride
Can you move a piano by pedal power? Well as the photo shows, yes you can. Not only can you move it; if you bolt it to the cargo deck, you can add a seat and play some sweet jazz, blues and boogie-woogie from the platform.
That is, if you are Mark Braun (aka Mr. B) of Ann Arbor, Michigan and if you have a special purpose cargo trike built by Mark Nobilette, whose custom shop is in Longmont, Colorado, you can.
Critical to this enterprise are four shock absorbers that cushion the piano from bumps in the road.
A bit heavy to pedal, you might think. Well yes, at over 300 pounds for the piano alone, it could be. But the design anticipates that bulk and has rear ‘docks’ for the forks of two bikes to give the rig a push. With that assist, it rolls down the road quite nicely. So well in fact that Braun did a 125-mile tour, playing for crowds at many stops – including the occasional gas station in addition to more conventional sites.
More on Mark Braun: joyboxexpress.com
To contact Ron, email ron@momentumplanet.com
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