Fall and Winter Commuter Challenge!

[Grog]

Assuming that I'll make it home all right, it's 9/10 for me this week. On Monday I brought my spare bike to a colleague in my department who's just visiting for two months and previously bikeless. So I came back by transit. Otherwise, I commuted by bike every day! Not a whole lot of rain yet. Fall foliage is splendid, especially looking through my yellow lenses!

[SouthernBelle]

4/5 days for me this week. Yay me! A new personal best. & today I rode in a skirt.

[Eden]

M, W, Th, F for me. I got in an extra day by attending a lecture (at my workplace) on one of my off days. Today was my first good and rainy commute.

The lecture was actually about performance enhancing drugs in sport, though not at all what I was expecting. It was by an ethicist, who is *for allowing* peds... he had some compelling arguments, but for me it comes down to the governing body of a sport can make any rule they want - without even having to justify it. What is a sport but a list of mostly arbitrary rules to play and create a score, by which a winner is derived. So no matter how good the ethicist's arguments were if the governing body of the sport says no PED's then to go against that rule is cheating and that should be the core issue, not whether or not the reasons that the drugs are banned are valid or not.

[Geonz]

For a shorter reading, omit the passages in brackets

When I first saw the Xtracycle, I emailed a friend saying "I just saw something that fortunately is too expensive to tempt me." I was surfing for panniers, racks, *something* so that I wasn't so frequently saygin "I'd have taken the bike, but I had to bring _____."
Then I spent more time on the website, and also priced out the "racks and panniers and .." - especially since I *use* my bike. Quality matters.
I questioned the quality. Was this some quirky gadget that Californians with excess discretionary income got for show? Would it fall apart?
It was the history page that shifted me. These guys had been down in Central America with "bikesnotbombs" and had noticed bikes being overused... and went back and got a grant and got Stanford engineers to figure out how to elegantly, simply make a bicycle a more functional cargo machine.
Oh, and of course a chunk of the Xtracycle profits supported getting bikes down there.
I sent a few emails to Xtracycle. Laughter Medicine answered them.
I asked my bike shop guru who is ALAS AND ALACK moving to Wisconsin in a week or two... "ever heard of Xtracycle?"
"A reasonable carrying alternative," he said. And by the way, he'd be glad to make it happen to my bike. In fact, his eyes dilated... his breathing quickened...


[[[[[
[ I drove 735 miles to my sister's house for the fambly "Epiphimas" gathering. On the way I decided to go for it. I got to my sister's house 3:00 California time and called Xtracycle, Friday January 6... and got their voicemail. "You've reached Xtracycle. We decided to take a few days off at teh end of the year. If you want to reach ___, call ____. .... Laughter can be reached telepathically."
At 7:00 California time, 10:00 Baltimore time, after quaffing a few beers with the siblings (I have 5), I wanted to share that message with them. I called again... and a human answered. I hung up 'cause I was certainly not prepared to *talk* to somebody... and figured that there's was a business like the one I'm in and the phone was at somebody's house - and that, like we sometimes did, they'd forgotten to change the voicemail message
]]]]]

I ordered it. And I was just now inspired to peek at my blog, 'cause I had it going since 2005, so I wrote about the process. Snork... what could I know?

{{{{ My bike shop guru put it on. Therefore, it wasn't complicated. I think it takes a competent (but not excellent) mechanic to do it. (Tho' my guru is excellent.) Since it goes on lots of different kinds of bikes, you have to decide exacty how parts are going to get connected. But - once it's on there, it's on there.
I thought I commuted a lot. I thought the stuff on the website about "it will change your life" was California drivel.
I think I thought wrong.
It is so not complicated. It simply turns my bike into a practical vehicle.
The bags are like the back seat of my car, except after havin the Xtra for a year, I sold my car to my brother because in this college town I just don't need one. I've got the money in the bank, so I can get one... it's been a year and a half, and Illinois winters... and boy, do I *NOT* want a car. I'm FREE!
}}}}



I love my Xtracycle.
It rides like a bike. Carries like a truck.
And horribly nonmechanical Xious does not have to carefully load it so it doesn't fal over. I do have to make sure the silly straps don't dangle into the wheels, but I can put *anything* in there and it just stays and rides so easily... it's lke the back seat of a car. Only... what's a car?


((( I especially love watching people see it and THINK.
They think "Crap! She got that bike on PURPOSE!" Not "'til I can get a car."

Oh, and I was the third one in this town... and now there are a dozen.
And now longbikes are going mainstream - Surly, Trek, other folks are makeing them and Xtra has put the design online as "open source." I think this is amazingly gonadian of them. So you can make your own if you want
)))))

[kfergos]

Geonz, thank you for the excellent run-down of the Xtracycle. You've given me quite a bit to think about. Do you remember how much it ended up costing total, with having your wrench install it and all?

[Geonz]

I am thinking $500. (However, I sometimes have to make my wrench let me pay him for labor.) I think the Xtra has gone up a bit in price since 2006 (like all things bicycle - my bike shop guys warned us it would happen iwth the inflationary forces )

It has been very much worth it. The blender, now, that was a silly thing to get (but tossing my pop-tart money in the jar for it lost me about 5 pounds...) - but the bike... it really *does* change the whole definition of a bicycle.