I used to live near Ashby Bart and would take my kid over to the station after dinner to watch the trains roll through. Sometimes we’d ride up to DT Berkeley just for the sake of riding the train. The elevators are pretty suboptimal, so I got used to saying things like “okay kiddo, stand there between the broken glass and the pee for a sec, don’t move”. She thought it was really funny that elevators were moving toilets!
I bet it would be pretty easy to take a cargo bike on an escalator, as long as you could get a good contact patch on a step and really hold the brake lever firmly. I’m currently cursed with a house that’s three steps up from the ground. Getting really good at horking the bike up and over the steps.
Oh man yeah I have 4 steps up to my apartment and I’ve been bringing the bullit home lately. 4 steps up and a sharp turn to the right where the door is and then left into the hallway. I can straight up carry the bullit pretty far if need be.
I’ve gone up and down as escalator on a 50ish lb loaded bike before – it wasn’t bad.
I used to have to carry bikes up 6 flights of a twisty staircase when i lived in NYC. Then I moved somewhere on the second floor and i got pretty good at carrying the tandem up there by myself. (the tandem would not have fit up the new york stairs, ever)
There’s a hospital on the side of a huge hill here in SF. Like big hill by SF standards. One department there orders catering ALL THE TIME and so we would regularly send someone there with like 200lbs of bbq on a bullit. Someone found that you can enter the parking garage in the relative flats and take the elevator up like 3 floors and you’re at the next block at the entrance of the hospital. The bullit barely fits in the elevator and people give you funny looks but it beats pushing that bike up a 30 degree slope.
Don’t you live in the East Bay? Just get the fucker onto BART.
edit: I’ve 100% not done this, and would imagine that it might be a little bit nightmarish. If you could get it up the escalators, it would be doable from the platform onto the train itself.[/quote]
Far east bay, Walnut Creek.
I have a weehoo but I can’t take it off clean pavement without making Frankie eat dust even with full fenders of the tow bike and a MTB fender on the front tube of the trailer. I really want to explore Berkeley and Oakland more with her by bike as well as fire roads out here. Looking at the Frances cycles trailer, one very neat feature is you can swing it around and hang it out over the bars which seems like it might help with getting on and off BART. But still, moving a bike with a heavy trailer around sucks. I used to go all over with a BOB on my cross bike and that was probably the least suck but I’m not strapping my kiddo onto one of those.
Damn I’ve got some money burning a hole in my pocket. I really shouldn’t spend it but a Bullit sounds like it would be a lot of fun. Unfortunately I want the decked-out Estep model and that is wowza amount of money for a bike, even if it is incredible
I took a leap into longtail life recently cos I’m doing the kid dropoff/pickup a couple days a week at opposite ends of my suburb. Previously had a bakfiets which was shit even with one kid on the hills around my house (in the “hills district” of Sydney).
Got a spicy curry which is frickin awesome. The kids love it. And the best bit is I found a local credit union that offers interest-free loans for bikes, as a “giving back to the community” sort of deal.
This is now my go-to for everything within 10km of home.
The small rear wheel and e-assist commbo is pretty key for successful hills+xtracycle, and I wouldn’t want to shred a bullitt or any other front loader off road too much.
[quote=heavymetal]I took a leap into longtail life recently cos I’m doing the kid dropoff/pickup a couple days a week at opposite ends of my suburb. Previously had a bakfiets which was shit even with one kid on the hills around my house (in the “hills district” of Sydney).
Got a spicy curry which is frickin awesome. The kids love it. And the best bit is I found a local credit union that offers interest-free loans for bikes, as a “giving back to the community” sort of deal.
This is now my go-to for everything within 10km of home.
[/quote]
That pic is great!
Also can you describe the bakfiets vs. longtail comparison in more detail? Both similar weight? Both e-assist? In your opinion what has made the spicy curry that much better?
Drivetrain opinions for Bullitts? Mostly wondering if the Alfine 8 is fine for lugging around 100kg of rider plus cargo and bike. Minneapolis is pretty flat, but supwife wants to be able to use it too, and it’d be nice to have fewer impediments when deciding to use it versus our car.
Not cagro bike specific but my mum and dad have an Alfine 8 on their tandem, which probably has an all up weight of 150-170 kg, and it seems to be going fine
[quote=jimmythefly][quote=heavymetal]I took a leap into longtail life recently cos I’m doing the kid dropoff/pickup a couple days a week at opposite ends of my suburb. Previously had a bakfiets which was shit even with one kid on the hills around my house (in the “hills district” of Sydney).
Got a spicy curry which is frickin awesome. The kids love it. And the best bit is I found a local credit union that offers interest-free loans for bikes, as a “giving back to the community” sort of deal.
This is now my go-to for everything within 10km of home.
[/quote]
That pic is great!
Also can you describe the bakfiets vs. longtail comparison in more detail? Both similar weight? Both e-assist? In your opinion what has made the spicy curry that much better?[/quote]
The bakfiets wasn’t e-assist, which was it’s greatest fault for where I live. The width was also an issue, there’s not many bike paths around here and it was too wide for passing ppl on footpaths.
So the spicy curry: the e-assist is the best thing, but it also rides more like a normal bike. Steering feels normal where the bakfiets is like steering a boat. Curry is super stable when cornering, and feels great on dirt too.
I’d be interested to try an e-assist bakfiets but I’m pretty sold on the curry, can’t see how a front loader could be better for my use case.
I have the Sweet Curry, the non e-assist version of the Spicy Curry. Will echo how stable it is and fun to ride for a cargo bike. I feel the weight of my kid in terms of pedaling effort but not in the handling. The front basket is pretty slick as it mounts to the frame so it doesn’t bring the flop of doom when loaded.