cargobikes

Paul Larsen of Toronto makes some interesting cargo bikes in his spare time. While Larsen's Toronto-based business, Invodane, focuses on creative engineering solutions for large-scale industrial projects, he's also been dabbling with making the cargo bikes that he grew up with in Denmark. Since moving to Canada he has not seen such a large amount of interest as there is this year. On a lazy Sunday I decided to go see Larsen's collection of bikes.

From yesterday's Globe and Mail:

"About 30 well-bundled cyclists and a handful of police joined Councillor Adrian Heaps, chairman of city council's cycling committee, yesterday to brave frigid air and warnings of heavy wind gusts of a campaign to promote winter cycling. The ride from City Hall to Metro Hall - billed the 'Coldest Day of the Year Ride' - attracted hardy souls such as Smokey Dymny and his Dutch-designed 'long john' cargo bike. While Mr. Heaps has spearheaded plans to speed up the painting of bike lanes, Toronto has lower rates of year-round cycling than some other cities with similar or worse climates."

Smokey, staffperson of the Community Bicycle Network, bundled up on CBN's "long john" bike and decorated it with a pair of long johns for a flag (in case you can't figure out what's flying in front of him).

In an interesting segue, the Crime Stoppers cops visited CBN to help encourage cyclists to register their bikes with their online registration service. They put a video up featuring Smokey and CBN talking about registering their bikes and also about what CBN does. Smokey mentions that he's going to wear a pair of long johns and ride the long john.

The bicycle can be appreciated by all ages, as two stories demonstrate today.

Photo from Todd of Clever Cycles

I'll start with the heart warming story from Todd of Clever Cycles, and how he toured around Portland with his grandmother in a bakfiet (cargo bike).

But the next morning, against the protests of my wife, grandma and I hatched a plan to line the bak with pillows and a fleece or two, and try. I offered to lift her 110-lb form in and out, but she wanted to swing a leg in herself and work from there.
...
We rang the bell a lot and waved; many people were too stunned to wave back. Others cheered. Another white-haired lady called out “Am I next?”

Read the whole story and have a look at the pictures in Grandma got bak.

In the Toronto section of the National Post today, as talked about earlier by Tammy, there's a piece from a 16 year old cyclist, Alex Nevitte, who's commuting to work by bike, asking for some respect from motorists. She makes excellent points that drivers need to hear more often.