The Cargo Bike. Sure they have weird dutch names, they’re boxy and are popping up all over hip Brooklyn with 15 kids in them, late for PS Blankity Blank. But now it seems they are slowly being embraced by businesses…and not just those selling artisanal coffee or locally sourced Kimchi burger-tacos.
5 businesses embracing the cargo bike
The cargo bike isn’t just for hipster families anymore. It’s a crucial business tool for urban deliveries.
By: Sami Glover
January 22nd, 2015
About 50 percent of urban deliveries could be made by cargo bike, one new study shows. (Photo: Inc./Shutterstock)
Why not get in the action with all these cool companies…and make your own cargo bike. Here are step by step instructions from Ulyssanov, (imgur) who assembled a sweet looking two wheeled machine in his kitchen.
Cargo Bike Build
So I built a Cargo Bike in my Kitchen. Why Build one? Because it’s fun and I wanted one anyway. One other reason is that most Cargo Bikes you can buy only come in one frame size which is usually too small for tall people like me to ride comfortably. So this way I was able to build one that fits me like a glove. Why in my Kitchen? Because I don’t have access to any kind of workshop so I have to make due with what I’ve got. This is not the first project I’ve done under similar conditions so I’ve gotten pretty good at improvising.
Planning the Build to figure out what parts I need and how everything would come together took about two months. Then I was ready to order most of the Steel I would be using as well as buying a used donor frame – a 90s Scott steel mountainbike frame.
(the completed bike)
Read more and get to work: here.
WHEN
January 31, 2015 10:00 am WHERE
Three locations:
The Renaissance Charter School
35-59 81st Street
Queens
MS-51
350 Fifth Avenue
Brooklyn
Transportation Alternatives Office
127 W. 26th Street
Manhattan
RSVP Facebook MORE INFO Facebook
January is a hard month to bike with your kids, but the perfect time to talk about it! This January Forum is to make it (biking with your kids/kids biking) happen for you, or because you want to make it happen for others.
Kidical Mass NYC representative(s) – who we are, how we formed, our rides, and how anybody can take their kids riding with them (or kids can take their parents!)
Meet Local Parents that ride with their kids in the city, and specifically in your area. Learn and share local resources, routes, shops, programs.
Meet Kids who ride, talking about who they ride with, how long they have been riding. Why they ride, and what resources and groups are out there to make it happen for your kids or your neighborhood.
Activity – Biking in the city is about being out and about, in the streets, in the parks, in the world We will have some interactive activities to keep us moving forward.
Got a message from @Aunt_Bike in need of some attention and a petition to be signed, concerning Staten Island and an important fatal crash investigation unit of the NYPD.
Here is more: Keep Staten Islands NYPD Fatal Collision Squad in Staten Island
Keep Staten Islands NYPD Fatal Collision Squad in Staten Island
The small NYPD detective squad that handles Staten Island’s fatal and serious vehicle crash investigations may be moved from centrally located New Dorp to a Brooklyn office.
Law enforcement sources have expressed concern that taking the squad’s office from Staten Island will increase all important response time to deadly and injurious collisions, and that Staten Island investigations might take a back seat to those in Brooklyn.
Please sign the petition and help keep our streets safe.
Food venders have really upped their game over the last few years by being able to provide great delicacies on the street, through food trucks. Enterprising restauranteurs have seen a huge advantage in the ability to cut the overhead of a retail space and be mobile, condensing their wares into a vehicle and using social networking to tell their customers where they’re at. These have often lead to success stories, going from super popular mobile truck to an established space such as Calexico, Mud Coffee and Van Leeuwen desserts, just to name a few in NYC.
Now it looks like the bicycles are getting into the act with a number of success stories emerging from the non polluting, two wheeled variety.
Here is a recent story from NPR’s food series-THE SALT.
Food Trucks, Share The Lane. Food Bikes Are Merging Into The Business
By: Alastair Bland
January 16th, 2015
(Photo: Charlie Wicker of Trailhead Coffee Roasters makes all of his deliveries within the 6-mile radius of urban Portland, Ore., on one of his custom-built cargo bikes. He can also pull over to brew and serve coffee.
Photo by: John Lee/Courtesy of Trailhead Coffee Roasters)
When upscale food trucks roared into popularity a few years ago, the folks running them praised their rolling operations as far cheaper and simpler to launch than a bricks-and-mortar restaurant.
Now, entrepreneurs are finding similar advantages in food bikes.
Brewers, chefs, baristas and even farmers are turning to pedal-powered vehicles to bring their goods to consumers — and, sometimes, actually produce them on the street.
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
A motivational mantra for cyclists and all those struggling for equal rights and justice.
(photo of: lead rider, Marshall Walter “Major” Taylor-track cycling legend)
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day. For more inspiration:
Democracy Now has a newly discovered speech from Dr. King, from 1964, on civil rights, segregation and apartheid South Africa.
And…
The Brooklyn Museum has art works dedicated to Dr. King and his spirit:
From their site:
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. –Martin Luther King, Jr.
In the Spirit of Martin, #BKMLibrary pays tribute to the living legacy of the fearless Civil Rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Today, January 19th the nation celebrates King’s birthday and honors his commitment to nonviolent activism to unite all people and protect their freedoms.
#BKMLibrary’s collection houses some wonderful historical documents and photographs from the Civil Rights Movement. For example, the exhibition Art Festival for NAACP Legal Defense, 1963 featured many notable artists and was organized to raise funds for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund through the sale of art work. The records for this exhibition were given to the library last February as a gift from Cynthia Dantzic.
The ladies from Comedy Central’s Broad City make me laugh. The stars, Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer do a great job of highlighting life in the big city in your 20’s, getting high, “Vag” humor, getting in trouble and not taking life too seriously. It’s pretty simple stuff, very NYCcentric but spot on and it’s refreshing to see two talented young funny ladies making their mark in sketch comedy tv.
(Photo by: Gavin Bond)
Their second season launched January 14th and as part of on going celebrating…they did a photo shoot for Vanity Fair magazine. See the girls all dolled up in pin up girl theme acrobatics on a bicycle.
Here is a video of the photoshoot and short interview:
Tacking along on the Pope’s tour is Naderev “Yeb” Sano who’s become a climate change superstar. He’s a diplomate from the Philippines and the lead negotiator for his country, to the United Nation’s climate summits. He made the news for his impassioned speeches and hunger strikes, directly linking the disastrous effects on the planet which have devastated his homeland.
Now he is leading a brigade of #ecobikers who are following the Pope’s visit to inspire local residents to keep it green and ride bikes.
(photos by: Nitya Saulo)
This should’t be too hard of a message for the Pope to get behind. He’s been telling his people to ride bike for years now:
Avoid fast cars and ride a bike instead, Pope tells trainee priests and nuns
By: Carol Glatz
November 9th, 2013
Music and biking go together well, at least with one ear bud in which is legal in NYC.
I’ll admit it, I like listening to music when I ride and I prefer continuous mixes, not to have to futz with anything.
Soundcloud is a great site for this, because it showcases a ton of DJ mixes and a ton of social media music. It is a bit hard to search unless you know what your looking for.
Solé Bicycle has been providing mixtapes or FIXTAPES from a variety of musicians and DJ’s and just released their first one of 2015.
They are up to mix number 31, so lots to go through in the archives, perfect for a long ride.
It’s also worth mentioning…from one of my favorite NYC culture blogs: Animal NY.
They’ve been putting out a series called: Listen in where musicians put together a playlist of songs their into.
How it is described on the site: “Listen In” is a weekly feature in which we ask musicians to curate a mixtape-length YouTube playlist of songs they’re currently digging. Click the big play button above to hear the whole playlist or scroll down to see and hear individual tracks.
These are mostly broken down into YouTube videos…(which are hard to play while riding. But you can make a playlist in Spotify, soundcloud and YouTube.) This can give you some eclectic musical direction.
About 50 percent of urban deliveries could be made by cargo bike, one new study shows. (Photo: Inc./Shutterstock)
(the completed bike)
