Take a bicycle. Any working bicycle. Just as it is. It can take you places. That’s its primary function. And that is a valuable, good, and worthy thing. But we humans also tend to want to carry stuff with us as we move about. This means, to really use a bicycle, it needs to take us places, and to carry stuff.
Small stuff isn’t a problem. It can go in pockets. But larger, or heavier stuff starts to require more infrastructure than the basic, unadorned bicycle has.
Let me illustrate a problem. A young lady I know was going of to college for the first time. I’d trained her. I taught her to ride in traffic, to get from place to place safely, and to use the bike as more than a pleasure and fitness tool. She took a bike to campus with her. Almost immediately she found a good sound use for it. The bookstore was way the hell and gone away from where she was quartered. She rode the bike there, and bought her first semester’s load of books. The double armload went into two large plastic bags.
There was no place on the bike for these bags, and the lady in question did not have a back pack. She draped the bags over her wrists, one on each side to balance the load, and mounted the bike. She managed to get going, but the first turn brought her down. The bags swung independently of the bike, and one of them went into the spokes of the front wheel. Result? Some road rash, and two nicely sprained wrists.
This particular lady solved that problem by using a backpack. There are other solutions.
Three strategies for Carrying “Stuff”
Racks: With a rear rack on your bike, and panniers on the rack, it’s possible to carry an amazing amount of varied stuff.
Utility Trailer: There are a variety of these things on the market. They can be uncoupled from the bike when faster and lighter riding is desired. They allow for more bulky loads. They can usually carry more weight than the rack and panniers approach.
Back Packs and Messenger Bags: Like the trailer, you don’t have to carry these all the time. The drawback is that you have to support the weight as well as supply the power to move it.
And one more idea: If you are really getting into hauling stuff, you might just want to investigate portuer bikes or “heavy haulers.” (I’ll write more in this in the near futre, along with examples.
Things I’ve managed to transport with a bike:
Two 50 pound bags of lawn fertilizer
20 paver flags and 20 each eight foot 4X4s (multiple trips with a trailer)
One large window air conditioner
SAG support load: One cooler, tool kit, multiple spare tires, first aid kit, and radio
A large dog
A squirming cat
Enough clothing to allow commuting for a week
Three large bags of laundry to and from a Laundromat
One automotive automatic transmission
A carburator, intake manifold, jack stands, hydraulic jack, and tool box
A medium child
Multiple adults (one at a time on a tandem)
Tent, sleeping bag, ground pad, bike tools, clothing, food, and cooking equipment
Enough stuff to self support a one week tour
Two large automotive tires, mounted on their wheels
Improbable things I’ve seen transported by bike:
A half dozen chicken coops with live chickens
A live Poland-china sow
A spinet piano
Two adults, two children, and a dog (on one bike; not a tendem!)
Three complete bicycles
One small motorcycle
A miniature “pop-up” camper suitable for sleeping two adults
A 20 foot extension ladder
A “long board” surf board
A sea kayak
An injury victim in a stretcher (trailered)
The rider’s prosthetic leg (while he was riding one-legged)
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