Recently in Commuting

I’m trying out a new battery box for our electric Yuba Mundo.

I used the weather-resistant compact file tote from OfficeMax. Inside I’ve placed our 36V 15Ah battery from Cycle9.com, which has first been padded in Granite Gear armored pocket. The padded battery fits snugly at the bottom of the box. Perfect!

The box has small handles, and I used this area to cut a small hole with a utility knife for the battery wire to come through. This placement means water would have to be going up to get into the box, so I’m expecting no rain and very little road spray could make in it there. ( Adding drain holes to the bottom could also be a good idea, just in case. )

On top of the battery is just the right amount of room left over in the box to carry all of our standard gear— bike repair stuff, spare bungees and a couple of bike locks.

The handle of the box also includes a small loop where a travel-sized lock could be used to secure the box. Perhaps this is useful to prevent some kinds of malice, but considering the box is plastic and the whole box could be easily removed, it might not have practical value as a security feature.

Previously we had kept most of this standard gear in the Go Getter bag. This was problematic when combined with the “Peanut Shell” seat. I could not prevent the Go Getter from sagging off the running boards, putting the weight of the electric battery and a heavy bike chain farther from the center of gravity. Besides being poor for handling, it made the battery connection less reliable— once after going over a bump, the battery disconnected— not good!

Now everything is in a small, secure package held reliably close to the bike. It’s an added plus that the whole thing is easy to disconnect and take with us if security demands it. (Although between the battery and bike lock, the box must weigh more than 15 pounds! ) The size and clasp system of the Go Getter bag make it not a practical option to remove, especially when combined with the Peanut Shell seat.

I’ve just put on the battery box today. Now I’ll have to see if it works as well in practice as I expect. Any others out there with electric cargo bikes want to add how you protect and secure your batteries?

UPDATE 2/26/11 The setup in the photo suffered some from vertical bounce. To solve that, I bought a 4 foot cam strap and wrapped it around the box. That stops the bounce, and it’s easy to loosen the strap when I need to get in the box. If I stand up and crank the pedals hard, there is still a unnatural sway, which I think is due to the weight in the box and the location. Having the battery weight centered would be ideal, but isn’t so practical when the child seat in place. This works well enough.

J. missed the bus to high school today, and I was tasked with getting the girls to school and daycare on time.

With temperatures in the upper 20s, we piled on to the electric-assisted Yuba Mundo and headed out. For this trip we dressed the toddler more aggressively to block the wind generated from the bike’s speed. Her commuting clothes included a winter helmet with built-in ear covers, a balaclava, mittens over gloves, snow pants and a winter coat. She reported that nothing was cold when we arrived at daycare about 15 minutes later.

My wife and daughter have been starting to winter bike commute this season.

One of the clothing challenges is the conflict between wearing a helmet for safety and wearing a winter hat for warmth, realizing that very few winter hats are designed to go under or over a helmet.

For the baby, I decided to try a kids winter helmet, which has few air vents includes padded ear covers. It’s paired here with a “thick and thin” kids balaclava that is thin on top and fleece on the bottom. Initially, this seems like it’s going to be a good solution.

For the baby’s hands we’ve been trying fleece mittens, but they have proven not to be warm enough, even for a for 10 to 15 minute trip, so we’ll look for something warmer. Likewise, the fleece blanket pulled over standard-weight pants didn’t work great either. We’ll be looking to refine that as well.

My wife was generally able to stay warm. She added a Turtle Fur headband to keep her ears warm, as well as a fleece neck gaiter and “windstopper” gloves.

Overall I think the experience was positive and something we’ll continue to try.

Related Reading

• Dottie from Lets Go Ride a Bike has an excellent post on how to dress for winter bike commuting
• Chicargobike has a great post on how to dress kids for fall and winter bike commuting

Today's milestone was our first family trip to Lowe's by bike. While I have no special love for this big box store, it's sells some things we can't find elsewhere in town. It's also located on the farthest edge of Richmond, nestled next to a interstate exchange and the typical sprawl of chain businesses and parking lots that accompanies them.

None the less, we found routes there and back that involved minimal time of busy roads, arriving in 18 minutes*. In total, we rode about another 20 in-town miles today running typical errands. Again this seemed very reasonable on the electric cargo bike, and a workout on my fast recumbent to keep up.

Each 12 inch ceramic tile weighed 4 pounds and we needed 850 of them. That’s 3,400 lbs in tile alone. The floor project would also require about 12 bags of mortar at 50 pounds each. That brings the total weight of the project to 2 tons now— 4,000 pounds, before we even add the grout.

Of course, I calculated what it would take to carry all this on my bike. The tile alone would take 17 trips at 200 pounds per trip.

I decided cargo biking wasn’t practical for this job, but I still had the opportunity to have most of the material pass through my hands. I helped load and unload much of the 50 pounds bags of mortar, and two car-trailer loads of tile. By the end, I felt well acquinated with the full impact of 4,000 pounds. I could feel in my bones the amount of energy it took to move that material.

And for a least a moment, I appreciated cars for this. They were far better for carrying 2 tons of materials than a bike would be.

And that’s when it hit me like a ton of ceramic tile. The average American car weighs 2 tons.

Having fun and attractive helmet options could help voluntary helmet use among yourself and your family.

Here are several alternatives to the standard recreational helmet design which may not be available in your local bike shop.

Dottie commutes by bike with style through winter in Chicago, and she's put together this great video on how to dress for winter bike commuting:

My family has acquired a new Bikes at Work cargo trailer and we’re starting to put it to use.

A significant deterrent to everyday bike riding is the prospect of getting chain grease on your clothing. European city bikes generally solve this problem with internal hub gears and partial or full or chainguards. The internal hub gearing also reduces the maintenance.

But here in the US, most bikes now have both front and rear derailleurs. And it’s just about impossible to find a chainguard that works in combination with derailleurs. But the new SKS Chainboard seems to be just that.

Read Patrick’s review of the SKS Chainboard on the Velocouture blog for a full review.

Wrists are prone to getting cold while winter bike commuting. With arms stretched out to reach the handlebars, a gap appears between jacket and gloves. When my wrists are cold, I'm cold.

I tried jackets with sleeves that cinched over my gloves. These slipped. I tried giant over-mitts that tightened over my jacket sleeves. These slipped too, and the big mitts were bulky to carry around in my pockets when I was off the bike.

So I made this simple sleeve extender, shown in this photos after the jump. It's super to easy to use, doesn't slip, and is very low bulk. It also happens to look like an extra long shirt sleeve, rather than technical mountain climbing gear.