Tarik Saleh Reports on the New Cycle Truck

Mad scientist and bicycle-human Tarik Saleh was in town to eat tacos (and other reasons) a couple weeks ago and took the New Cycle Truck for a test ride, something we'd been discussing for about two years before it finally happened. I enjoyed his review of the bike and his ruminations on tacos. It's on his Moscaline blog:

http://tsaleh.blogspot.com/2010/04/james-black-cycletruck-taco-experience.html

Small front rack action shot

Garrett reminded me that there was an awesome action shot from when I went mountain-testing the Small Bag Rack with the Acorn Boxy Bag on it. This image was shot by Esteban (Protorio) on the Rivendell Riders group ride in September 2009:

See Flickr for the full-size and the rest of Esteban's photostream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25671211@N02/3894982599/in/set-72157622155202441/

A Saddlebag Support for Mitch

Our new friend Mitch, of Nine Mile Images, in Syracuse requested a saddlebag support like the one we made for my Panasonic. I adjusted the design to suit the smaller frame size.

Here are pictures taken by Mitch of the rack installed:

Cycle Truck Adapted from BMX Bike in Haiti

I received a very nice email this morning from Ben, who is working for a relief and development organization in Haiti and promoting the adaptation of cargo bikes on the side. He built a surprisingly elegant cycle truck by converting a BMX bike. Pictures and a description of his process appear on Instructables:

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-build-a-cargo-truck-bicycle/

Admirable!

Padlock to secure cargo bike bag

My New Cycle Truck cargo bike has a giant pizza delivery bag modified to sit on the front rack. This bag is very well suited to this purpose, and it was quite inexpensive, but I put some work into it so that it would strap securely onto the rack, and I would hate to see it stolen. I also don't want to have to remove it all the time - it's nice to be able to ride to a grocery store and leave the bag on the bike.

So to deter theft, I installed two grommets in the bag, and got a combination padlock with a fairly long shackle. To steal the bag now, A thief would have to cut out the grommets, destroy the padlock, or remove the rack. But I can still remove the bag pretty quickly.

New Cycle Truck cargo bike action pics

Over the past year, I have been collecting snapshots of my New Cycle Truck cargo bike while loaded with various bulky cargos. I posted a few of these on my cargo bike webpage. See them here:
http://james.architectureburger.com/cycle/cargo.html#loaded
The photos are at the bottom of the page, so they might take a while to load after the other content has loaded.
A sample:

Quick fix for sagging Acorn Boxy Bag - Corrugated Plastic Stiffener

Quick fix for sagging Acorn Boxy Bag: I had found that the front pocket of my Boxy Bag was pulling down on the front of the map sleeve/bag top and making it sag in the middle:



So I cut an appropriately sized rectangle out of corrugated plastic ("stratocore"), covered the edges with gaffer's tape (reinforced electrical tape) so that the sharp edges of the plastic would not abrade the bag, and inserted into the front pocket behind my spare tube and tools:



And thus, the bag substantially holds its shape now. As an added bonus, if I ever need some tape for a roadside fix, I could peel the gaffer's tape off the stiffener and reuse it. With stiffener in place: