Gone........back to the shop.

Enough goofing around riding it all over town already. Last night we lashed No.1 to the roof of Jeff's 'toaster' and hauled it back to the shop to finish up. First we added a kickstand, nothing fancy, just something to negate having to lay the thing on the ground or lean precariously against a wall. Then we disassembled the front fork & rear head tube and prepped everything for more welding. We have to add an adequate length of threaded portion at the top so we can actually insert a stem to the required depth (whoops, my bad!). Also adding actuator arms to receive the cable steering on the rear head tube & front forks. We brainstormed how to route the cable steering through to the back and identified the parts we had and what we were missing. Initially Jeff wanted to route through the frame which would be awesome but I thought that we may be complicating things unnecessarily. Let's keep the cables outside for the proof of concept, I argued, and if it works design the frame with internal routing in mind to ease installation. Jeff agreed and that's how we will do it. It's still a project which I had not anticipated but seems obvious when you think about it for any length of time. Running brake cable from the front fork v-brake back to the handlebars is also not without challenges. Last night was not nearly as productive as previous sessions. The work seemed more burdensome, less focused which is hardly surprising as we have just come of two intense months of building culminating in a fair amount of euphoria over our success. Now we have the 'long tail' of finicky details and busy work which is not nearly as exciting. This is still valuable work as things like the cable steering will inform the next model. Hopefully one more session will corral all the final details and we can move on to No.2.....................

Holy molly......it's got wheels on it!

Last night, after a couple of hours of scraping & sanding, we hung components......bottom bracket, cranks, pedals, headset(s), fork & front wheel. It's really starting to look like a vehicle which is scary. Up till now the concept of riding this thing has been an abstraction, a distant idea clouded by our focus on the details of structure. Now, however, the reality of riding a wooden bicycle that we built from a sheet of plywood comes to the fore. Throughout the evening Jeff & I kept pausing just to look at the thing and although I had never considered this a beautiful form, just a stepping stone to something else, it has started to grow on me. I like it's rugged simplicity & seductive curves, the clean edges and expanses of smooth blond wood. Jeff & I had a divergence of opinion about edges. Being a died in the wool modernist I like crisp, clean edges. Jeff, being someone who deals with the reality of boats bobbing around in the water and crashing into things, likes nicely rounded corners.

We have a couple of issues, albeit minor, in that the bottom bracket is about 1/2" too low and the rear head tube (the one we attach the handlebars to) is a little low. We will have to be mindful not to pedal through sharp turns and a pair of BMX handlebars will be required to get that nice upright Dutch feel. I also think the cargo bed is too high. Everything else came together pretty easily. Currently the bikes weighs in at about 41lbs with probably another 6 to 10lbs more to add in components. This is well within our target range and gives us plenty of leeway in terms of adding material for strength & rigidity. My gut feeling is that the bike, while being ride-able, will fall short in terms of rigidity and load capacity. But I'm not worried....we have identified several areas where we can design in more strength going forward. The fact that we are even in the ball park bodes well for future iterations. And as we rush to complete the assembly and ride this bad boy our thoughts and discussions have already moved beyond to the next version.......

Why wood?

As I've mentioned previously this project is about creating a wooden framed cargo bicycle. As we are enamored and familiar with 'bakfeits' style, two-wheeled, cargo-in-the-front cargo bicycle that is the pattern we have chosen to follow. While 'longtails' and tricycles all have their merits it is the front loading, two wheeled (in line) type that we feel has the most potential in terms of function and aesthetics. I list aesthetics because our goal is not to create a 'better' cargo bike but a more beautiful product that resonates on an emotional level. That is not to say that function is not our concern. On the contrary it has to 'function' in a way that would merit the term 'cargo bike' (i.e haul loads safely & efficiently). We just feel that function has a subjective component that can never be fully met and that the aesthetic of utility bikes, bar a few exceptions, has been given a back seat in the development of this form and type of transportation.

So why wood? Well, first of, let us be clear that we don't come at this from some half baked notion of creating a 'sustainable' or 'green' product. Every time we drive out to the shop we burn hydrocarbons and the tools we use to rip, saw, shape & weld material to our will are powered by the coal burning Boardman Plant and the salmon killing monolith that is the Bonneville Dam. The meager wind powered portion of this metric is merely a salve to our guilty consciences and another derivative of hydrocarbons. Construction of this project will involve volatile organic compounds, exotic glues, paints and epoxies not to mention waste material that might or might not be recyclable. Wood products contribute to deforestation, habitat loss, mono culture and global warming. They require the burning of more oil to log, process and transport them to where they can be sold at maximum profit. So, no, our wooden cargo bike will not be saving the world anytime soon.

So we chose wood out of happenstance and a genuine fascination with how this material can be applied to a human powered vehicle. We foresee no business model here so it is unlikely that this will offer any 'real world' solutions. In other words this is a selfish project that sustains deeper needs and desires that have nothing to do with notions of utility or sustainability. This project is, at its root, about process. It is about the minutiae of the journey from concept to manifest object. It is about the day to day discovery and how we adapt and deal with the limitations imposed by both our aspirations and the tools & materials we hold in our hands.

From a straight forward technical standpoint wood is an excellent material for a bicycle. It is, as Ken Wheeler of Renovo stated, natural carbon fiber comprised of cellulose (the fiber) and lignin (the binder). High performance aircraft and boats are still fabricated from wood as are bridges, buildings and furniture many of which have stood for decades if not centuries. In many cases properly engineered wood can out perform steel, aluminum and even carbon fiber. The question is not whether wood is a viable frame material but rather why aren't more people building wooden bicycles?