Why You Should Take Part in Park(ing) Day

Photo taken September 3, 2014 - on the way back from my first Parking Day planning meeting

A year ago I was living in Stamford, Connecticut instead of San Jose, California. This meant I had a working knowledge of the cycling quirks in the state I lived in, a memory of what rain looked like, and the ability to carry groceries with complimentary, store-issued bags. 

My Stamford friend and fellow bike activist Emily emailed me and asked if I wanted to take part in Parking Day - an event I had never heard of before that originated in San Francisco in 2005 and takes place on the third Friday of September. I’ve always maintained that if you want a better environment for cyclists and walkers in Stamford (or, for that matter, the state of Connecticut) that you do whatever Emily tells you to do, so I agreed to help.

I met with Emily and Meg (one of the founders of Bike Stamford) at Lorca to discuss what we wanted to do. Thankfully, they gave a rundown of Parking Day that can easily be found on the ParkingDay.org web site: The short version is: you feed a parking meter, but instead of putting a car there, you put a small public space. It can be a living room, a dining area, a mini-golf course - anything you can imagine. This is a fun way to get people to wonder how to best use public space. After all, when you think about it, cars take up a lot of public space.

The name of the new public space is called a ‘parklet.’ This is not a common word. I know this because spell check changed it to ‘parcel’ the first few times I typed it. 

Even still, you’ve probably seen some parklets in your life. The more permanent ones can be pretty elaborate. Here’s one I found when went biking in Germany last year:

In Redwood City, California, I found this near an outstanding Mexican restaurant. The meters are still there. 

But back to the not-yet-built parklet in Stamford: since the jobs of working with the city and promoting the event were taken by people more talented than myself, I volunteered to provide most of the furniture for the parklet. We barely had two weeks to prepare. The big criteria is that we needed to use items that could be put in place quickly and taken away as soon as the meter ran out.  

I used a small vinyl couch from my home office that had big casters on it (it also could fit in the back of my Honda Element) the DIYBIKING.COM signature coffee table, the coat rack I had also welded, a couple of folding chairs and two $20 rugs from Home Depot. Incidentally: two 5 x 8 rugs, when taped together, are about the same footprint as a parked Toyota Corolla.

While mapping this all out in my basement, I realized just how much space a car takes up (a feeling I’d get nearly a year later when I had the not-for-me experience of being in the same room with my car). 

Days before Parking Day, I planned out how we would take the two parking spaces in front of Lorca at the predetermined time.

When it came time to move in, we were annoyed to see an ugly Ford van in the second space hadn’t moved even though its meter had run out. But we pressed forward anyway: I fed our meter and we set up the furniture on the one parking spot.

We worked quickly to put things in place at our parklet - which bore a slight resemblance to my man cave/basement living room. I even brought along my old chess set, and in no time at all we were sitting in our parklet playing a game.

However, a few minutes later…

One of Stamford’s finest stopped to ask what we were doing, and we assured him we had cleared it with the proper people first. Besides: I had added reflective stickers to the back of the sofa to provide more safety after sunset.

After the friendly officer left, more people began stopping by and asking what we were doing. Some brought snacks and a vase of flowers somehow materialized on the coffee table. Emily also provided a board so anyone could stop in and provide their visions for public space (you may have seen Lindsay Perry’s photo of this in the Stamford Advocate with Elizabeth Kim's story). 

Others showed up. I got to meet a nice woman over a chess game that we didn't finish (we finally did days before I moved to California). My wife came over after she got done with work and made a watercolor sketch of the parklet. I even jaywalked through the gridlocked Bedford Street carrying a plate Lorca cookies offering them to motorists. A guy even stopped by on foot playing a guitar.

And then I sat on the vinyl couch with my Lorca cookies, watching friends play board games and talking - laughing, really - with one another.  A few feet away on Bedford Street, cars continued to trundle by. Some of the drivers were staring. Most were smiling. And that ugly Ford van never moved. 

Within a few minutes of the meter running out we packed up. I managed to load the carpet, my coffee table, folding chairs and coat rack onto the vinyl couch and roll the whole lot behind Lorca to stuff them into the back of my legally parked Honda Element. When I returned on foot, I was greeted with a familiar sight.

The car had pulled into the space within thirty seconds of us leaving it - the occupants apparently had no idea how significant the space had been (or wondered who all of these people were who were staring at them when they pulled in). Afterwards, a group of old and new friends went out to dinner at Cask Republic. 

Your own experience with Parking Day may vary but I highly recommend that you get involved with Parking Day and/or make one yourself. As I proved, you don’t need the best or most stylish furnishings to make a Parking Day impression - just a small number of people willing to have fun convincing others that space devoted to an unoccupied motor vehicle may be put to better use. Stamford's Parking Day 2015 will be bigger and better this time around and if you live in the Bay Area: I may have a brown sofa with reflective stickers on it you can borrow.  Thanks for reading and thanks for riding. 

Follow me on Twitter @michaelknorris

My Workshop at Rippowam Labs: How to Fix Up Your Bike For Spring

Yesterday, six days into the season of spring, I taught a workshop at the Rippowam Labs makerspace called “DIYBIKING.COM Presents: Fix Up Your Bike For Spring.”

It snowed all day. And I thought Mother Nature and I had settled on a safe word. 

I had already committed to biking to the class pulling along the bike trailer I made with my work stand and other bike tools on board (a nearly identical set to what I had during Red Hook, New York’s Bike Rodeo last year). 

I also decided to ride my city bike - and ride it completely untuned from when I rode it last back in early January. I know some skeptics don’t think waiting three months to ride a bike a long period of time to go between tune ups, but many of them did not live through The Day After Tomorrow-like winter Connecticut lived through. 

So I rode the bike to class without tuning it first. I don’t recommend doing that - I just wanted to create a teachable moment that hopefully wouldn’t be too teachable. 

I arrived slowly but safely, got my gear inside, and soon enough was able to talk about a subject I enjoy. But as a service to my readers who didn’t attend here’s a short list of rules I follow when fixing up your bike for spring. 

Clean the Bike 

The first thing to do is clean off the bike. There will be road grime - and depending on what you transport in the bottle carrier, smoothie stains or coffee stains. 

 You don’t need to be all toothbrush/detail oriented, but be thorough. If you take a rag or disposable cloth and wipe down the dust or road dirt from a bike, not only does it look a lot better but it gets your face close enough to the frame so you can see the components better. That way if something is amiss you can fix it before you go riding. If you don’t check the bike out first (as I don’t sometimes) trouble can result. Dangerous trouble, like walk-your-bike-along-a-gravel-trail-for-a-third-of-a-mile-hunting-for-a-missing-bolt trouble. 

Be Subtle 

That’s me on the left adjusting a limit screw on a rear derailleur on a bike someone had brought to the class. You'll notice I'm wearing rubber gloves since I think it's important not to be afraid to get your hands dirty but pack rubber gloves anyway.

It was around this time I talked about how a whole lot of stuff that needs to be done on a bike that needs an adjustment or tune up after a long period is subtle. It’s like R2-D2 fixing the Millennium Falcon’s hyperdrive by turning a tiny part a little bit to the right. 

If a bike chain rattles through the gears on the lowest or the highest, you need to adjust a limit screw. As I showed with my major overhaul of the recumbent, a tiny turn with a screwdriver is all that’s needed. And do not underestimate the importance of doing that: if a chain jumps between the gears and the wheel it can be bad.  When it happened to me I could have ended up a road pizza but was lucky enough just to have to push the bike home - and replace the chain and wheel. 

Check for Cable Stretch

Brake and derailleur cables go through extraordinary abuse and have to deal with so much force they stretch. Cyclists often don’t notice this until one can’t stop or they have to squeeze the brakes all the way to to the saddle to make the bike stop. Just squeeze the handle and check to see how much distance the brake pads need to travel before the hit the rim. If there’s a lot of space (and assuming your brakes are similar to mine) loosen the bolt holding the cable,  pull maybe an eighth of an inch (remember subtlety) of cable through, and retighten. If you don't know how to do this, find someone who does. 

With Lubrication, Less is More

When I was a kid I remember spraying WD-40 on my BMX chain like I was fumigating a house for termites. 

There’s a reason we grew out of such techniques.

After cleaning a chain, it’s much better to apply lubricant (NOT WD-40) drop by drop on each of the rollers. It takes a bit of patience but it is worth it - and I demonstrated it in the class: I took two pieces of identical bike chain, made the one marked with green wire ties wet, and sprinkled both with the contents of my welding room dustpan. The gritty sand and other debris stuck to the green chain, which means that it would travel through the derailleur and cogs and wear out both quickly - to say nothing of wearing out the chain. Get a small bottle of lubricant at your local bike store and it’ll last all season or longer if you apply it right. 

Don’t Take Chances With Tires

In the maintenance class, I talked about changing tires but I talked even more about ways to keep tires from going flat to begin with. That means keeping them properly inflated at all times (I’m talking to you, co-founder of Bike Stamford) and checking the tire itself for wear. 

On a trip to California last month I failed to do that, and you can see the photo above as evidence: I pedaled from Redwood City to San Francisco and back (more on that and why I was there in another post) but carelessly I did it on tires on last summer's bike trip in Brazil. I may not have gotten a flat during that punishing day, but nicks showed up in the tires and I ignored them.  

Until on the tail end of last month’s San Franscisco/Redwood City trip I suddenly felt a thump-thump-thump-thump sound and noticed my back tire looked like it was digesting a small animal. Thankfully, a mile from Chain Reaction Bicycles, I was able to buy a new tire before the old one could explode through the tread. 

Know When You’re Out of Your Depth

                          Pacific Swim Bike Run, a bike shop and training center on 575 Pacific St. in Stamford 

This is a lesson I still need to teach myself sometimes. Few DIYers can fix absolutely everything and there is no shame when something is above your intellectual pay grade. Not only that, but if there is something really complex that needs to be done (i.e., truing a wheel, replacing a bottom bracket, etc.) it often involves very specialized tools. You have to true a bike wheel quite a few times to come out even on the cost of a good truing stand. So find a local bike shop and bring the bike in. 

So with temperatures in Stamford creeping above freezing, I wish you all the best getting your bike set to go and taking a long ride to cure yourself of this toxic cabin fever. And if you missed my bike maintenance class, pass this link along - and check out the Rippowam Labs class schedule. You'll definitely find something you like. Thanks for reading and thanks for riding. 

Mill River Greenway Ride & Rally Tomorrow

Before I begin, I must give thanks to the Stamford Advocate and reporter Elizabeth Kim for the front page story on cycling activism in Stamford. Please head to your newsstand while there is still time and buy a copy. 

Additionally, I must thank photographer Lindsay Perry (who I met last year during the Cycling with Candidates project) even though she, along with the paper's editors, ignored my warning of a decline in circulation and included a photograph of me in the story. In spite of that, if you do not subscribe to the Stamford Advocate, buy today's paper. Well worth the $1. 

Now: let's move on to tomorrow: the Mill River Bike Ride & Rally.

Pacific Swim Bike Run, located at 575 Pacific Street, is among the great businesses in Stamford that are sponsoring this event and will be found at Kosciuszko Park tomorrow.  

After looking at the weather forecast for Stamford - and thinking about the wet but ultimately successful Bike to Work Day 2014 - I decided I might move to California and plan a variety of bike-related events all over the state in order to end the drought. 

Even though the weather in Connecticut is officially 'iffy' on yet another outdoor bike event I am involved with, the three-mile ride from Scalzi Park to Kosciuszko Park is still, as of this moment, on. But if you can't ride safely in rain or wet weather safely just head to Kosciuszko Park (200 Elmcroft Road) and pick up the event by 11:00 at the pavilion.  

And it goes without saying: if you have a bike and can ride it safely, bring a helmet and wear it properly.

Let's hope the weather gods smile upon us all tomorrow - and stretch a hotel shower cap over your helmet if you must. I'll be bringing a few just in case. Hope you come to the event to support the Mill River Greenway and a more bike friendly Stamford. Thanks for reading and thanks for riding. 

Need Help Launching Town Hall Meeting Curmudgeon 2.0

(Please attend the Stamford Master Plan Meeting on Tuesday, October 7th at the government center - 888 Washington Boulevard - at 6:00pm). 

I've been to a lot of town meetings - including the Merritt Parkway Trail meetings of Westport, Stamford, and, most recently, Greenwich. 

It was at the Greenwich meeting a couple of weeks ago I recognized a familiar sight: Town Hall Meeting Curmudgeon 1.0. 

No matter what town or city you live in, you know who I am talking about. Town Hall Meeting Curmudgeon 1.0 can't say anything without first relating the number of decades they've lived in the place they live in. They wag their index finger like it's a bodily function. They ignore facts that don't support their own assertions and use fear as a kind of constructive Play-Doh to build their own reality. If Town Hall Meeting Curmudgeon 1.0 hears anything he or she doesn't like, THMC1.0 will sit and cross their arms like a sulking child.

Sometimes this will be preceded by a brief, talk-to-the-hand gesture directed toward the person they want to tune out. 

This was on full display at the Greenwich Merritt Parkway Trail meeting. Now as you know I have no love for that project but I have to take issue with a couple of THMC1.0's at the meeting who insisted the trail supporters from out-of-town who were attending shouldn't be speaking because, well, they don't live in Greenwich. Of course, at least one non-Greenwich resident that I know of spoke out against the trail and yet that person wasn't scorned or rudely interrupted (and state and federal tax dollars are everyone's business no matter where the money is spent). 

After having a finger wagged in my direction at the Greenwich meeting for committing the non-pardonable act of riding a folding bike there and talking about it, I decided that I've had enough of THMC1.0. It is an antiquated piece of equipment that inspired the creation of the town leaders from 'Footloose.' It is time to build an alternative, and I need everyone's help to do it. 

To be clear I'm not suggesting THMC1.0 should go away. Their voices count just as much as anyone else's. But it is time for cyclists in Stamford (and everywhere else, for that matter) to launch Town Hall Meeting Curmudgeon 2.0.  

If I made it an app, I'm sure I could get funding.

Here are some of my proposed specifications of Town Hall Meeting Curmudgeon 2.0:

• They put down Candy Crush and Zimbio quizzes to attend town hall meetings in the first place. 

• They post about upcoming town hall meetings on social media and tell everyone and anyone they are attending.

• They raise their hands at town and city meetings to speak up. And when they introduce themselves they often say how many weeks or months they've lived in town - and how many years they want to stay in town. 

• They talk about how they want their town or city to look in the years to come instead of being nostalgic about the way the town or city they live in used to be. 

• They have a firm command of the facts - but know how not to use them in a patronizing way. 

• They talk about economic benefits of important improvement projects like bike lanes and bike parking - and also gently remind everyone that cyclists don't drop out of the sky but instead give out car parking spaces as gifts.

• They respect the opinions and voices of others and don't ever get personal or patronize those making dissimilar arguments.

• THMC2.0 takes many forms: a young apartment dwelling woman who frequently loses track of how many roommates she has. A frustrated commuter who has his or her folding bike at their side. A cool mom with two well-behaved kids seated next to her. A dad with two well-behaved kids seated next to him. A new voter. An intern. A person born after 'The Goonies' was in theaters. High heels. Sneakers. Dress shoes. Only the T-1000 can take as many forms as THMC2.0. 

The most important distinction of THMC2.0: They outnumber everyone else and they are the ones most remembered when the meeting adjourns. 

So Stamford, with its patchwork of bike lanes and little in the way of infrastructure, has a Master Plan meeting on Tuesday, October 7th. This is where we turn things around. This is the Adlai Stevenson at the UN during the Cuban Missile Crisis Moment. But like the robotic lions in Voltron, we must all join together to become a powerful force. 

Are you too young or too old to understand that reference? Substitute 'Voltron' with 'Constructicons.' What about now? Still don't get it? Good. You're the one I want at the meeting. Wait. You're forty and wearing a 'Voltron' T-shirt? I want you at the meeting too. 

Seriously: you need to bring a crowd to influence one. If THMC2.0 outnumbers (and outclasses) THMC1.0, it is THMC2.0 that will be remembered - especially when zoning boards, planning boards, and town representatives sit down to talk afterwards. 

Please attend the Stamford Master Plan meeting on Tuesday, October 7th at 6:00pm and form THMC2.0. And, a few short days later, go to the Mill River Greenway rally. After all, cities are built by the people who show up. Thanks for reading and thanks, more than ever, for riding.

Bikes Lift Cities. Art Does Too.

This Friday, June 27, Fairfield County is lucky to have two great events in both of its cities (and yes: this is worth interrupting the progress report of the bike generator I built last week).

One event is in Bridgeport, a city not thirty miles away from my front door and I've only ridden in it once. From what I can tell by what I've seen recently, that's a shameful admission. Especially since Cleveland is a tank-and-a-half of 87 octane from Stamford and I know that city better. 

Visiting BPT Creates the other day to drop some of my artwork off tells me I need to bring back my 'All Local Stops' series. 

Let me back up a second.

BPT Creates/Magnacon 7 is a gallery and workspace located at 1001 Main Street, Suite 14. What makes the first part of that address significant is the fact it is in the Arcade Mall (pictured above). All of the wonder of the mall in Cleveland with no five-state blend of bug pizza on the grill of my car to get there.

This Friday, from 6:00 to 9:00pm, the opening reception of BPT Creates' exhibit "I Want to Ride My Bicycle" is being held there. I submitted a few of my pieces (some of which you've seen at my exhibit at Lorca this past March) but from what I've seen on the BPT Creates Facebook page my stuff isn't going to be the highlights of this exhibit. 

It goes without saying, but attendees are encouraged to bike to the opening reception. 

In Stamford this weekend, we have ARTWALK, which turns downtown into an art exhibit. It begins on Friday and continues through Saturday afternoon. You can find out more details, including the calendar of events and the route map, at Stamford Downtown Special Services district web site. The weather looks like it will be good for riding and walking in the city I call home, and some of the exhibits, including some from artist Holly Danger (who was profiled in the Connecticut Post this week and has some of her art on display at Lorca) that may well stop people in their tracks as they pass through Kiwanis Park. 

I talk about bikes the way I do because bikes lift cities up. Art does that too. I hope you have a chance to visit both ARTWALK in Stamford and BPT Creates in Bridgeport this weekend - and tell your friends to do the same. Thanks for reading and thanks for riding.  

TODAY: Food Bank Biking

So like I wrote earlier this week: Bike Stamford is meeting today (in about an hour) at Fairway to bring food donations to Food Bank of Lower Fairfield County. 

I can't go. I'm in Cleveland. 

But even with something called 'lake effect' snow in the forecast, I knew that wouldn't stop me from bringing food to a charity here. Cleveland has done a lot for me and I wanted to do something for it. 

The thing is, no matter where you call home, what you choose to ride or how you choose to ride, you are going to find people who are less fortunate than you. You can take a few minutes today to take a ride to a food bank. 

I'll get to the other reasons I am in town later, but I had every intention of finding a food bank in Cleveland I could take a donation to. Thankfully, while eating breakfast at the hotel this morning, I saw a story on Fox 8 Cleveland about St. Augustine Church. I hastily jotted down the address and went off. So hastily did I set off that I got lost soon after entering Ohio City. At one point, around 8:30 this morning, I spotted a group of about twenty shivering people waiting for a place to open that was going to be giving out free produce at 10:00.

People standing in the cold waiting for food. It kinda makes all Black Friday stakeout stories seem stupid, doesn't it?

But I made it to St. Augustine and dropped off my donation. I am hoping St. Augustine (which is located at 2486 W. 14th St. in Cleveland) and other charities has a lot more people who show up today, preferably by bike, to make a donation. In fact, I hope this can be replicated all across the country, not just here and in Stamford. Thanks for reading and thanks for riding.

#foodbankbiking

This Saturday: Food Bank Biking

Here's what I want you to do. It's very simple: take your bike to your local grocery store at noon on Saturday, buy food and bring it to the closest food bank. 

Really, I mean it. 

If you live in Stamford, this ride is being organized by Bike Stamford which created that great Friday night ride through downtown last month.  For this ride, which is co-hosted by People Friendly Stamford, cyclists are meeting at  Fairway (which is once again hosting the annual Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot put on by Pacific Swim Bike Run) and riding to the same food bank I did my DIYBIKING.COM Thanksgiving Dinner Challenge at two years ago: The Food Bank of Lower Fairfield County at 461 Glenbrook Road in Stamford. It's a very short ride away. 

I don't know if you've noticed, but there's a big and direct connection between cycling and food. Sometimes we're expected to buy and eat food that is marketed to us, including miniaturized waffles and stuff that looks like what Peter Venkman scraped off the card catalogue in 'Ghostbusters.' In spite of how it looks, some of these things are rather tasty. 

But most of the time, we just crave real food that we make ourselves or cooked by a loved one. If we know a major ride is imminent, we may eat more. When we are done with a big ride, we may order the kind of food at a diner that comes with a free T-shirt to whoever manages to finish it in one sitting. 

So food has done and continues to do a lot for us as cyclists. Let's do something for food by making sure some gets into the hands of people who will love and appreciate it even more than us. 

Thanksgiving is next week. That means watching a parade...

...and eventually eating food. When you sit down at the table, don't you want to quietly think to yourself that you're thankful you are well-fed enough to fill a panniers bag, E.T. basket, bike trailer or cargo bike with food to bring to someone less fortunate?

I do. 

So if you are in Stamford, please meet at Fairway Market at noon on Saturday, November 23rd. Either buy your food there are bring your own, and carry it safely on your person or with your bike.

If you are not in Stamford and reading this, please tell a friend about a ride you are doing from your own grocery store to your own local food bank. Post a picture of your bike at a food bank and post it on Twitter (#foodbankbiking). Let's make this like the Sketchcrawl of cycling events. 

We can't make any given city a better place to bike overnight nor can we protect every cyclist from an accident, but we can put food on someone's table who needs it more than we do. And we can do it on vehicles that don't pollute and do not take up a lot of space in a food bank's parking lot. Let's do this. Spread the word. Thanks for reading and thanks for riding. 

DIYBIKING.COM Salutes the Cargo Bike: Part II

Okay: so I was supposed to build my own cargo bike to salute superior manufacturers of cargo bikes - Yuba, Bakfiets and Xtracycle, to name a few in non-alphabetical order - but my rollout was plagued with glitches. The goal was still a worthy one: to present cargo bikes as yet another way to get someone to choose the bike: If you are reading this and buy a lot of goods from the grocery store like toilet paper that comes 30 rolls to a pack, a cargo bike might be right for you.  And I was determined to be the guy to prove it. 

But first, back to the build. 

Two things were in short supply: time and steel, and there was little I could do to get more of either one. Normally, I'd pick up bikes at recycling center or pick them up at tag sales, but I hit a drought. Also: since this was the most complicated thing I've ever welded with my newly configured welding room it was hard to keep everything in order.

That's my workbench. Possibly. 

Another problem was settling on a design of the rear deck, and when I had that sorted out I was slapped with steel that just wouldn't stay when I welded it. I almost wished Walter White (from parts of season one) or an equivalent was around to explain what made some steel higher grade than others. 

But thanks to the front fork that I believe hailed from the Fuji Espree and a top tube and seat tube from the ugliest Huffy 10-speed I had ever seen I got the rear deck built. 

Next, I finally came to terms with the fact I did not have enough bike tubes to make the footrests/cargo holds. So I found some thick steel rods that were from a sofa I had thrown away and played around with them until I found a configuration that I thought would work.

It goes without saying that if you're at a tag sale and you find some telescoping speaker stands for $5, you should buy them. They are quite useful to hold things where I needed them to be. 

Unfortunately, once I had everything where I needed them to be I had to take it all away again so I could grind the paint from the frames and do other cutting and scraping. If you ever try something like this, you can keep track of where everything needs to go using a Sagaris Gold Fountain Pen and a Moleskine Pocket Notebook available at Levenger. Or if these things aren't available, there's always paper towels and a Sharpie. 

Once I put everything back, magnets came to the rescue to make sure the first thing I welded (the top tube I had cut off the Diamondback some time ago to make the Diamondschwinn) would go on right. 

I did have two issues welding the old sofa frame bits to the top tube: at first I upped the voltage setting too much and burned a hole right in the tube. To fix it, I welded in my traditional thick and non-pretty style, but I was able to grind off the excess with an angle grinder. 

I lost a weekend recently due to a fun trip to D.C. and parts of Virginia. So when I had a weekday evening to myself in the welding room, I'd just go at it. I lost track of how many different bikes ended up going into this; I think the Bikeducken has six or seven bikes in it: it took two Peugeot's alone just to make the rear triangle. Still, it was nice to build something out of discarded frames (keep giving me old, steel frames, readers!)

One unfortunate mistake - and this makes the bike look even uglier - was that I must have slightly pushed the frame when I walked around it to weld the cargo hold on the other side, because they sure didn't line up when the time came to join them together. 

It was a disappointment, but it was definitely a lesson learn for the next build. A lesson I had learned from a previous build, the Budget Supertrike, was being followed: don't build anything that won't fit out the door. 

When I set the five gallon can of paint on the cargo deck, I heard a creak, and sure enough I found one weld that had broken. I rolled the bike back into the room and welded it back, more slowly and more carefully this time. I then went over just about every weld I had made. I knew the cargo platforms wouldn't have the biggest capacity; I just needed them to hold a lot of toilet paper (eventually, I reasoned, I'd work my way up to charcoal briquets or even a passenger once I was sure the welds would hold). 

That's me sitting on a plank of wood on the rear deck with my feet resting on the top tube/footrest. I found I could put my feet forward and push the pedals, and I thought I could test the rear deck Mr. Bean style by pedaling the bike while sitting on it and steering with a rope fastened to the handlebars. 

Then I came to my senses. 

But after hitting the different welds with a hammer this morning, I decided the bike was ready to make its motion debut…and what better place to do that than at Bike Stamford II, which was this afternoon in the delightful Mill River Park. 

And to my complete surprise, the Bikeducken worked perfectly. Well, almost. Because I didn't have time to test it after finishing the welds and putting the chain back on, the shifter decided to be extra dodgy. I had to push it with quite a lot of force and even then several seconds would pass before the gears would change. However, that was a technical problem that I could fix later - and it had nothing to do with my welding. 

Like the previous Bike Stamford ride, this was to be laid back spin through the city and we were all reminded to share the road, ride single file whenever possible, and use hand signals (good advice for any city ride) 

I talked with some of the people who were riding in front of or behind me a little, but I admit I spent a lot of time listening to the bike hoping I wouldn't hear a creak of a weld failing. But just as it was when I rode the work-in-progress to work and back, the bike was silent and I was able to enjoy riding through Stamford in autumn.  

When we got back to the meeting point, we spent some time talking and laughing. One of the riders even allowed some of the others to take a test ride on his Brompton - the legendary folding bike which I actually got to see built during my visit to the U.K. factory. 

I did not try the Brompton as I already knew from this year's Scotland trip how great these little bikes are. I did, however, get to take the Brompton on a ride by attaching it via bungee cords to the Bikeducken and taking a short spin in the park. The welds held but since I was riding very carefully so as not to damage the bike I do not have a picture of this. 

Before long, I needed to return home - but first I had to stop at Target to pick up something. I told the cashier I didn't need a bag and drew a couple of stares as I was holding my helmet in my other hand. 

I pedaled home in triumph. Being able to safely ride a bike I had built on my own is a pretty big step for me. Even though the Bikeducken is far from perfect and isn't even close to what the well-reviewed Xtracycle Edgerunner is in terms of coolness, I was inspired by the greats and had built something that satisfied me and still made me wonder what else I could build.

I made it home and carried in the Cottonelle like a hunter who had just caught a ten-point buck. When I called my parents as I usually do on Sunday, I nearly led with that. 

So the moral of the story is: if you want to bike more but you need something that allows you to bring things from one place to another, whether it is a Brompton, large quantities of groceries, 30 rolls of toilet paper and so on, you should check out a cargo bike. They truly are the SUV for the cycling age. Also, if you are in Stamford, please remember to vote for mayor on Tuesday and, whoever wins, write and call every elected official and remind them that Stamford needs more bike lanes and sharrows if the city has any hope of dealing with congestion problems and making people happier at the same time. Thanks for reading and thanks for riding.

(Click here to see the Bikeducken carry something a lot heavier than toilet paper)