The problem with biking with pastries: We don't want no pinapple upside down cake!

So we are chugging along. We've purchased some more tools and I spent a good chunk of the morning cutting and bending metal with a hacksaw and our new vice. I produced nothing usable and my hands now hurt. But it was good in that I have a clearer idea of what we need to do.

I admire the scope of Carry Freedom's project. They aim to provide instructions followable by anyone without assuming a common language, skill level, or access to sophisticated tools and/or supplies. With this aim in mind, their instructions rely mostly on pictures and I spent a bit of time trying to figure out what type of wrench I was looking at (it was labeled a "spanner" and I've only heard that term in conjunction with pedal wrenches and such). Going through the instructions I realized I just needed a crescent wrench that would fit my nuts and bolts. It is ambitious to rely on hand drawn pictures to communicate across cultures and skill levels. I only understand that the drawing of "saw" actually means "hack saw" by looking through all of the steps and seeing it cut metal. For that matter (assuming I cannot read, English or otherwise) I only understand that the drawing of sheet metal is in fact metal by seeing it bend after it has been cut (this seems potentially confusing). But it is easy to complain and Carry freedom asks for feedback as the price of using their "free" plans. The set of instructions we are using is the project's second draft. Hopefully we can come up with ideas to make them better. Mostly I am a word based person and not good at visuals (I have the same problem with my bike maintenance handbook and it uses mostly photographs).

Last night Jonny and I had a potluck during which our project came up more than once. Someone suggested we might have more difficulty conducting bike moves going east/west vs north/south. This was something I hadn't thought of and I might make some strategic scouting missions, hopefully with a loaded trailer, at some point.

Our friend Emily revealed she is doing some blogging of her own in a similar vein. Her blog chronicles her venture into going carless starting from the sale of her car. Most non bike commuters I've spoken to have cited fear as a large part of their hesitancy to bike. Biking in an urban environment for the first time can be harrowing. Getting set up can feel humiliating as there is still lot of machismo in the biking world. Emily's blog gives a nice account of all of these things and I think can serve as a resource for anyone trying to take up biking, or to wean themselves off of their automobile.

The night ended with some bike hauling of humans as our friend Scott ferried Gesse home on his extracycle. Gesse had left her bike at home in order to carry a pie to us on the bus (A bike hauling conundrum: how to get a pie, intact across town?).


Jonny loaned Gesse a helmet, as we promote safe hauling and the whole thing got me thinking about human cargo: bike ambulances, pedicabs, biking with kids. Perhaps a future blog post(s) is in order.