BikeO'Haul-ism

One Key, Two U-locks

2010-04-07T11:34:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I wasted about 45 minutes online trying to find out if you could get multiple U-Locks that all use the same key. Once it started looking like I'm the only person in the world who wants such I feature, I called Kryptonite to express my opinion, hoping in the future they might make such a product.

To my surprise, it turns out they do offer "keyed alike" locks. Sweet! You just have to call them up and place an order. It's a little pricey. The cheapest is $60 per lock for the Evolution Mini (one of their better locks), plus shipping (I'm assuming). However, I think this could be really useful for a lot of people who have lots of things to lock up (or maybe a family could have the same key for all their bikes).

Apparently you can't find out everything on the internet...

Why Can't I Park There?

2009-04-19T19:52:00.002-05:00

So, UT-Austin usually at least acts like they are trying to encourage cycling. My building used to have bike racks at all four corners (until construction blocked of one of those corners). Every time I ride to the gym the racks there are full and I'm tempted by the many bikeless meters out front. For some reason I allow this menacing sign to thwart my convenient parking. I'm pretty sure the threat is empty (I've seen a bike out there for the past two weeks), but I was silly enough to put a UT registration sticker on my ride, which I'm now convinced is just a ploy so they can send me a fine if they find my bike somewhere they don't like.

I get why you're not supposed to lock up on a railing, somebody might need to hold it, but what's wrong with me squeezing a little extra use outta this meter. I'm pretty sure they still work when there is a bike locked to them...

Giant gaping hole: Major road malfunctions of Austin

2009-02-28T12:36:00.004-06:00

If I had to quantify it (I don't but lets say I did) I'd say that the streets in Austin are a good 45% less smooth than the streets in Portland.

Take for example Speedway, a street named for horse racing that runs through the center of UT, which has been undergoing construction projects since I got here. Speedway is a major bike route for me. I take it to school, to work, and to most places south of me. I do this because it has a bike lane and there are no arterial crossing aids on any of the smoother, lower-traffic streets that parallel it.

Internet sleuthery got me nowhere in finding out what they are doing on Speedway (I sadly admit this and am glad I haven't had library patrons inquiring). "Private construction" has been suggested to me by some Austin natives. As they don't do private construction on public streets in Oregon, I'm going to have to assume some evil private concern is tearing up the street for the sheer joy of it, leaving the bike lane, bumpy, cracked, and full of debri.

The road has gotten so bad that I've taken to riding a lot of speedway well in the middle of the lane. I don't think a lot of cars behind me understand what I'm doing and I've been overtaken and cut off by a number of buses pulling over and cars turning right. I have small tires that don't take well to bumps and gravel. One time I almost beaned a catholic school kid in the head with a rock when it shot out sideways from underneath them. I'm just trying to keep everyone safe.

A friend of mine declared that she'd like to see the mayor try and ride a bike along the stretch from 35th to 45th. If he did he might fall into a giant gaping hole just like Spike did the other night.

As we were biking home from the grocery store after dark Spike, riding ahead of me, suddenly crashed into a sink hole that had opened up where road crews had drilled and filled a day or so prior. Luckily Spike managed to clip out of his pedals and start running, and I to dodge (not so lucky my friend Adam behind me who dog piled into the hole with Spike). Given that Austin has a serious lack of streetlights the hole was virtually invisible until you were almost in it. So Spike called Austin's non emergency line and we stood blocking the hole for a while, angry cars swerving around us not knowing we were keeping them from damage. A woman on a motorcycle cruised by on 43rd and I told Spike, who seemed to be getting a less than worried response from the person on the 311 line, to inform them that the hole was surely big enough to send a motorcyclest flying. By morning the hole had been re-filled and made a spongy black mound, treacherous but no longer a death trap.

I Need More to be Merrier in The Fort

2009-02-18T10:36:00.002-06:00

More people are riding their bikes. It’s true. I notice a few more around. And that’s a pretty cool thing.

I’m back in Fort Wayne, Indiana, my hometown. I hadn’t lived here for 12 years after moving to Portland, Oregon in late 1996. (My wife Sarah and I miss Portland. A lot.)

There are more people on bikes here than I remember. The weak economy has forced some minor changes on all of us. When I was a kid it seemed the only people riding bikes in Fort Wayne were kids and those guys who, well, you know, had to ride a bike because their driver’s license was revoked. There are more riding by choice now, I would say but the area is still kind of a hold-out when it comes to progressive bike-mindedness.

The urban mentality is much different here than Portland and, overall, it’s actually a challenge not to use a car. (O the urban sprawl!) When we first arrived here in August, we borrowed clunky old bikes and rode as much as we could -- to the library, to the store, to work. There are no bike lanes here in this city of about 230,000 people, so we had to be careful. Sometimes very careful. And honestly, I’ve got to give props to the motorists here who have shared the rode more than I thought they would.

But distance and absence of bike lanes is only a part of the problem. Strangely, one of the most difficult obstacles to get around is convincing people that cycling isn’t dangerous. My parents always wanted me to go pick Sarah up from work when it was getting dark. Even though she rode on sidewalks and not on busy streets. And even though it was a 15-minute ride. We had this conversation most every night. I could never convince them that she was OK.

We did this until winter set in. It’s gets pretty cold here, and we got lots of snow and ice so far. But there’s this guy who lives close by who bikes everywhere, even on ice and snow. I saw another guy riding his bike one night when the temperature was in the teens (without factoring the windchill). These two shame me a bit.

Right now we walk as much as we can until the spring thaw. People still think we’re crazy though. The other day Sarah got yelled at for crossing the street (within a crosswalk). And once, we met friends for coffee, and told them we had walked there. “Chris, we need to give them a ride home,” our friend Laura said, concern heavy in her voice. It was looking like rain and the temp was in the 40s. Don’t try to convince them you like getting around without a car.

My Mom once referred to it as our “lifestyle,” our walking and riding bikes. She thinks it’s nice but, “That’s not my lifestyle though,” she said.

For the last two years, neither my wife nor I owned a car. In Portland, Sarah taught yoga and mostly used her bike to get around, though occasionally used what was then called Flexcar to get to classes. I biked my 15-20 minute commute to my job each day.

But Fort Wayne’s strip malls sprawl from one edge of the county to the other, because that’s how a Midwest town grows. There are no bike lanes here, and the bus system is extremely limited. (Its budget just got cut again.) It takes us anywhere from 15-25 minutes to drive to work, so we had to buy a car -- a $1,200 1994 Mercury Topaz. It’s light blue.
I miss my bike.

I wonder how I can raise awareness. How I get someone to listen to me. That taking the bus, riding a bike, walking is not a lot of work. It’s enjoyable. But it’s hard to unite the few of us here because most people, honestly, have never thought of getting around by anything other than a car or truck. That’s just the way it is here. For now, at least.

Arturo leaves the bike at work and I learn to fear the rain: Feb in Austin

2009-02-10T23:13:00.010-06:00

I was sitting at home with nowhere to be and a huge wind came up and tore our screen off. Within minutes torrential rain like nothing the northwest ever gets was coming down and the temperature had dropped almost 30 degrees. Water filled the street and our nearby dry creek became a river. We lost a couple more screens. I thought about how Austin is in a flash flood plain and was happy for the strange cinder blocks that elevate our house a foot or so off the ground. I wondered if our neighbor's kitten, its first night out of doors, had made it back indoors or was still under our house.

The housemates and I gathered around the porch door and discussed tornado readiness and what we'd do if we got stuck out on our bikes in something like this.

Spike claimed he'd take refuge on the nearest porch, "I'd tell them, don't worry I won't steal anything."

I said, "Glad I'm not getting off work right now." It was the right time of night just the wrong day of the week. Just then a text from my co-worker, his shift about to end: OMG! I biked to work.

In Portland I scoffed at people who refused to bike in the rain. I own some pretty nifty rain gear but no way it could compete with this. Here's crossing my fingers I stay lucky. Red, my friends, means bad.

Blowin' in the wind

2009-02-10T11:00:00.005-06:00

Well, it looks like I'm the first of (hopefully) several new contributors to this blog. I live in Austin, TX and have a friend in San Antonio. Your average motorist would most likely just hop on IH-35 for about an hour and a half if they wanted to go and visit said friend. But why spend all that time looking at Car Dealerships and Outlet malls when you could spend several hours bonding with your bike and enjoying a much more scenic view? Normally, I don't have a good answer to that question. Saturday however, the answer was 20 mph head winds (gusting up to 30mph).

I'm busy grad student and although I ride at least a bit nearly every day, I just don't have time for big rides every weekend. Obviously, I didn't want all my planning to be for naught. So, Saturday morning I just decided to start riding and see how far I made it. I figured the worst that would happen was that I'd find I hadn't gotten very far after a few hours of getting a good work out and then I could turn around and let the wind blow me home.

I don't even think I was riding at half my normal pace. I called my friend after about 25-30 miles to let him I was turning around. It turned out he had his parents’ minivan and he offered to pick me up somewhere if I needed. Since I was no longer risking complete exhaustion even further from home I decided to keep going. Coming out of San Marcos I met a racer named Nick who graciously let me draft him most of the way to New Braunfels. About 30 miles from my destination I decided the wind was just too much and called in for a ride.

Sunday, I made it about 15-20 miles (with a great tail wind!) before this happened:

I don't know how well you can see, but suffice it to say that wheel is nowhere near true. My options were now: ride without breaks or be slowed way down (and I'm sure at least wear out the pad). I called my friend, and it actually turned out he was leaving for Austin (something came up at the last minute) and I ended up getting another ride.

Some rides just weren't meant to be...

On a lighter note, I never got stranded anywhere and always had options other than get picked up (turn around, and ride with just the back break). Using a bike for transportation does require some more flexibility than other forms of transportation, but it does work.

Needless to say, it’ll be awhile before I plan to make it 83 miles straight into that kind of wind.

New Directions.

2009-01-31T11:40:00.005-06:00

We are reshaping this blog but not giving up on our project. As I've mentioned before Austin's bike culture reminds me of Portland's bike culture 6 years ago. This, and the notable increase in bike traffic I observed this past trip to NYC, got me wondering. Is Austin really so weird? It is certainly more bike friendly than say a place like Vegas. But the older lady riding across Manhattan in heels and fur, my parents riding bikes to the pub in White Salmon, and Obama's promise to increase funding for bike and pedestrian projects make me pause. So I want to ask, what is it like where you are?

We'd like to gather a cast of writers (regulars and occasionals) to share stories and news from various cities and towns around the world. Want to write for us?

Back in action: Or at least Austin.

2009-01-29T15:07:00.006-06:00

Jonny and I have returned from our travels and back to the busy swing of school and work and school and work and Austin.

I managed to get on a couple of loaner bikes while in Portland. One, a cruiser with a wheel so out of true I thought it might fall off, I rode through north Portland in the ice. The other, a multi-geared road bike made into a single speed through some missing parts (not gears) that was too big for me and had a saddle that swiveled and was affixed to some degree with duct tape, I rode a couple of times all the way across town. Walking it through the Rose Quarter transit center flush with blazer spectators, I was asked by some teenage boys, "Aren't you afraid to ride that?"
"No," I lied and biked up Interstate to watch the game at the newly non-smoking Overlook. Needless to say it was nice to get back on my bike.

While I love Portland's public transportation system, at 2 dollars a ride it quickly caused me to utter an expletive or two. However, with Portland looking like this for a surprising percentage of my trip, I can only applaud trimet for doing a great job of keeping things (ie me) moving.

I brought a friend to Portland for his first time and while the snow kept the streets clear of the usual hoards of bicycle riding folks, I made sure to point out Portland's prolific bike parking infrastructure to try and get him to imagine what he was missing. Seriously Austin, put some money into staple racks. As a small bike rider with a quick release wheel I am constantly relegated the edges of the old fashioned racks.

Luckily I don't need to lock my bike in my living room.

Perhaps you notice my new bike hauling equipment (thanks mom and dad!). According to internet discussion of these lovely ortleib backrollers they can accommodate an alto saxophone. This would be very helpful if my saxophone had actually made it here on my friends tour van. With any luck it will get here for SXSW. Anyone up for forming a traveling duet?

My Dad got these from biketrailershop.com a small outfit out of Flagstaff, Arizona with the slogan Haul More=Ride More=Drive Less. Check them out.

We're hitting the ground shuffling around here. If you've any desire to help us out, we could certainly use some extra hands. Time is an unfortunately scarce commodity these days.

There are bike lanes in Las Vegas

2008-11-26T10:55:00.004-06:00

In Las Vegas for the holiday and this morning it comes rolling across the bottom of the morning news program that my uncle is watching, UPS is going to use bicycles to deliver packages this holiday season along the west coast. There was a statistic on how much money they expect to save for every 3 bicycles in use. Having not finished my coffee, I do not recall it.

But imagine it, a fleet of brown-shorted men and women delivering packages! I wonder if they will use trailers? I wonder if they are training current employees or hiring new ones. Will they modify the uniform? Brown spandex? I must investigate.

We've taken a bit of a hiatus here at this blog. We've been slowly tinkering with metal brackets and getting more and more familiar with riding around Austin. I completed a hilariously poorly planned but very fun long ride (almost accidentally took a second trip onto the freeway sans mass crowd) and I now fully agree that it is more difficult to move east/west than it is north/south in this town.

Anyhow we promise we're working, be it slowly. Jonny and I are both heading to Portland for a spell here real soon. Assuming I can secure a bike up there (I've been assured that I can) I might try and get in on a bike move. Bike Portland had some awesome pictures of a move in the rain a few weeks back so I doubt the inclement weather of December will keep those folks down. In any case I plan to talk to North Westerners about all this bike haul business, track down and take pictures of bike delivery UPS men and women, and report back.

Developmental Progress Achievement Status Update: Shuffling through Late-October

2008-10-28T19:07:00.005-05:00

There has been a bit of a lull here on the trailer building front. I blame it on graduate school and home depot being out of all standard sized cobalt drill bits (fifty percent off sale, blessing or curse?). Some fault, at least on my end, can be attributed to Halloween and my crafty moments going towards a costume that is dangerously close to being bike impossible.

But today I got out the hacksaw, ponied up some money for a not-on-sale drill bit, and got part of the way towards making brackets. If this design becomes one we want to use again I think we are going to need to find a better way to cut metal. Hand hacksaw just isn't cutting it (sorry).

I also need to start carrying my camera around. The other eve as I was biking up red river, my friend and I were passed by a man hauling a very calm looking dog in a rear-mounted, wire bike basket. The dog had to sit up pretty straight to even fit but he seemed solid.

It looked a lot like this actually.

Making Commuters out of Naught

2008-10-23T13:57:00.006-05:00

One of the pieces of advice offered by the Portland Move by Bike group is that “you might need to rent or borrow a truck to finish the job.” As much as this may seem counter to the idea of moving by bike, it is important to remember, as Laura has reminded us in her posts, that living a car-free existence is made easier by occasional access to cars. It’s ok, though, because biking isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition, and reducing car usage and increasing bike usage is pretty rad for all the same reasons that eliminating car usage is rad. Basic idea.

On that note, I wanna bring to everyone’s attention that the Smart Bike system is up and running in Washington D.C. now, and is the first such system in the U.S. It’s based on other bike rental systems (kinda like a Zipcar for bikes), the largest one being Velib in Paris. Here’s a really good video of Velib that outlines the program. In D.C., you pay a $40 annual membership and get to rent a bike as much as you want for no additional charge (I think). Bikes are kept in various locations around town where you can show up, swipe your membership card, and take a bike. Other U.S. cities have talked about doing this type of program (Portland, Boston, New York, Chicago), but I don’t think any other city has a system very far along in the works. Wish I could be in D.C. right now, but oh well. A wise man once said, “the seaweed is always greener…”

However, in a classic case of “we have the pudding and you’re a fat kid who wants it,” we found a link on the amazing Bike Portland blog that suggests that Texans may have an opportunity to get more commuters on bikes that people in other states covet. The post talks about MileMeter, a company that allows drivers to purchase auto insurance by the mile, rather than by the month or year. This allows people who don’t drive very much but do own a car to pay less for insurance. Since it’s a pay-as-you-go system, it encourages members to drive less (bike more yay!). From what I can glean, companies like OnStar do offer pay-as-you-go plans, but if you care about things like privacy and live in Texas, you’ve got options (Mile Meter also doesn’t use credit scoring or collect Social Security Numbers in an attempt to respect privacy of customers).

So, these are both systems that can hopefully bring new people into the ranks of bicycle commuters. This is good news. Building trailers + helping people move by bike = good news too. Ok, gotta go grab some wood now. That we saw on CraigsList.

Human hauling: bike ambulances

2008-10-21T22:32:00.006-05:00

I imagine the mention of bicycle ambulances in my last post might have caused some of you take pause. Perhaps you had the thought, if there ever was a time for a motor vehicle the transport of my broken/bleeding body is surely it. This is not a point I am prepared to argue (if you will remember I was driven to the doctors for only pinkeye).

I think, to form a model of a car free existence that is a viable option for everyone, it is important to be aware of the ways in which your world makes it possible for you to choose to be without a car. On some levels a "car free" existence relies on the existence of cars. I can feel secure that if I need one I will have a high speed motor vehicle, an ambulance, at my disposal.

From this vantage the bike ambulance idea is perhaps more conceivable in the context of a rural area, far from medical facilities, and where existence is de facto carless.

The organization BEN Namibia currently runs a project devoted to providing bike ambulances to Namibian towns where the need for patient emergency transport is great (HIV/AIDs rates hovering around 20%) and resources required for such transport inadequate. From the community bike cart design website.

BEN Namibia’s work delivering bicycles to home-based care volunteers in the North has demonstrated that there is an enormous need for emergency transport solutions for care of people living with HIV/AIDS. In other African countries where bicycle ambulances are in use, there have been increases in access to health care and marked declines in infant and maternal mortality rates. Because our ambulances are being used through HIV/AIDS HBC networks, we anticipate a high percentage of transports to be HIV/AIDS related. BEN Namibia is addressing the need for data on transport of HIV/AIDS patients

BEN Namibia places the cost per ambulance at around $530. If you are in need of a worthy cause to donate some cash to, I'd check them out.

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

2008-10-19T15:01:00.002-05:00

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.

Developmental Progress Achievement Status Update: Strides Made In Mid-October

2008-10-17T20:07:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone,

So this is my first post —I’m JonnyGrass, the other half of this operation. We’ll see how this post goes. So Laura and I did some good stuff today worth mentioning. Who and why is it worthy to do? I’m glad you asked (in that sort of disjunctive, unhealthy way that you did).

We have thus far:

Secured plans for the construction of a bamboo bike trailer

Secured and stripped preliminary bamboo samples. Feast your eyes!

Secured starter tools that will soon grow into a large enough arsenal to facilitate our trailer needs
Engaged in discourse with Chris Rouxel from the Orange Bike Project at UT who was really receptive to our project and the possibility of joining forces (the Orange Bike Project was responsible for last week’s screening of Quicksilver at Spiderhouse; if you haven’t seen it, you need to)

I hope y’all are as excited about these developments as we are. We’ll keep you posted as more come along. Also, I’d just like to give a shout out to Greg Dalbey in pdx who drew the amazing Bicycle Farm logo on the right side of this page. If you happen to be lucky enough to live in Portland, you might notice that his band Ferocious Eagle will be laughing at the horror of being alive at Rotture on Wednesday the 22nd. If you see him, give him a hug.

Ok, that’s all for now.

Moving without a car

2008-10-13T23:09:00.001-05:00

I have never owned a car and for the most part this has never been a problem. In Portland I had friends with cars, a great bike infrastructure, and a sound public transit system. I biked everywhere but when I got pink eye my roommate drove me to the doctors office, when I needed to look pristine for a job interview on a rainy day I took the bus, and when I needed to move my worldly possessions from N to NE Portland after the house I was living in was sold and slated for destruction I borrowed my grandfather's truck.

I moved to Austin with my bike and a suitcase, steeling myself to sleep on the floor. The past couple of months have really driven the point home that life without a car while liberating, is not exactly always easy. The things I took for granted in Portland (mainly access to the cars of my friends)became obvious.

Jonny and I have been lucky. A week in we scored mattresses from the front yard of a house not but six blocks away. It was 100 degrees and we certainly cursed our way home but it was a manageable distance to carry. Every week since that has pretty much presented its own craigslist or garage sale treasure. We've carried home a desk, a dresser, and a chair (and I have had the sore muscles to prove it). A reluctant truck-driving, garage sale bystander brought us home our couch. The chair I am currently sitting in was biked home on our housemate Spike's cruiser Joan.

While our luck has been great, our slow setting up of house is not an example what I would call an optimal model for a car free lifestyle. We've made concessions because we can stand a month or more of sitting on a floor, piling our clothes in a corner, and doing our writing at coffee shops. I suspect that most people would not make such concessions and I'd like to live in a city where choosing not to would not necessarily mean obtaining a car.

Going car free is in many ways a privileged decision. I am able bodied, childless, and live within a reasonable distance of a grocery store. Our project is aware of these very real barriers and we encourage others to think about them as well. Our intention is to attack one barrier, transporting large objects, in once city, Austin, and in doing so to hopefully provide a very visible example of people thinking outside of a moving van. I like to think a crew of people passing by on bikes, boxes, couches, and beds in tow might expand someone's conception of what it means to be moving about in this city.

Cargo bikes and heavy hauling trailers

2008-10-12T16:47:00.000-05:00

In my perusal of the nets to generate some bike haul ideas I came across these snazzy sites.

Bikes At Work Inc offers some very heavy duty bike trailers.

At $520 this trailer seems a bit out of our means (and we are planning on building!) It is advertised as maxing out at an impressive 300lbs and is certainly inspiring.

Also out of our means is Portland, Oregon's Metrofiets .

The cargo bike concept makes a nice marriage of bike and trailer. I am also a sucker for craftsmanship and marketing aimed at my progeny.

Finally there is A.N.T. from Holliston, MA. Here are some folks dedicated to commuter style bikes that scream, my bike is my primary vehicle. Check out their lovely take on the cargo bike.

Call for wheels!

2008-10-11T15:27:00.000-05:00

To get our venture off of the ground we are in need of supplies. Our first plan of action is to study up on various manners of trailer/cart making. We are currently cart-less so our supply gathering is going to be limited to what we can walk or strap to our backs/bike racks. With this in mind our preliminary environmental scan suggests that we are going to go for a bamboo cart design. Check out this nifty project for a bamboo bike trailer . Our biggest need is wheels. Kid motocross 20inch wheels would be ideal but considering we aren't about to cannibalize our own bikes for parts, we'll take what we can get. Feel free to contact us if you've got anything to donate.

In the future we're going to be needing some other things so if you've got a hack saw, power drill, or a propane torch you could part with feel free to send it our way. But for now the word is wheels and the word is good.