Posts tagged “bettie”  

A NYTimes most emailed article about ebikes earlier today contained this quote

“To the core cyclist, it’s cheating,” said Loren Mooney, editor in chief of Bicycling Magazine. “Marketers understand this, and it’s why some have put e-bikes in mass retailers like Best Buy, rather than engaging in the uphill battle of trying to sell them in bike shops.”

There’s a perception problem when @bicyclingmag says you’re not cool and cyclists look down at you, but the ebikes market isn’t about bike geeks, or the opinion of Loren, it’s new cyclists and commuters. Marketers fail to sell ebikes because they’re hybrids with motors, not performance or even cargo bikes with a boost, like the Bettie.

The “uphill battle” with ebikes will continue until the industry makes better bikes, until marketers discover who the urban cyclist is, and actually talks to them. If she hasn’t already, the editor in chief of Bicycling Magazine should meet the urban "noncore" cyclist. She’d likely learn they ride almost everyday around town and don’t shop for bikes at Best Buy.

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Reading that drivers are furious about Times Square being closed to their cars, I thought "too bad!" Sorry, change is a coming and it's about time.

Photo: Getty Images.

Smaller in terms of media recognition and impact is Car Free Days in Seattle and elswhere. For me, it's always Pike Place Market -- close that to cars and we're making progress.

Dig how they put lawn chairs on the street for people to sit and relax. I'd roll Bettie right up and start blending some drinks.

Well-timed for National Bike Month, another New Urbanism piece and this one is focused on how destructive cul-de-sacs are. In the years I've been riding in Seattle, Lake Washington Blvd (a standard Seattle-area bike route) went from a quiet road to a highway when I5 is gridlocked. Farmland I'd ride out and back to is covered in houses and the State widens roads just to have them fill up with cars.

Slow Down

Going out for coffee in Girona, we noticed that no one got "coffee to go." They ordered a drink and then sat down to drink it.

Point is that part of a new urban community isn't just less cars, road diets, and biking to work. We need to shift our thinking and slow down. An adjustment I made riding Bettie was that bike is slow and low. It takes double the time to get anywhere and I eventually got used to it.

If we're to depend less on cars, we've got to eventually accept that we can't zip around everywhere. Ride to get coffee and take a few minutes to enjoy it.

Hat tip to Seattle PI.

Bike thieves are back in the news with a post from the NYT City Room Blog. The comments are the best part with gems like

Did anyone accidentally buy my Fuji royal blue 5-speed bike with a mixte frame last year, thinking the salesperson was legit?

and

Try having your bike stolen from your apartment, by your neighbor!

In this photo from Beijing, I used the obstruction technique to obscure our nice, new bikes among crappy, ancient, Chinese ones. All I had was a cable lock. Did not get stolen.

Also the Kryptonite ball-pen legend still has legs.

When I'm traveling, my folding bikes go where I go and that's everywhere. Training, racing, and touring we use the buddy system and the bikes just aren't out of our sight.

On Bettie, I use Val's immobilization techniques. Those include toe-strapping the front brake, disabling the motor, and cable U-locking the front wheel to the fork.

That bike weighs more than an hundred pounds and it's gonna take at least 3 or 4 tweaking meth-heads working together to hoist her into a truck. Discussed in this post from last year.

I think until we get bike parking like Asian and European cities, this is a perennial problem.

While we used trucks and cars for most of our move to a temp location — we’re remodeling Hugga HQ — the Bettie worked well for items like this Workbench.

Check the crappy camera phone video and notes on this photo. Also, please don’t try this at home, without advanced cargo skills. Riding with that much unbalanced weight required constant adjustments to counter the twisting.

More Longtail

Recent posts we’ve written about Longtails and Xtracycles, including videos, are available on our Longtail Page.

I had this same problem once with a bollard and thought, "maybe that'll trick a crackhead." To avoid a fail, I then U-locked the front wheel, unplugged the Stokemonkey, and toe-strapped the front brake. If the cable-around-the-bollard trick didn't fool the crackhead, he'd surely not get far with the front brake on.

Sometimes I'll also just pull right into a parking slot, and immobilize the bike, as noted above.

What are your locking techniques for a cargo bike? I know Val figures that his Dreadnaught is so intimidating few would consider stealing it and if they do, it isn't going far with the brakes locked.

Hat tip to jacobawhite

Val was visiting Hugga HQ, working on the Bettie, and Cappy the Pug was crazy-sniffing his bike. I wondered if Val had ridden through a swamp recently or maybe feral cats had mated near his bike?

Nope there were pecan sandies in the oyster bucket.

Stormy, Winter day in Seattle and out running errands on Bettie. Noticed the swells and grabbed this shot.

Here’s another.

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… raven bangs, spike heels, and killer curves, the iconic Bettie Page influenced our work here, we named our longtail cargo bike after her, and the term Betty

slang term for a girl who associates with the punkrock/skateboarding/alternative subculture(s). The term originates from pin-up model Bettie Page’s signature haircut with short bangs, a common fashion trait for girls in these subcultures

is part of bike culture. She died yesterday.

Photo credit: NYT, courtesy of Everett Collection

Since the summer of 2006 Byron has integrated an Xtracycle longtail cargo bike into his family’s life and blogged about it here on bikehugger. The affectionately named “Bettie,” has seen several iterations. Bettie 1.0 was a Karate Monkey equipped with an Xtracycle Free Radical. Most recently, Bettie 2.5 has emerged as a Surly Big Dummy with custom mounted Stoke Monkey electric assist. No matter where we go, the sport utility bike turns heads. When we’re spinning up bike blended smoothies at a crit race, or just out with the kids at soccer practice, everyone wants to know more about Bettie. We’ve become such fans of Xtracycle cargo bikes, that we’ve doubled down. I’m pleased to unveil “Barney” Big Dummy. Mark V, recently completed the build of Barney at Elliot Bay Bikes. You can check out photos of Barney step’in out with a down low glow on his first trip to “Full Throttle Bottles,” Beer store in Georgetown. We look forward to comparing Barney’s Rohloff drive train performance to Bettie’s Nuvinci after I get a chance to put some rubble under Barney’s tires.

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I get asked so many questions, the cards help. I explain that it’s a sport-utility bike, a car replacement, and a cargo bike. That it’s liberating for errands cause no parking. Go to the store, just pull right up, and park.

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Kid 1 gets the camera to record the ride to school on Bettie. After the slow, grinding climb, we hit Ludicrous Speed on the descent and that’s a big wheeeeee!

Note: this ride is performed by experienced cargo bike cyclists and passengers. Please don’t try this at home.

She complains about how slow we go, until we go fast. Oh and we have an agreement that I drop her off a block from school to prevent mortal embarrassment.

Also, we need to get one a Speed Vest to proudly display our speed.

We just updated Bettie to 2.5 with the addition of the Stokemonkey — we did it with a one-time exclusive, Rolling Jackass mount and barrel-adjustable tensioner. Bettie 1.0 was stoked and when we built Bettie 2.0, we already had 2.5 planned. Our decision to make a Monkeymount was driven by back-to-school and getting the kids to and from schools. For those wondering, Stokemonkey status is best found on Clevercycle’s blog. At this time, according to the blog, they are not back on the market. We recommend Stokemonkey owners wait to hear from Clevercycles on the status of Big Dummy mounts and Stokemonkey retrofit kits.

This maybe a stupid idea, but I’m thinking of racing cross with the Bettie. The passenger could dismount with me, pick the bike up and over the barriers, and then push up the hills. Additionally, we could carry beer, pretzels, and a change of clothes with us when we get tired, wet, and cold.

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Bettie with a big wide load. xTracycle and the Rolling Jackass Center Stand in effect. Thursday afternoon @ Hugga HQ … that’s how we do.

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About town with Bettie, rolled on up into a parking place, u-lock the front wheel, did some banking, visited Alki Bike & Board, and rode some more …

That’s Bettie loaded up with a Big Dummy Frameset for transport to the bike shop — the light filtered in through the garage windows from a bright Spring day

With Spring, warmer temperatures, and less rain, it’s time to bring Bettie back and we’re rev’ing her to 2.0. Just in time for the project, a Big Dummy was spotted in West Seattle.

I started thinking about an updated Bettie in this post and thought our readers probably have some thoughts on building another longtail, sport-utility, cargo bike. We’re building Bettie with a Big Dummy, transferring over most of the parts and the purpose of the project is to simplify it down — make Bettie easier to use, more friendly, and significantly less whippy.

How would you build up Bettie 2.0?

In our ongoing campaign to bring you even more hugganess, we just started a Bike Hugger YouTube Channel. We’ve uploaded our most- viewed videos first and are now uploading our 33 (to date) Huggacasts . We’ll still publish to iTunes for the iPhones and iPods, this is just another channel. We’ll also feature more bike-related videos from YouTube like these

Uploaded by photo_history, back in the day of the Safety Bike, that was some hotness. Also see this photo and the lyrics, “She had the sightless eyes, Telling me no lies Knockin’ me out with those American thighs,” came to mind.

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