New new centerstand!

A centerstand is a must for any serious cargo bike, otherwise loading and unloading becomes almost prohibitively difficult. A box bike has a couple advantages over a longtail in this respect: there is a great place ready-made to put a big honkin' center stand (under the box) and you have the option of loading the bike on the centerline, avoiding the tipping issue entirely. With a longtail you need to fit a center stand somewhere amongst the drivetrain and rear wheel and it needs to be wide enough to let you load one side of the bike at a time without tipping. This is one place where Madsen hit the nail on the head with their bucket bike: it has a centerstand as wide as the bucket. The design for that bike is a little less constrained than on a Yuba or Xtracycle because the rear wheel is so much smaller.

Yuba recommended the Hebie BiPod centerstand when I purchased the frame. It's a $70 piece of kit and operates just fine but is far from cargo-worthy. It would only hold the Yuba upright unloaded and on perfectly level pavement. It also flexed wildly under the weight of an unladen Mundo. I did some searching at that point and came across the Rolling Jackass centerstand but didn't seriously consider buying one because of the $350 price tag. I considered long and hard the problem of building a wide centerstand with an eye towards it carrying a child, and ultimately decided to buy a Rolling Jackass. The amount of time it takes to design and fabricate something like this was worth more to me than the price. the equation might have come out differently if A) I still had access to a machine shop, B) I knew how to weld, or C) had an abundance of free time. Val Kleitz, a fixture of the Seattle cycling scene, is Rolling Jackass.

The thing that really sold me on the Rolling Jackass was remote deployment. The centerstand is actuated by a mini BMX brake lever so you can put the bike on the stand before getting off it. On a good day with a reasonable load keeping the bike steady while dismounting isn't a problem, but on a bad day, in the rain, with a completely unreasonable load (who would buy a Mundo without plans to carry loads that would make an Xtracycle unridable?), remote deployment brings surety to a literally shaky situation. It's a feature that I really wanted and didn't want to take the time to design and test.

So the Rolling Jackass has been on the Yuba since the boxes went on and the Hebie will go on Katie's Volpe. The stand action is great, but mounting it was a bit on an adventure. Val designed the stand around Xtracycles, and he makes a version that fits the V1 Mundo just fine. The V2 required slightly narrower mounting holes and the unceremonious removal of the kickstand mount by hacksaw and file. I won't miss it. Any stand that can mount to a traditional kickstand mounting plate will not stand up to cargo use. So, if anyone with a Mundo reads this and decides to get a stand from Val, tell him what version you have. Also, if anyone fits one on a V3, please post pics!

The stock stand isn't quite wide enough for the boxes on our bike (especially when one has a 15 lb baby and the other has two bags of groceries and a case of beer), which led to me receiving an e-mail from Val a couple weeks ago with an offer to test out a prototype stand intended for heavy use that was wider and longer than the normal one. The only condition was that I push it to its limits and document the process. Well, I finally got around to installing it today, along with permanently mounting the top deck, and upgrading the mounting of the chainguard.

Here's the business ends of the two stands, stock in on bottom, prototype on top:

The new stand puts the feet almost as wide as the Yuba's H-racks and can hold the bike up with only one box mounted:

Look forward to more "I carried this on my bike" pics.

More rear hub information

I know, I'm getting redundant. One of the things that's bugged me about my delightful rear hub (with 14mm adapters from the manufacturer!) is the hollow rear axle. During the light rail portion of my morning commute I decided to take the issue to the source and e-mailed Halo about it directly.

My query:

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I have one of your Spin Doctor Pro DH hubs, and I was wondering why the axle is hollow. Is part HUHAPRA1 actually a solid axle? I was under the impression that the DH model was a MTB with a HUHAPRA1 already installed, but was surprised to find a hollow axle.

Also, just an FYI, as far as I know the SD Pro DH with the 14mm axe men is the only hub that can fit a 135mm x 14mm frame without modifications, and I'm grateful you make it. I use it in my Yuba Mundo cargo bike. Thanks for making a hub that fits this monster of a frame and lets me run a normal drivetrain.

-Dave Proctor, Portland, Oregon, USA

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Their response:

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Hi David,

Thanks for the e-mail and props for our hubs.

You are correct the axles that come in the DH hubs are hollow and the after-market axles are solid.

This is a peculiar situation that we are still trying to get to the bottom of with our manufacturers!

Cheers

Matt

Matt Andrews

Sales & Marketing Manager

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So the aftermarket axle is solid! Not that I've had a problem with the hollow one, but the load capacity has got to be higher for the solid axle. It's not too expensive either, too bad it's out of stock at BTI.

Also, Halo appears to make some generic 14mm axle adapters that might work better than the ones Yuba sells:

The outer flange would act as a nice big washer, too bad it's not serrated. I bet a few minutes with a sharp file would fix that.

Riding with Two Kids

I'm out of the blogging stride, with nearly a month since last posting. But now that Jasper is temporarily transfixed by his new fish mobile, I'm going to jump right in and see about managing some of the backlog of bike fun that I'd like to share with you!



My sister-in-law, her husband, and their little boy came to visit us over Presidents' Day weekend so that they all could meet the baby. They live in Roy, UT, home of wide streets and big cars. But they know we don't have a car, and wanted to know if they needed to rent one when they visited. We said no, and then set to figuring out how we would all get around without one.

The grown-ups were no problem, of course-- they are both able-bodied and terrifically good sports, so they borrowed a few bikes to get around. Our local shop very sweetly loaned us a couple of helmets for them to use, and we were good to go!

But their son, Forrest, is two-and-a-half, and while he walks and runs with more agility every time I see him, he's certainly not big enough to get himself around on a bike.



Dave's sister and I had talked about her wanting to get Forrest around by bike before this, so I took the risk that she would be pleased by our surprise for them: a seat for Forrest in the Yuba box! Dave and I set to work on design, and then Dave took over the construction: a small, plywood shelf, firmly but temporarily affixed to permanently installed cleats inside the box. We put two holes in the shelf to pass an NRS strap through for a seatbelt, and voila! Kid seat. We picked up a kid-size helmet at Clever Cycles, and were good to go.

We got to take three rides on the Yuba with both kids. First, to brunch-- Forrest was a bit stunned on the way out, but was cheerful on the way home. Later that afternoon, we mentioned taking the bikes out for bagels, and when we were too slow to get moving on that, Forrest wandered away and came back with his helmet on his head, holding his parents' helmets for them: "Come ON guys, it's time to get back on the bikes!" So off we went, into the drizzly twilight, for a mid-afternoon bagel snack.





The next day we first set to wrestling with carseats and zipcars to get to a lovely suburban Valentine's brunch with friends. We loved the brunch, but found the whole carseat/driving ordeal a bit draining. On the other hand, I did get to make and give out bikey valentines!



After that, we took a cleansing, longer ride to Trader Joe's, where Forrest's folks wanted to pick up some things. It was five miles round trip, long enough for Forrest to compose and sing me a song about bumps, to soothe the crying baby beside him, and to wave at lots of dogs and kids we passed along the way.



In each case I was struck by how little Forrest cared where we were going: the point was to get on the bike and go. Even in the rain--put on a raincoat! Even in the dark-- turn on some lights!

His mom tells me that the bike rides, and his helmet, were his favorite parts of the trip, and that he talked about them on the plane all the way home.



It will be a while yet before Jasper can tell me what he thinks about riding on the bike. But I hope he loves it that much. And though I know he'll sometimes be grouchy about it, I hope he can share with me some of that childish enthusiasm about getting on the bike. No matter where we're going. No matter if it's dark. No matter if it's raining.

Busy Bikey Life

We've had the baby bike up and running for three weeks, and I think I've put about 80 miles on it, maybe a bit more. We've been out every day, sometimes just heading to adjacent neighborhoods, but often going all the way to north Portland for visits, or down to Sellwood to see Jasper's pediatrician, or all over town on last weekend's Tweed Ride. Jasper's naps happen most easily on the bike or in the wrap, and so I find myself out at least once a day, on foot or in the saddle, making laps of the neighborhood trying to get the boy some sleep. It's been awesome for my waistline, exhausting for my muscles, and dreadful for my writing habit. But man, are we having fun.