The Aqua-Xtracycle is a do-it-yourself amphibious electric cargo bike. This video shows how it works, and the photo gallery below shows a bit of our development process. In a future post I’ll describe how you can make your own Aqua-Xtracycle.
This pontoon boat cost about $250.
The first prototype used a wooden dowel to support the pontoons.
Rear view of the first prototype.
Thea on the first prototype.
When I got on the first prototype the wooden dowels broke.
The bike got wet.
Testing tent poles.
Second prototype with 6061 aluminum poles.
Second prototype at our Stewart Park testing grounds.
For now just using paddles for propulsion.
Learning to weld and braze.
Clockwise from top: Xtracycle, pontoon frames, trolling motor and battery, front float, and pump.
Failed attempt to attach paddles to the rear wheel.
Seaweed was a problem.
A platform helps shape the front wheel float and keeps the front riding higher.
A Halkey-Roberts valve inflates and deflates more quickly than an inner tube valve.
Four BMX handlebar stems fit into the Xtracycle horizontal-rack tubes.
Two diagonal supports snap on from the pontoon frames to the Xtracycle vertical racks.
A cotter pin secures a $100 electric trolling motor to the rear of the bike frame.
Thankfully the news media is keeping quiet about this or I could be in big trouble: I flooded the Mississippi earlier this month. I’m also responsible in some small part for the Arkansas killer tornados last month. I may even be implicated in the Japanese earthquakes earlier this year, though the evidence for that is not so clear. But certainly without a doubt (as I confessed in a previous post) I share with BP responsibility for the gulf oil spill last year. How did I manage to cause such massive death and destruction? Simply by living my life as usual, getting around by car. I feel a little bit guilty about it actually. But what can I do?
I think more and more people will, as I have done, make this important connection: my driving habit (among other things) causes global warming which causes extreme weather which leads to premature death and hardship around the world. I can no longer read about the misery in Mississippi, the anguish in Arkansas, the grief in Japan, and the environmental destruction in the Gulf of Mexico without knowing that I am in a small way responsible. I think more and more people will feel a little bit guilty like I do. And we’ll have to weigh our guilt against our need to use our cars. After all, don’t we have to use our cars to pick up our kids now and then? Don’t we have to go get the groceries, commute to work in the rain, and occasionally drive to our parents’ house in another state? What choice do we have? I mean, these are all errands that we can’t do on our bicycles, right?
Wrong. It depends how you define bicycle. Most people in this country think of a bicycle as a recreational device for children or athletes. Most people don’t think of a bicycle as something they can use to carry passengers or to carry heavy loads. And most people think that it requires great strength to bike up steep hills or to go faster than 10mph or to go long distances. These are all misconceptions stemming from peoples’ limited idea of what a “bicycle” is. I’ve spent the last couple of years rejecting what a bicycle “is” and experimenting with what a bicycle “can be”. And I’ve concluded that my large (cargo) bike with an electric motor can be almost as capable as a car for almost all of my errands.
I still have a lot of work to do to make my bike into a true car-replacement-vehicle. I recently added batteries for long trips that enable me to go 60 miles in 3 hours or 120 miles in 12 hours, depending on how much I lean on the throttle. As a former bicyclist that speed and distance is more than good enough for me. However I imagine others might want to add a few more batteries to make a faster but slightly heavier car-replacement-vehicle. How is a true car-replacement-vehicle different than a motorcycle? For starters, it uses one hundredth the energy of a gasoline-powered motorcycle. And the energy it uses (namely electricity) comes in a form that is easily gotten from renewable sources. I can satisfy all my transportation energy needs by putting a modestly sized solar panel in the sun for a day or two. Secondly, unlike a motorcycle my true car-replacement-vehicle is designed to go slowly. That’s right: slow by design.
My bike as it is now replaces almost all my personal transportation needs and most trips carrying a child; a little more power and a larger frame would enable me to carry adult passengers too. A canopy would make winter riding more comfortable. But these are minor improvements to an existing proven technology. The car companies would have us think that they need a technological breakthrough before they can offer us environmentally responsible vehicles. Not so. You can begin your car-free lifestyle now with an electric cargo bike.
If the car-free revolution doesn’t require new technology, what is stopping us? The revolution only requires a simple collective change in our attitude: the willingness to go slowly. An electric-vehicle-centered lifestyle requires a willingness to go say 15mph rather than 30mph in the city, or 30mph rather than 60mph on the highway. Is that too much to ask? I hope people are willing to make this attitude change. It seems like a small thing: take a little more time to run your errands in order to spare us all from extreme weather events, in order to prevent permanent damage to the earth’s climate.
Aside from preventing planetary destruction, there are plenty of other reasons for people to travel slowly. At 15mph traffic lights and stop signs are no longer necessary; people have enough time to negotiate their way through intersections. Other signage for restricting cars from doing annoying things (such as parking in the wrong place) becomes unnecessary. Pedestrians—even kids and pets—can roam the streets. Because we all have smaller vehicles, more of our cityscape can be green rather than concrete. People driving bikes and other open electric vehicles can greet each other, stop, and talk. No more massive concrete structures dotting our landscape and draining our government budgets. Imagine what our living spaces can look like without cars! It almost seems like paradise, until the next tornado comes rolling in because the climate hasn’t changed back yet.
I confess that I still drive occasionally. I apologize for that. I am confident that by driving an electric cargo bike I can wean myself from causing further environmental destruction. But until then, sorry about the flood y’all.
I was frustrated about having to repair a flat tire every hour or so and I was concerned that I might run out of patches. I needed to get to a bike shop soon. There was a Walmart 12 miles away in Rome. Could I make it? Long story short I made it. I bought three inner tubes, two patch kits, a floor pump, a tire, and a file in case I needed to convert my presta rim to schrader.
Any kook can slap a solar panel on a bicycle and call it a solar bike. How am I any different? Mainly in my lack of ambition. I don’t want to create a ground-breaking product that will rocket me into the halls of fame. I just want to charge my battery however much I can within my budget. I just want to do the experiment to find out if adding a solar panel to my bike is worth the effort and expense. And if it is, I want to post instructions on my blog here so others can follow in my footsteps.
People see my bike and they expect that the solar panels power the bike completely. The reality of course is that the solar panels are an accessory to an accessory. First of all the electric assist is an accessory to you the bicyclist who is pedaling. Secondly the solar panels are an accessory to the electric assist. The solar panels supplement the electric assist’s batteries in those few instances where you can’t get to a power outlet. So despite the panels’ physical prominence on my bike and in our imaginations, currently they have only a minor role in actually making the bike go forward. Not insignificant, but minor.
What would it take to give the panels a major role? At least a four-fold increase in power. Currently the panels produce about 25 Wh per hour. 100 Wh per hour would be very useful for a long trip since it takes me about an hour to use up 100 Wh. That means I could accumulate energy about as fast as I use it. I could go indefinitely (on a sunny day). I think it’s entirely possible to get a four-fold increase with existing technology. Just adding more panels is a start (perhaps as a canopy over the driver). And it may be possible to make the panels more efficient by adding a charge controller with sophisticated electronics (such as Power Point Tracking).
Bicyclists out there may be wondering “If the power you get from the solar panel is so small, why not just take all that crap off your bike and pedal the damn thing?” This is a very good question that has been nagging at me throughout the ordeals of this trip. I have to keep in mind that this is just a beginning. The point is not to just reach my destination here and now. The point is to pioneer a new type of vehicle. It’s not a solar car–it has pedals so that its human can supplement its power if necessary. Is it a bike? Whatever it is, it is a vehicle that is so lightweight, narrow and slow that even the meager power of the sun can power it.
Adirondack Gateway Campgrounds = heaven
catching photons in Hinckley State Forest
The day began overcast. Not a good start for the Solar Xpedition. But by midday Mr. Sun broke through and the watt hours came rolling in. I ran with my solar panel connected to the working battery (rather than the spare). It was exciting to see the power drop as I went up a hill and then gradually be restored by the panel.
My power use went very well the first day. I didn’t even need to get out the spare battery. It’s hard to know how much of the 500 watt hours I used the first day was supplied by the panel since I don’t yet have a way to measure watt-hours output. But I estimate that the battery had 360 to start with, the solar panel added 70 and charging at a restaurant while eating dinner added 70.
Many things didn’t go well, in particular 7 flat tires and swarms of mosquitos at my campsite.
“Can the solar panel drive the electric motor directly?”
“Did you make it yourself?”
“What the…”
Allow me to explain. My vehicle of choice is a “stoked Xtracycle”. (For those of you not “in the know”, an Xtracycle is a type of cargo bike that has an extra long frame. And “stoked” means that my bike has a Stokemonkey electric motor that helps me out on the hills.) In general this summer I’ve been biking 10 to 20 miles a day and then recharging my battery overnight by simply plugging it into an outlet. However, next week I’m going on a 3-day 240-mile camping trip through the Adirondacks where I might not have access to an outlet. The solar panels will help extend the range of my bicycle. So to answer your questions:
“Why do you have solar panels on your bicycle?”
I use them to extend the range of my electric cargo bike for long trips (plus they were fun to make). I will carry two batteries on my trip, each giving my bike a range of 20 to 40 miles. On a sunny day the solar panels can recharge one of the batteries while I am riding, adding an additional 20 to 40 miles for a total range of 60 to 120 miles a day. I anticipate some hills and I’ll be carrying a load, so a 60-mile range is probably more accurate. I may need to pedal the last few miles on some days.
“What do you do when it’s cloudy or it rains?”
I plan to stay in a hotel some of the time and recharge my batteries there.
“Can the solar panel drive the electric motor directly?”
Not really. The solar panels don’t produce enough electricity instantaneously. For example the solar panels only produce about 40 watts of power at a given moment, whereas my bicycle needs about 400 watts of power to go up a hill. The main purpose of the solar panels is to charge the battery over time. Since charging happens slowly, 40 watts is enough to charge the battery. It takes roughly 10 hours of charging to store one to two hours’ worth of electrified riding time in the battery. And one to two hours of riding translates into 15 to 30 miles.
“Did you make it yourself?”
I already had the stoked Xtracycle, which is described on my About This Bike page. As you can read there, an electric cargo bike can be had for $1000 to $3500. And I had already constructed the canopy frame for a previous project, the Bike Wagon Canopy ($150). I found the canopy was somewhat wobbly with the weight of the solar panels so I had to strengthen it with guy wires. It remained for me to add the solar panels and the electronics. I used maritime-grade solar panels that were designed to keep sailboat starter batteries charged up, so they are extra-sturdy and consequently somewhat expensive. I’ve since seen panels with almost twice the power at 3/4 the price. Cost of panels: $900 to $1200. I am using three 12-volt panels in series to produce the 36 volts required by my battery. I spent a lot of time researching what sorts of electronics I would need between the panels and the battery, and finally concluded that I can just plug the panels into the battery directly. (I plan to write more about this in a later post.)
Total cost for a solar bicycle: $2050 to $4850. Not bad for a vehicle that can get you both out of the car and off the grid.
Us cargo bikers get a thrill out of telling everyone what big loads we can carry (see Their Carrying Capacity and My Carrying Capacity). I am no exception. Here are some of my latest big loads.
Toting my video camera, tripod, several laptops, and modeling clay to South Hill School for my claymation PTA enrichment class. Final product is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsZcRHJo8Wc.
The whole family heads down the rec way to the swimming hole. I am carrying 120-pound Jasper on my bike.
Guess what is in this 50-pound monster pannier.
This is what’s inside.
Aquatic adventure to go.
Thea and I dismantled the Burning Man-style geodesic dome I built for Quaker Camp. This is the heaviest load I’ve carried (400 lbs. of dome and people). It was unstable but we made it home.
Here’s the dome in use back in 2006. Amazing something this large can fit on a bicycle!
In a previous post I described a canopy that Thea and I made for our Xtracycle to protect her from wind and rain. It looks sort of like a covered wagon on the back of our bike. It was easy to build without special tools or parts, did not require modifying our bike and cost us less than $150 for parts. It weighs about 2 lbs. and we can set it up in less than five minutes. Here’s how to make it.
Materials You Will Need
(1) Xtracycle
(1) 7/8″ x 48″ dowel
(4) 3/4″ long wood screws for the base
(4) #6 x 3/4″ machine screws and nuts
(12) 18″ x .340″ aluminum tent poles with inserts
(2) 18″ x .340″ aluminum tent poles without inserts
(4) 18″ x .626″ aluminum tent poles with inserts
(1) 18 x .625 aluminum tent pole without insert
(4) .340″ 145 degree tent pole elbows (ignore the holes)
3 yards by 60″ of silicon-coated rip-stop nylon cloth
25 feet of light cord
(4) grommets
(4) buckles and 25 ft. of 1/2″ webbing
Tools You Will Need
hand saw
drill (although use a drill press if you have one)
#1024 1.1 OZ SILNYLON 1STS , (Tan)…3 at $9.99 = $29.97
#4060 TENT POLE W/ INS .625 18 inch Black…4 at $4.95 = $19.80
#4061 TENT POLE W/O INS .625 18 inch Black…1 at $3.95 = $3.95
#4018 TENT POLE W/INS. .340 18 inch Black…12 at $2.60 = $31.20
#4019 TENT POLE W/O INS .340 18 inch Black…2 at $2.20 = $4.40
#4055 TENT POLE ARCH-145 DEGREE .340 BLACK…4 at $2.95 = $11.80
#2000 WEBBING- NYLON MED WT 1/2 inch Black..25 at $0.49 = $12.25
#3026 SIDE RELEASE BUCKLES – 1/2 inch…4 at $0.39 = $1.56
#4200 tubing cutter…$7.95
#3235 grommet tool (5/16″)…$10.99
#3231 (10) 5/16 grommets…10 at $0.18 = $1.80
purchase at a hardware store:
(1) 7/8″ x 48″ dowel…$3
(4) 3/4″ long wood screws…$1
(4) #6 x 3/4″ machine screws and nuts…$1
25 feet of light tie-down cord such as cotton clothes line…$5
TOTAL: $145.67
How to Make the Canopy Cover
The rectangular canopy cover fits over the canopy frame and is secured at the bottom with tie-down straps. The front and back of the cover can be cinched up with a drawstring like a covered wagon. If you like, the cover’s size can be adjusted, along with the frame’s pole lengths, for different sizes of passenger. The size I give here is appropriate for a large child or small adult.
1. Cut the cloth so that it is 108″ (3 yards) by 60″. The 60″ edges will be along the sides of the canopy, and the 108″ edges will be the front and back. Hem the 60″ side edges first, then the 108″ front and back edges. Make the hems about 1.5″.
2. Next make the drawstrings. Using a stiff wire as a big sewing needle, insert about 12 feet of cord into the front hem, then repeat for the back hem.
3. Next use the grommet tool to insert two grommets on each 108″ side, about 18″ from the front and back (the video below shows how to use a grommet tool). If you are using thin cloth, reinforce it first with an iron-on patch.
4. Cut four 20″ lengths of webbing for the tie-down straps. For each strap, sew one end of the webbing to the female buckle and thread the other end of the webbing into the male buckle. Thread the straps into each grommet hole.
How to Make the Canopy Frame
The canopy frame “base” consists of two 7/8″ x 24″ wooden dowels that are inserted into the Xtracycle h-rack (horizontal) tubes and secured with wood screws. Aluminum tent poles are then erected upon this base: a front hoop, a rear hoop, and two cross pieces.
1. Cut the 7/8″ x 48″ dowel in half so that you have two 24″ pieces.
2. Drill a 19/64″ hole 1/2″ from each end of each piece. Make the holes as vertical as possible and make them exactly parallel.
3. Insert a base pole into the Xtracycle h-rack, center it, and align the holes so that they are vertical. While holding the base pole in place, drill starter holes for the woodscrews where the h-rack tube has holes in its side.
4. Screw the base poles to the bike with the woodscrews. I just leave the base poles on my bike all the time. The front pole provides a nice footrest for passengers.
5. Next make the hoop poles. All you have to do for this step is cut four of the 18″ poles to 12″ (or a different length depending on your expected passenger size). The video below shows how to use a pipe cutter.
6. Next make the cross pieces from the .625″ poles. For each of the poles that have inserts drill a 11/32″ hole in the ends opposite the inserts, about 1/2″ from the end.
7. For each of the four cross piece ends insert an elbow piece. It may take some effort to get it in and you may have to hit it with a hammer.
8. Drill a 9/64″ hole that goes through the elbow that is in the crosspiece. Screw the elbows into place with the four machine screws.
9. Cut two 6″ pieces from the .625″ tent pole that *doesn’t* have an insert. These will serve as the center parts of the cross pieces.
How to Assemble the Canopy
CAUTION: do not leave your canopy frame uncovered. Without the cover it is only held together by friction. If jostled it could come loose and snap back with surprising force (and for example break a garage window as I learned from experience). DO NOT ride your bike with an uncovered frame (again as I learned from experience you don’t want to be picking up all 20 tent poles in traffic). If you want to use the frame for some purpose other than the Bike Wagon canopy, consider putting a shock cord within it or using external guy wires as I do for using it to support my solar panels.
Final step: do me the courtesy of sending me a photo of your finished canopy!
How to Cut an Aluminum Tent Pole with a Pipe Cutter
How to Add a Grommet to the Canopy Cover
How to Make a Canopy Sack
If you have enough cloth left over you can use it to make a canopy sack.
1. Cut the cloth to 27″ x 20″. Hem the 20″ side.
2. Fold the cloth in half and sew the edge, leaving an opening for the drawstring at the ends of the hem.
I’ve been sharing with people my ambition to turn my Xtracycle “cargo bike” into a microcar. This has led me to ask what exactly is a microcar? And what would it take to give an Xtracycle the functionality of a microcar?
Microcar 101
It turns out microcars are not a new idea—they’ve been around since the dawn of the twentieth century. They are basically very small cars, usually between 150 and 1,000 pounds, powered by a 49cc to 500cc motorcycle-like engine or an electric motor, and often they are three-wheeled. They tend to be very cute and have become the objects of desire for many collectors and clubs. Various forces have caused microcars to wax and wane in popularity. For example they flourished after both World War I and World War II, perhaps as a way for people to economize. They also tend to flourish in places where their small size gives them tax, insurance, or drivers’ licensing advantages. Because of these economic forces, microcars are more popular in Europe and Japan than the U.S. For example in Austria and France they have a reputation for being the vehicle of last resort for people who lost their driver’s license for drunk driving. In some European countries, they became popular because taxes and insurance used to depend on engine displacement or power. Modern Japanese microcars, called Kei cars, are designed to exploit local tax and insurance regulations, and in more rural areas are exempted from the requirement to certify that adequate parking is available for the vehicle.
I believe (and others believe) the time is right for the microcar to rise again, and I believe the bicycling community will have a hand in that transformation. There is a vacuum forming in our transportation system for a slow narrow vehicle that weighs between 100 and 1000 pounds. The car manufacturers don’t seem interested in coming down from their planet-wrenching upper end of the weight scale. It’s left up to the bike manufacturers to come up from the low end, to produce an intermediate-sized vehicle. My electric-assist “stoked” Xtracycle already has some of the specs of the smallest microcar, the Peel P50. The P50 weighed 130 pounds; my stoked Xtracycle with a canopy enclosure and other amenities will weigh about the same. The P50 has a 4.2 horsepower (3,131 watts) motor; my electric motor can put out 750 watts, which, along with some human power thrown in, might sometimes reach half that power on a good day. We’ve got the beginnings of a microcar here.
Furthermore, bicyclists can give birth to a new kind of vehicle because we are unhindered by the constraints that the auto industry has. For example the side impact laws—necessary for vehicles that go highway speeds—make it technically impossible for the auto manufacturers to make a car that weighs less than 1000 pounds. Also the car industry is constrained by the limitations of mass production. Before the car industry can roll a microcar through it massive factories it must first ensure that there is a very large market for it. Bike shops, in contrast, only have to convince a few hundred people to buy one of their hand-crafted microcars which they can build from off-the-shelf parts. This situation is similar to the pre-mass production era when many small shops produced only a few hundred of their often eccentric cyclecars, the original microcars. Cyclecars were small inexpensive cars manufactured mainly between 1910 and the late 1920s. They were called cyclecars because they often incorporated motorcycle parts. They were very inexpensive for cars; the Buckboard cyclecar cost as low as $200 ($2,800 in 2010 dollars).
The auto industry must also overcome peoples’ expectations that all cars must be able to drive at highway speeds and highway distances. There is a movement among environmentally-minded manufacturers to create a new class of cars called Neighborhood Electric Vehicles, which weigh less than 3,000 pounds, typically have a range of 30 miles and have a top speed of 25 mph. But given what I know about American culture I don’t think this movement will succeed. People balk at the idea of a car that only goes 25mph, but a bike that goes that speed is cool.
So what is stopping a bike shop from making a microcar? Two things: the legal definition of a bicycle, and technical constraints. For an electric-assist bicycle to be legally considered a bicycle (rather than a motorcycle or car) it’s motor must be less than 750 watts, it must have functional pedals, it’s maximum speed must be less than 20mph, and it must have two or three wheels. This last constraint is important: if you give a vehicle four wheels it seems the full weight of automotive regulations falls upon it. There is some hope that these legal constraints will rise. For example I read recently that the motor limit in New York has been raised to 1,000 watts.
So is it technically possible to build a vehicle within those legal constraints that achieves the same functionality as a microcar? I believe it is. My Xtracycle cargo bike is almost there. Why hasn’t anyone done it before? Maybe because electric motor and battery technology wasn’t so well developed until now. Maybe the consumer base wasn’t there. Maybe the gas price, tax, insurance, and licensing forces weren’t in alignment. I sense that they are coming into alignment now.
What would it take to turn a cargo bike into a microcar?
What can a microcar do that a cargo bike can’t do? One big difference is speed. We can make a cargo bike faster by adding an electric motor, but we still have the 20mph legal limit. For me this is not a problem. Carrying capacity is more important than speed for me, and electric motors have an advantage over internal-combustion engines in this regard. For a given horsepower, electric vehicles such as my bike tend to be slow but with great carrying capacity, whereas internal-combustion-powered vehicles tend to be faster but unable to carry as great a load. For example my bike has a 400-pound carrying capacity and a maximum speed of 20mph, whereas the P50 described above probably can’t carry much more than one 200-pound person but it can carry them at 38mph. I would much prefer a microcar that can carry a lot rather than a microcar that is fast.
The next biggest functionality a microcar has that a cargo bike doesn’t have is a canopy. I’ve outlined my design criteria for an Xtracycle canopy in a previous post. Bicycles have a long history of incorporating canopies; bikes with a canopy are called velomobiles. However, again, velomobiles seem to be built for speed rather than cargo capacity. Another design direction that incorporates a canopy with a bike is the bicycle car, which typically means a pedal-powered vehicle with four wheels. A pedicab is a similar idea.
Other advantages of a microcar have to do with comfort and ease of use. Bicycling manufacturers are used to asking the bicyclist to conform to the bike. Our microcar must instead incorporate some of the same human-centered design that makes Apple products such big hits. Bicycle manufacturers haven’t yet begun to explore the design opportunities that come from having an electric motor and a big honking battery on a bike. An obvious opportunity is to power the bike lights from the central battery rather than have separate batteries and switches for each light. Now that we have a canopy we can begin to think about how to keep passengers warm. Another set of design opportunities comes from the cyclist no longer having to be thrifty with power. For example I took the toe clips off of my Xtracycle since any minor advantage they offer is overwhelmed by what the motor can do. And it now becomes possible to consider a shaft drive instead of a chain drive, since its minor inefficiency pales in comparison with the advantage of not having a greasy chain.
Here are some general microcar design criteria with some ideas about how they might be satisfied. Got ideas of your own? Please comment and I’ll add them to this post.
My microcar can carry the driver and one passenger comfortably. The biggest design choice here seems to be having people sit side-by-side or front-back. I like front-back so that the vehicle is narrow. This is important so that the vehicle can ride on the shoulder since it is slow. But a side-to-side design, particularly a recumbent trike, could be explored.
My microcar protects the occupants from rain, wind and cold. The traditional microcar uses sheet metal or plastic. I think cloth is the best material since it is lightweight. A cloth cover can be changed to fit the season. The winter cover could be insulated. And it may be possible to integrate electronics into the cloth, such as tail lights and headlights.
My microcar is easy to maintain.
My microcar weighs between 100 and 1000 pounds.
My microcar is powered by a 500 to 1,000 watt motor. Now that New York will have a 1,000-watt maximum motor size, I am imagining an Xtra-cycle microcar that has a tricycle attachment replacing its rear wheels. And each wheel of this trike attachment has a 500-watt electric motor hub. Now we’re talking.
My microcar has a top speed of 20mph.
My microcar costs less than $5000.
My microcar has a 400 pound total cargo and occupant capacity.
WWI-era Buckboard cyclecar.
1912 Morgan Runabout Deluxe Cyclecar.
1940′s two seat open top Fantom bicycle car.
Post WWII Messerschmitt Kabinenroller microcar.
1956 BMW Isetta 300.
The 1965 Peel P50 microcar.
A contemporary CycleCar electric vehicle.
A NEV made by Global Electric Motorcars, a company originally created by a team of ex-General Motors engineers.
If you are Quaker (as I am) the biggest thing to shake up Meetinghouses and make young friends’ hearts throb all over the country is Jon Watts. I first heard about him when his video “Friend Speaks My Mind” made the rounds around Ithaca Monthly Meeting. Besides being very funny, with lots of Quaker in-jokes, this video had a further resonance for me. It single-handedly brought into the open an issue that has been festering unspoken: are all Quakers Christian? I’ve longed to affirm in some way that I am a Quaker but not a Christian for a long time. But I was always afraid that others in the Meeting might be offended. Jon finally puts into words what so many of us have been feeling:
I’m not a Christian but I’m a Quaker
I’ve got Christ’s inner light but he’s not my savior
So that’s number one why Jon’s my hero. Number two I discovered reading the Xtracycle forum Roots Radicals. Someone mentioned a young man riding an Xtracyle Radish from Richmond to Boston on a music tour. Sure enough: Jon Watts! Furthermore, he’ll be going through this area. You can read about his tour on his blog. I am looking forward to seeing him at the Farmington-Scipio Spring Gathering. Why is he biking? He writes:
Why not just drive a car like any other rational American would?
It would be easy for me to spout off a guilt-based justification about how quickly our society is killing the Earth, and how each of us is individually contributing a great deal to that destruction by owning and over-using personal vehicles. And it would be true. I do feel guilty and hypocritical about simultaneously mourning the destruction of the natural world and contributing to it.
But the deeper reason why I am riding my bike the 600 miles to Boston: I find driving, for all of it’s convenience, to be spiritually deadening. So let’s turn the question on it’s head… why, when I could be actively using my body, engaging with the land and the environment around me, viscerally feeling the miles go by underneath me, and genuinely living would I isolate myself in a sound-proof, wind-proof, experience-proof chamber?
