Bicycle Propelled Tree Service; History and Quest.

Yesterday was a historic day in recent Work Bike experiments because I hauled my equipment to a real job; but I actually did my first successful work; running a Bicycle Propelled Tree Service 18 years ago in Germantown Tennissee. That was an experiment too; but I have no doubt that I could have sold my truck and chipper and started a successful Bicycle Propelled Tree Service then; had not other priorities taken front stage. So now 18 years later I'm experimenting again: First with a regular bike, then with a cargo bike and now with Electric Assist. Yesterday was the first time I actually hauled the equipment to a job and I could have done the whole job except for the fact that I had to haul the brush. I started the job with the equipment I brought with the Bike but because of the hauling I had to go back to using my car and trailer. What is so amazing is that 17 years ago I invented a very small chipper that only weighed 160 lb and it was designed to be be pulled by a Bicycle! You can see it in the 1996 picture. It turned out to be too loud and maintainance was too much so I turned to burning brush; which is so much more natural and peaceful. I can't burn the brush on every job so I have to load it on a trailer and haul it to a burn sight and this is impractical with a bike. So I need to invent one more thing; a brush burning trailer for my bike. As rediculous as that sounds; it is perfectly feasable and should be cheap to make. With this; a Bicycle Propelled Tree Service will be a Reality. PS: I want to say something about the electric assist that makes it possible to do what I'm doing with my Bicycle. There is no way it would work with all these hills. My Golden Motor; Magic Pie 3 has adequate power but it has another really important feature that makes it safe; Regenerative Braking. I have it set at 50% but I'm planning to set it at 100%. Not only does it help immensly to control downhill speed and stopping but it also puts power back into the battery. This makes so much sense! It also has cruise control and I use it to conserve battery power. I set it at a minimum; just enough so I can still help pedal. Today I'm going to see if I can make a round trip of 22 miles to the store and back. LL

Ahhh.... All the recent blogging has made me think back on history with Bikes and Family and want to get the old pictures out. It also spured me to try the scanner; which is much easier than I thought. Someone on R Evolutions commented on how kids started out on bikes will ride later and to show you proof a generation down the road; is my family. And here is my Bike and Family Legacy. Some of it. LL

We think a little bit differently about Walmart here in Arkansas because Walmart's from here. Apologizing to anyone who thinks Walmart's monopolizing the World; but it's where we shop. Anyway it's been a goal of mine to some day ride to it and buy groceries. Before I left I called the store to arrange for a plug where I could charge my battery and after a bit of checking the assistant manager said he could accommodate me. Finally; after so much anticipation, I headed out in the afternoon on the ezebike and rode there. It took only half an hour to ride the 11 miles. The hard part on a bicycle is getting up the half mile hill from where we live; up to Highland but now it's not hard. From there it's rolling hills with some traffic but it's no problem, because the cars were careful and I was going pretty fast. I plugged in to an outside plug at the store and went shopping. When I was done I came out, stowed my groceries in the side bags and disconnected the charger. The bike got a lot of attention and at one point there were about 9 mechanics around the bike asking me questions. It was heavier with about 15 lb of groceries but I was still able to ride the 11 miles home in half an hour for an average speed of 22 mph. The technique I use to make it more effecient is to use only as much power as I need to pedal fast and not use more power than I need to get up hills with moderate effort. I'm confident that if I use this technique I can probably go 25 - 40 miles on one fully charged battery but I'll have to devise a test to check that. My kids came over for supper and we rode the bike afterwards. They had a lot of fun and now my son wants to take it out and ride it today. PS: Do you think it was a coincidence that Joel saw the most incredable Shooting Star of his life, last night when he was out back on the deck; or was it a sign? He's out on my ezebike at this very moment. PPS: There was a big hiatus in my bike riding from when I turned 16 until I was 40 in 1989. Then for some reason I got back into it with a passion! (Not from peer pressure in Arkansas; that's for sure!) I bought a bike for myself and then traded that one for a better Mongoose (before they became a department store bike) and then ones for my Wife and all my kids. I built a rack for a trailer so we could haul 6 bikes on vacations. By now; I guess I've bought about two dozen bikes and given them to various family members. Four of my kids still ride and me and my She ride. My real goal is to get rid of my car but something always seems to get in the way of that. I've done lots of experiments with the goal of practical cycling and doing my Tree Business with a bike as far back as 1995. I got back into that aspect of it and now with an ebike. It's really encouraging that there's such a resurgance in bikes for transportation and I know now that I wasn't wierd; I was just ahead of my time. Charley

People reading this blog may not know but 12 days ago I got a 48v 1000w ebike kit with a 48v 10ah battery from Golden Motor to put on my Giant Superbike. 3 or 4 days later it was on but it wasn't charging up and kept dieing. I notified my rep and went online to Endless Sphere and at the recommendation of the rep I took the battery apart, bought a multi meter and tested all the cells to check for a dead cell and was having fits and not having fun generally. So this Monday my rep talked to one of their engineers and he wanted me to take pictures of the charger. It was from a picture of the end of the charger that he realized the switch was in the 230 volt position and not the 115 volt. I didn't even know that it had a switch! So I switched it and instead of only going up to 50 volts, like before; it went up to almost 58 volts! Evidently; they were starting a big Holiday in China and the worker who shipped it was in a hurry to get out the door and forgot to switch it correctly for the US. So I had to put the battery back together; which wasn't that easy and put it on the bike and went for a test ride. During the test ride it died 3 times but yesterday I felt confident enough to try taking it for a ride to town. I wasn't sure how it would go but I set off about 2:30 in the afternoon and rode 5 miles through the hills into Hardy from Cherokee Village. I'm happy to report that it didn't die once. On the way into town I was really easy on the throttle and only used about 1/3 and put it on cruise and pedaled hard up the hills in high gear. I was real glad to get to my friend's welding shop and I charged it up while I visited. Charging took about 25 minutes. From there I rode the rest of the way into town; using River Road to avoid traffic. I just put it on full throttle cruise for the 1/2 mile along the river and it was going about 25 mph I think. Then I turned and crossed the bridge over Spring River. My friend who owns a store wasn't there but I visited the lady who was there. Then I went to the Gazebo at Loberg Park and plugged in the charger and visited some people while it charged. The green light came on after about 15 minutes and I headed home. I don't think it took me more than 15 minutes to get there. A big long hill out of Hardy was my first challenge but at full throttle and pedaling hard I made it up and turned off to Cherokee Village. There were 4 more big hills after that but it went up just fine with hard pedaling. When I got home I checked the voltage and it was 52.5v. The battery holds 57.5v and 10ah so I only used 5 volts and maybe 3.5 amp hours. Now I'm starting to like this machine. I got a post from Bill Nye the science guy this morning and he said that the chemicals are getting organized when the battery is new and the battery keeps getting better and better. He also said that a full charge is only 25 cents and this bike kit is really good quality and will last 6 years. I'm stoked and I want to ride but it's threatening rain and I'm not sure about riding it in the rain yet. It's probably ok but I don't want to take chances when I'm just starting to have fun. So; thank you Golden Motor for making a good machine and I'll do some more testing and report back to my peeps. eze

Xtra Cycle Side Car.

April 19 the Xtra Cycle side car arived that I had preordered from the warehouse a month ago. They had been out of stock because they hadn't expected them to be so popular when they built the first batch of 150. They built twice as many the second time. I built it this morning. It had no instructions but it was simple. I decided to put it on the right side because I push from the left side. The floor is scratched and I want this to be show but otherwise if I was going to use it for hauling it would get banged up anyway. I'm sure they would send me an unscratched one. It's designed non rigidly so the bike can lean in turns. I even lubricated it a little. Shelia rode on it and there is a bit of a problem with the bike tipping toward the load but once you get on and ride it's easy to compensate. I'm planning to put an electric motor on it; otherwise; unless I lived in a totally flat area I could not pull a full load; which could be up to 700 lb; with this set up. I'm going to have to figure out some more braking power too. Doesn't it look great in the Garage? That's what it looks like when you start replacing cars with cargo bikes. Charley

The Adahi Trail.

I don't know why I've neglected to include the Adahi Trail in Cherokee Village; near our home; where we ride all the time. Especially since it was me who opened it in 1997. Yes, it was Me fighting my way through a jungle of growth; first in the fall of '96 and then again in early '97 to open it on Earth Day. The trouble is that people have forgotten the legacy; but I have an old newspaper article to prove it. After I opened it others joined in and one man built some bridges for it. After Earth Day the Sportsmen's Club took it over, widened it and did some chain saw sculptures. It runs 1/2 mile from Village Center Garden to the Thunderbird Center pier. When we were on it last Saturday 4 groups of people walked by and more people are discovering it all the time.

Early April Explores: Kati Trail, Mo.

Edward D. (Ted)Jones plaque. MKT Trail Bridge. Ryan at Volt Riders of Columbia, Mo. let me test ride his ebike and I took it to the MKT Trail in the center of Town. It's a 10 mile long connection to the Katy Trail which is 240 miles; from St Charles to Clinton, Mo. One picture is of the Plaque to honor Tom Jones; the founder of the Katy Trail. Then I am at the Rochport Tunel. The Katy Trail runs beside the Missouri River for most of the way and goes through many picturesque towns. There are many B&B's, Campgrounds and places to eat along the way.