The llama

We got all the parts in for the Big Dummy build, and got it up and running a little over a month ago.

I can confidently say, besides the trailer which opened us up to riding with kids, this is the next best purchase we've made bicycle-wise. I can also say that if I'd known 8 years ago what I do now. I would have built something like this when I sold my car and went to two wheels. Although admittedly, the Big Dummy was not available, neither was the Nuvinici hub, and disc brakes have come a long ways in that time as well. So I suppose I did the best I could with what was available at the time.

To start, we named it the llama, as its a bit of an on-running joke between Nickie and I. She's joked about how great it would be to have a llama so that when we go backpacking the llama can carry the kids instead of us. Me being a little more pragmatic, and having less of an infatuation with animals decided that the cargo bike was a much better, lower maintenance option than the wooly variety of llama.

As for my impressions so far, it is remarkable how much less strategic this bike makes living car free. My wife and I had gotten rather accustomed to running errands strategically such that we could make the most of the cargo capacity of the kid trailer. This bike however makes that all a moot point. It can carry twice as much weight as the chariot trailer and far more volume. I've already toted a couple loads that friends with cars have commented "I'd have a hard time fitting that all in my car!!".

The remarkable thing is how seamless it is. What I mean by that is how little difference there really is between it and a "normal" bike, and how little difference there is with this one when loaded vs. not. When I am making use of its cargo capacity, for example carrying 50-60lbs of groceries, I have to remind myself that its even back there, and the only time it is felt while riding is out of the saddle or climbing a stiff incline. Otherwise you could ride along blissfully unaware that there's even a load behind you.

Many, (including myself prior to owning one) ask how much it affects your speed or overall ride times. Going back to the seamless comment, it once again is genuinely surprising how well it hold its own despite all the added utility. My commute time one way on my race focused road bike was pretty consistently around 31-33mins for my 11.3 mile commute. Now riding my big dummy for everything with 26"x2.0"(schwable marathon supremes) my commute now takes between 34-38mins. That basically boils down to a 10% difference in speed between this monster of a bike that weighs more than twice as much as the road bike and has monstrous rims, tires, cargo capacity and a bolt up-right riding position.

We purchased this bike with two-fold intentions, one it just seemed a no-brainer living without a car and having a family, two these bikes seem to be pretty much the best human powered option for taking kids and gear any considerable distances and for any off-roading with those same kids and gear (most of our favorite hiking trails in the nearby mountains require some off-roading to reach).

Consequently we have not fully realized the second portion of this as I haven't yet built the kid carrying snapdeck. I'm blatantly copying a fellow xtracycle lovin parent. The image below is basically where I'm going with this. Thanks Mark!!!

Surly Big Dummy

Nickie and I had come to the conclusion awhile back that an Xtracycle was a "when" type purchase, not an "if".

I had developed quite a distaste for some cheap panniers I'd purchased last fall. They had a propensity to hop off my rack on the bumpy winter road accumulation, or any bump for that matter.

Consequently I began looking into a nicer set with retention qualities. When analyzing the price of a good set of voluminous panniers like ortlieb's my wife pointed out that this was well on the way to an xtracycle kit which was on our eventual hit list.

Well one thing led to another and in the end we managed to thoroughly justify a Surly Big dummy and put money down on one earlier this week. Lucky us we happened to get our hands on one of the last ones available in the country.

It will be showing up this coming week and we'll be working towards setting it up for serious kid-toting, mountain going fun. Honestly at this age range for the kiddos, our chariot trailer still has many benefits for portage around town, but the Big Dummy makes trips into the mountains and up 4x4 roads much more doable.

My build out will incorporate:
Nuvinci CVP
Shimano disc dynamo hub
Alex DM24 rims
Schwalbe Marathon XR's (likely the 2.25" variety)
Winzip's Santana comissioned tandem disc brake for the rear
Avid BB7 for the front
My beloved Brooks Champion flyer saddle
Nitto Albatross bars
Chris King Headset
Phil Wood Bottom Bracket
Bobike Maxi + for carrying the younger kiddo, and a built-in seat on the snapdeck for the older kiddo

It should be in Tuesday of this coming week and once I've prepped the frame and started building I'll try to post some pics and progress up here.

Mental blocks...

Its interesting how much time it takes for the human mind to adapt to change when its had one way of doing things for so long, heck it doesn't even have to be so long.

Presently we are in the process of potty training our 2 year old son Samuel. Its interesting to see behaviors in him that I know apply just as well to myself. For example, he's proven in running around for a few days without diapers that he's perfectly capable of "holding it" as long as he wants, but what is hard is making the mental shift from going in a diaper to going in a potty. He just doesn't want to make that change.

For us, as the title of the whole blog states, we find it takes time, a fair bit of it, for real lasting change to take place. As I mentioned in the last post we sold our last and only partially functioning vehicle a few weeks ago, and interestingly found that having that car around even if not driving it, was a mental block in and of itself.

Nickie's parents live about 17 miles south of us, and so far we'd been pretty hesitant to make the trek on bike between her being pregnant and just having it in our heads that 35mile round trip days with kids and stuff in tow was too much.

Well with the car being gone, this last Sunday morning we woke up and I thought "what the heck, why not", so I posed the idea to Nickie. After talking through the logistics of nap time and such we decided to give it a go. It turned out to be totally fine, in fact quite enjoyable. There was one point where we were stopped by the side of the highway for 25 minutes while she nursed our 1.5 month old, but then resumed our journey without incident.

Also, on a slightly unrelated note, we put money down on a new battery for Nickie's electric assist as there was a problem with the first supplier. So she's pretty excited to finally get that up and running to make trips to neighboring towns something she can easily perform by herself. Looks like Christmas is coming right on time instead of July as we first thought after all ;)

Well, hopefully Nickie and I as well as Samuel will continue to realize that we are capable of more change than we first suppose.

Many changes...

Well, I suppose a newborn and toddler around the house isn't the most conducive to blogging.

So yes we do indeed have a new addition to the family, Anders Christopher Stout. He was born on Oct 15th, weighing in a 8lbs. 3oz. although he's already well past that weight.

Also, we finally pulled the trigger and have moved officially into car free-dom. We sold our partially functioing car a couple weeks ago and so far so good. Not that it really changes much as the car mostly sat except for a couple trips to the hospital right around the birth.

We've found that Lands End is really our friend when it comes to gearing up young children, having just bought some great winter apparel for our toddler, so he's nice and toasty on our rides. We've done some rides after dark in the mid-low twenties and he's been quite toasty inside the Chariot trailer, which by the way we LOVE our Chariot Cougar 2, and often comment that this trailer was one of the best purchases we've ever made.

With the day's being so short and the whole family now traveling by bike, we've been upgrading our lighting overall as most of our family rides are now in the dark. LED lighting is finally "there" in my opinion. Having used several high end halogen systems over the years, I can really appreciate the qualities of the Dinotte lights we've purchased, weighing right around a pound, yet putting out almost as much light as a 20W halogen and running on high mode for 8 hours.

Realizing Dreams: Change and Time

Anthony's dad said something once that I thought was very interesting. He said that most people grossly overestimate what they can do in a year and grossly underestimate what they can do in ten years. I think that he is right. At least in my life, I have observed this to be true. There have been huge changes in my lifestyle over the past 6 or 7 years. ie: became a vegetarian, had 1 (almost 2 now) kids, started a business, recycling, using environmental cleaners (still learning), in the process of going car-free...just a couple examples. I think one thing I've learned through this is that lasting, meaningful change takes time and is more about the journey than about the accomplishment.

For example in regard to going car-lite and eventually (hopefully) car-free, the journey began 7 years ago for Anthony when he started commuting to work while car-sharing with roommates for groceries etc. For me, it began with gaining endurance to go farther and faster. After we got married, I started commuting just to work (1.5miles at the time), while Anthony continued to commute a la bike. Then 4 years later, we moved about 12 miles farther from work. Anthony built up endurance over the period of 2 years to doing that distance every day, rain or shine. We got a bike trailer about a year and a half after our son was born, and I again started commuting short distances around town. Each new challenge took a lot of time. It took me a good solid 3-4 months to learn safe ways to get around our city on a bike. I had to learn where the bike lanes and paths were, what roads intersect the path--and at what points so I know where to get off. What gear to bring with me for both me and the toddler. What snacks to bring. How long it takes me to get places so I'm not late for naptime or for work. What repair tools to bring with. These are things I already knew how to do with a car, but had to learn afresh with a bike. I think that is where the "overestimate what you can do in a short amount of time" thing comes in. There is so much to learn, so many adjustments to make, with any change that a person might want to make--be it exercise, nutrition, financial, or environmental. Changes are much more complex than we realize. Just focusing on the goal and the timeline can be so paralyzing. The interesting thing is that when I pray and ask for help with any "life-thing" that is going on, not just going car-lite, I hear the Lord telling me just to take one step and to trust Him with the results. He has often surprised me with what he will do with my tiny offering of faith. So, I guess I will keep trusting him with my dreams and hopes.

Help is on the Way!

Entering the 3rd trimester and toting 65+ pounds of toddler and a trailer wherever I go, I am finding myself (Nickie) very grateful that we have ordered an electric assist. I seem to go slower each day, instead of faster and it's definitely more of an effort. A few weeks ago, I was saying I don't really know if I'll need the help of a motor. Now I have no doubt. Will publish the results of the new motor in a few weeks.

Testing the Waters...

So as a many-fold step we sold our van, partially to pay off some things before our second child comes in Oct, but also partially to pay for an electric assist for Nickie, and at the same time to try out at least for a month or so how it would actually work for us going car free as a family. We still have another car... kind of... Its an older ford explorer someone gave us that has a dying trannie that's only good for about 16 miles of warmup before it starts slipping and limping along.

We figured since we wanted to try out the waters of going car free now that we're placing an order on an electric assist, having only a partially functioning car as backup would be useful set of circumstances to get our feet honest to goodness wet with this lifestyle.

One thing is for sure, I really admire my wife. Its really neat to see her challenging cultural stereotypes as she rides her trike along with a big preggo belly with child in tow behind her. In fact when we were talking the other night about getting a replacement car for the one we just got for free with the dying trannie, she actually said she'd rather get an electric assist first so she can go everywhere by bike including the 30 and 40 mile trips despite the extra strains of pregnancy and towing a 70lbs worth of trailer behind her. Then if we find after a month or two that its not working to be pretty much without car and having a decent amount of time to see how the electric assist changes the picture, we'd reevaluate replacing the car.

She's always impressed me with her adventurous spirit and willingness to re-evaluate cultural norms.

The other day when I was talking to a co-worker about getting an electric assist for her so she could get all around the Boulder metro area by bike/trike even with being pregnant and having a child in the trailer behind her, his response was "Wouldn't it be easier to just take your guys' van?". I like what one of the founders of Xtracycle said in a video, "Its not about making life easier, its about making life BETTER". I couldn't agree more. Figuring out the logistics of doing life, business, family, fun all without using cars, certainly poses many challenges, but on the flip side, there's so many benefits that most don't see at first glance that more than make up for it.

So anyway, bringing it back to the original point of this post, we're taking some exciting steps towards really making life work without a car and with a family. I'm probably placing the order on the electric assist in the next day or two once we hash out a few details, and I'm selling my Steelman and replacing it with a tough steel mtb with Schwalbe touring tires, and heavy duty rack, with the intention of adding an Xtracycle at some point in the near future so that my bike is good for much more than just getting me to and from work. Exciting stuff :)