Bicycle Cargo, Chapter 4: Cargo Bike Business (A - L)
Café Velo
Photo: Freddy on Flickr.Yet another Portland, Oregon, based business who ride a Dutch Bakfiets trike, that was specially converted to cope with hauling up to 226 kg (500 lbs) of coffee brewing kit, to provide farmers market attendees with their requisite cup of freshly ground and brewed java, via on board porcelain filter holders. Cool idea, although apparently it's a heavy monster to pedal up hills.
Café Velo
Checker Courier
Hodari Depalm, a past Cargo Bike World Champion, operates Checker Courier running cargo bike loads within New York City. The company suggest they can "carry 200 pounds of paper, or 15 portfolios, or your receptionist, and still won't loose a second on the other messengers who ride with a wimpy basket or bag. Plus, your packages will be dry, safe and never smushed or wrinkled." They accomplish these tasks and others, like court filings or bulk mail processing, etc, aboard a Long John style, forward-mounted, bike.
Checker Courier
City Bakery
We covered new York's City Bakery when they were unveiling their new green built bakery, a.k.a. Birdbath, with its recycled paper shelves and wheat walls, from where hemp dressed staff will sell you all sorts of pastry delights crafted from organic flour and other organic yummies. Of specific note for this post is that deliveries from their Manhattan bakery to the West Village shop are made by cargo bike rickshaws. (Oh, and 25% off if you, the customer arrive by bike!)
City Bakery
Cyclotransport
This specialist bike transport company cart freight around the central business district of the French city of Toulouse. Cyclotransport in their web address use the word "cyclocity," which could be a tad confusing because it is also the term used by JCDecaux for their self-service bicycle hire schemes. But that glitch aside, the firm use Cycle Maximus cargo trikes to get small cargo and mail distributed around Toulouse.
Cyclotransport
Deutsche Post
Such is the cargo moving clout of Deutsche Post (at one time Germany's exclusive mail distributor), that they went off and bought the freight companies DHL and Airborne Express. Yet on the ground at home they still have their distinctive yellow bikes in service delivering the mail. Which most certainly will help them as they strive to cut the carbon emissions related to letter and parcel delivery by 30% by 2020.
Deutsche Post
EcoLocal Deliveries
This British bicycle delivery service is part of a much wider community engagement project that looks also at issues such as local food, transport, energy, and waste minimisation activities. Based in Sutton in south London, their EcoLocal Deliveries use cargo bikes and trikes to move packages up to 250kg (550 lbs) in mass. They also provide the service of a mobile bicycle mechanic, who, as best as we can work out, uses a cargo bike as his mobile workshop.
Ecolocal Deliveries
Google Street View
Photo: Rosemoor Garden
No doubt you've seen the Google Street View feature on Google Maps, where a photographic depiction of the street displays yards, doorways, letterboxes, as if you were right there at street level. So that Google can provide similar images for walking paths, university campuses, and other public spaces, beyond the reach of their specially outfitted cars, they designed a big hefty 114 kg (252 lb) trike, encrusted with the same hi-tech image capture equipment.
Google Street View
