Bike Move: Friends Move Entire Household With Pedal Power
by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 09. 9.07
We are huge fans of carrying cargo on bicycles. To this end we’ve featured bike trailers, we’ve written about Dutch cargo bikes, and we’ve even covered the intriguing concept of the Sports Utility Bicycle. However we’ve never, until now, come across folks crazy enough to attempt a complete ‘bike move’ – that is, moving your entire house, including couches, a couple of extra bikes (and apparently even a boat!) by bike. Seems like these folks have made a tradition out of it – check out this inspiring video – now we really have no excuse for driving to the grocery store…
NB – it’s a little long, but it’s worth hanging on till the music kicks in! ::Bike TV:: via YouTube::::
Wow... very impressive! =)
Photo of another bike move:
http://rbaxter.blogspot.com/2005/03/although-i-use-bike-for-most-of-my.html
Nice move. I move my stuff, mostly groceries, using my bamboo panniers. Bamboo, light and strong, is a perfect complement to the urban bicycle. And panniers, designed to fit the common grocery bag, or your own personal canvas bag, add utility- and style. My personal record is $100 worth of groceries- including a gallon of milk, a gallon of apple juice, and a 12 pack of beer. As an urban contract carpenter, I also carry my tools. Way cool!
Nice move. I move my stuff, mostly groceries, using my bamboo panniers. Bamboo, light and strong, is a perfect complement to the urban bicycle. And panniers, designed to fit the common grocery bag, or your own personal canvas bag, add utility- and style. My personal record is $100 worth of groceries- including a gallon of milk, a gallon of apple juice, and a 12 pack of beer. As an urban contract carpenter, I also carry my tools. Way cool!
It looks like a move-by-bike event run by Shift 2 Bikes here in Portland: http://www.shift2bikes.org/wiki/bikefun:move_x_bike
This stuff is awesome -- my bosses moved into our office that way.
Two more cool bikemoves:
One... Two... Has a massive canoe and ultra-wide mattress trailer being towed by a tandem recumbent... hot!
very nice/efficient. My efforts at efficient bicycle baggage transport has incorporated bamboo as the structural material of choice. Strong, light, renewable, and available. The bamboo panniers are designed to accomodate the standard paper grocery bag, or, preferably, your re-usable canvas grocery bags. My record is $100 worth of groceries. As a contract carpenter, the panniers carry my tools as well. Very nice and efficient indeed!
I like the concept of showing that you can do something traditionally done with very large, rented moving trucks, using the smallest vehicles around. I am a little concerned with the braking distance/time of a vehicle weing under 250 lbs (with rider) being able to bring a 400 lb. trailer to a stop in the amount of time it takes for a traffic light to go from green to yellow to red.
I came across this site recently that lets you calculate how much weight can a person carry on a bike.
There's no single answer to that since it depends upon at what speed you want to go and how much your edurance power but apparently a reasonably healthy person can pull 1000 pounds on level ground.
How Much Weight Can A Bike and Trailer or Cargo Trike Carry?
While I'm all for preventing the use of fossil fuels to move, there's a few things wrong with this video
A. We don't know how far they actually moved, it could have been 4 blocks away. Give me a giant trailer on wheels, and enough people to push it, same effect.
B. This is great if you have reasonable items, I guarantee no bicycle is going to move a safe
C. That guy hauling the boat probably didn't get far, and if he did, he didn't attach it very safely. While I'm sure he might have been able to pull it on even land, I'd hate to see him get to a hill.. That boat would flatten him!
and another zero CO2 move by bike:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLS7IBvOcos