The Outspokin’ Cyclist: New Durham cabs are pedal-powered

by: Phillip Barron - May 3rd, 2007   Filed under: columns 2007 1 Comment

On a recent Sunday, while I was dropping off some donated wheels and frames at the Durham Bike Co-op, two of Durham’s newest taxi cabs stopped by for repairs. MarcDreyfors parked his cab on the sidewalk, jacked up the front end to remove the front wheel, and brought the wheel inside the Co-op for aligning. After a few minutes in the truing stand, his wheel was straight, and he popped the front wheel back on his pedal-powered taxi cab.

Pedicab1.jpgphotos by Marc Dreyfors

A pedicab, as it is known, is basically a giant tricycle. It looks like a regular bicycle in the front (with one wheel, handlebars, and a seat above the pedals for the driver), but the rear expands to a convertible, padded two- or three-person seat stretching across the back end’s stabilizing pair of wheels. The pedals power a two-wheel drivetrain, geared like a mountain bike with 21 speeds. The rear of the cab has brake lights, turn signals, and all the benefits of riding a bike without any of the work –that is, if you’re the passenger.

Riding in the back you feel the wind in your hair, the connection with the street, and without the sweat or muscle burn.

Rickshaws — more commonly used to ferry sightseeing tourists around cities of the Far East, west Africa, or Manhattan — will soon be shuttling folks around the Bull City.

“Greenway Transit is the merger of our green transportation business and Greenway Pedicabs, which opened in Chapel Hill in 2006,” says Marc Dreyfors, owner of the business. For shuttling people around the Triangle, Greenway Transit offers a 6 passenger minivan that runs on ethanol and 12, 15, and 34 passenger buses running on bio-diesel. But modeled on the success of their pedicabs program in Chapel Hill, Greenway Transit’s pedicabs will take to the streets of Durham in May.

I have said before in this column that Durham’s hot spots of commercial activity are like islands — Ninth St, Brightleaf, Five Points, American Tobacco — and that the areas between can be difficult for pedestrians to navigate.

Throughout the summer, Greenway Transit’s pedicabs will provide an alternative mode of transit between Durham’s islands. Dreyfours expects to run shuttles between Ninth St and Duke’s campuses, between the Durham Bulls Athletic Park and Durham’s downtown core, and between downtown Durham and Brightleaf.

Just imagine it; from dinner at Xiloa on Ninth St you could take a bicycle-based taxi to a Bulls game, from a Full Frame session to Amelia for coffee, or from The Federal home safely.

Thirteen year old Mike lives near Greenway Transit’s industrial facility near the intersection of Alston and Angier Avenues. Curious how someone could make fuel from vegetable oil, he started hanging around the business to learn about biodiesel. Dreyfors perceived Mike’s mechanical inclination right away and started teaching Mike what he didn’t already know about bike repairs.

At Durham’s Earth Day event, Mike drove a pedicab around the festival’s parking lot demonstrating the pedicab concept and helping get the word out.

“He came back to me at the end of the day asking what he should do with the money he made,” says Dreyfors. “I told him he could keep it.”

“Riding people around Earth Day was fun,” says Mike. “I carried six people. Kids were pretty amazed by it, telling their moms they wanted to ride.”

Dreyfors echoes Mike’s observation. From the driver’s seat of a pedicab, Dreyfors sees people break into smiles and wave when he rides by. “We need to get back to the sense of neighborhood, sense of community, and [the pedicabs] do that,” he adds.

While we’re talking, Dreyfors hands Mike a multi-tool so that the young apprentice can adjust the handlebars of the two-person pedicab. Later, Mike takes me for a spin down the sidewalk. He says the hardest thing about driving a pedicab is remembering that it’s wider than a regular bike. “You have to be careful about the sides.”

After a short trip, we switch places. While I pedal Mike back to the Co-op, he says “it’s cool; it’s like being chauffeured.” But the best part about driving a pedicab is the attention, Mike says. “People just sit and stare,” when they see the pedicab driving down the road, he adds.

“You can make some pretty good money on the weekend shifts,” says Dreyfors.

Though the details of the incentive structure for drivers are still being worked out, Dreyfors says driving a pedicab can be “a good part-time job; you set your own hours and, after an initial buy-in, you keep what you make.” He tells the story of a UNC student and pedicab driver in Chapel Hill who, because the student is willing to work the late shift (i.e. 12AM — 3AM), can make more than $125 in one night.

Anyone who wants to learn how to work a pedicab shift, rent the pedicabs for an event (a wedding or party), or learn more about the company can reach Greenway Transit at 957-1505 and find them on the web at http://www.greenwayrides.com

Pedicab2.jpg

 
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Camus on bicycle

by: Phillip Barron - August 24th, 2006   Filed under: Uncategorized Add Comment

image made with amaztype

During the German occupation of France, Albert Camus earned hero status among the French for editing the underground newspaper Combat. It wasn’t until the war was over, however, that more than a handful of people knew it was Camus publishing the journal. Nevertheless, he lived at various times in hiding, using false identity papers. As a moral voice in the resistance, his travels had to be simple so as not to draw the unwanted attention of the German army.

Depicting Camus’ travels in the weeks and days leading up to the Allied liberation of Paris, Herbert Lottman writes in his 1979 biography of Camus,

They left Paris on three bicycles — Pierre Gallimard, Janine, Michel, and Camus — Janine riding with the men in turn, although Pierre and Michel didn’t want her to ride with Camus because of the strain it might cause their sickly friend. They went to Verdelot, some fifty-five miles east of Paris on the banks of the Petit-Morin, where Gallimard editor and author Brice Parain had a home.

Meanwhile, Camus alerted fellow Combat conspirators Sartre and Beauvoir, and they took precautions. In her memoirs, Beauvoir describes their somewhat pathetic attempts to take protective cover: first by moving in for a few days with the Michel Leiris; then, by train and by bicycle…And when they heard that the American troops were approaching Chartres, they got back on their bicycles and by the side roads made their way to Paris.

But the news of the Allied advance, the imminent liberation of Paris, drew them (Camus and the Gallimards) back to the city. For the return trip they again rode three bicycles for the four of them, with the same seating arrangements. Peddling (sic) along, they saw planes diving and dropping bombs, Germans taking shelter in the woods along the road. They decided, “idiodically,” that the bombs weren’t meant for them.

While dates for these rides from and back to Paris are hard to nail down, I figure the return bicycle ride was sometime around today, August 24th — sixty-two years ago. So, here’s to Camus, riding a single-speed fifty-five miles through the French countryside back to Paris, dodging bombs and Germans along the way.

Travelpod blogger Dgookin claims this is Albert Camus’ bicycle, which he and a traveling companion found in Lacoste, France. It’s possible that the bike is authentic, given that Lacoste is only 17km from Lourmarin, where Camus bought a home later in life with money he earned from the Nobel Prize for Literature. The photographer, however, gives no evidence nor reason to believe that this bike actually once belonged to the author of The Stranger.

Albert Camus' Bicycle, Lacoste, France
This travel blog photo’s source is TravelPod page: Day Four
 
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The Outspokin’ Cyclist: Ottawa pros offer advice

by: Phillip Barron - February 6th, 2006   Filed under: columns 2006

for lease
OTTAWA — Feeling trapped inside by the cold weather? Are you taking a break from cycling until the spring thaw?

Winter cycling has an allure all its own, but to be sure it also has its challenges. I recently spent some time in Ontario and saw how truly dedicated cyclists make their way through the streets of Canada’s frozen capital.

So, for some advice on cycling through the winter, I turn to the hardest working professional cyclists in Ottawa: the bike messengers. Like year round bike commuters, couriers have no choice when to ride. They ride every day they’re working, and most of them are working every day.

The capital city’s couriers offer four nuggets of advice to wintertime cyclists.

First, don’t fall for thinking that knobby tires make good winter tires.

A lot of people think, “because of wintery slush on the roads that knobby tires are in order,” says Crazy Dave, a long time Ottawa messenger. But knobbies won’t help, he says. “The snow packs in between the knobs and actually makes it worse.” Your traditional narrow road tires, or “slicks,” actually cut through the snow and find pavement to grip.

Sure enough, as I glance around at the couriers’ bikes congregating at the World Exchange Plaza, almost all of them are bear the slick road tires.

But the Triangle area is known more for its ice than snow, so which is the best for one of those glazed over days? Well, neither slicks nor knobbies are going to grip the ice. Studded tires are about the only things that work, but chances are if you need the studded tires, you don’t need to be out on the roads.

Second, Dave “Rambo” Besharah suggests using fenders over your tires. Roads dry out more slowly in the winter, and Durham’s greenways are often wet in the mornings. A nice set of fenders will keep your rear tire from slinging all that water on your back and your front tire from soaking your pants legs.

Planet Bike sells supposedly indestructible sets of shiny, polycarbonate mold-injected fenders for both mountain bike frames and road frames. They come with mud-flaps and all the hardware necessary to mount them on your bike. Or, you could take a more do-it-yourself approach, like Rambo. His fenders are pieced together from lengths of plastic, cut-up tubes, and a combination of duct and electrical tape. He’s even gone so far as to wrap the stanchions of his suspension fork in tube rubber to keep the corrosive salty slush out.

Third, all the extra water on the roads will demand more time for maintenance if you want to keep that drivetrain running smoothly. But for many of us, bike maintenance is the last thing you want to do after a cold ride. The wheels will be wet, the frame freezing, the chain and cogs greasy. The risk is that if you don’t put in the time to dry and lube the drivetrain, you’re letting parts of your bike rust. And rust is the last thing you want to see developing on your precious ride.

Allen Grier, a self-identified rookie with just four years experience on the streets of Ottawa, says there’s no way he’s going to put in the time needed to take proper care of his nice bike during the winter. So, each winter he picks up a “beater” — a cheap bike that he converts to a single-speed and rides into the ground. Cheap frames are usually steel or chromoly, both of which are fond of rust. With no maintenance, a beater will do well to last one winter in Ottawa; there’s just so much salt a bottom bracket can withstand before cracking.

Fourth, whether you pick up a “beater” or not, make your winter bike a single-speed. Grier’s not the only one riding with just one gear in the rear – most of the couriers’ trusty steeds are single speeds. And many of them are fixed gears.

Even if you’re not adverse to the cold, chances are you won’t be able to spend as much time riding in February as you can in June. Riding a single speed allows you to get in a pretty intense workout in a shorter period of time. Because a fixed gear bike won’t let you coast, riding one of these cadence masters offers the most return for time spent on the bike. And as Angelo Sarrazin, an eight-year veteran of Ottawa’s streets, reminds me, “if the brake cables rust through and snap, you’ve still got brakes on a fixed gear.”

 
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