In the past, I’ve brought you stories of the ingenious trailers and cargo-bike contraptions used by Portland’s homeless and low-income population.
Remember Bill and Buster and their bike move that never ends? Or how about Mike Colhour’s bike-based scrap metal recycling business? And we can’t forget Allen’s shopping-cart trailer, or the “flip-flop fender” and baseball bat trailer hitch.
And then there’s the mother of them all, Brian’s motorhome bike, a creation that continues to captivate readers from around the world (I actually got contacted by a London-based tabloid service about that one!).
Recently I’ve come across a few more terrific examples of how Portlanders haul their stuff by bike.
Portland bike blogger Kate Gawf, spotted this load recently and wrote,
“This guy sure isn’t worried about excess weight, there were three cables, five padlocks, several steel tools, silverware, a chin-up bar, and a heavy-duty safety vest nailed onto the back for visibility.”
And reader Patrick Wilder sent me this photo of a trailer he spotted in north Portland,
“This thing was HUGE. It must be built off a platfrom 8.5 X 11 sheet of plywood. It looks like a mini RV trailer, I assume somebody is living out of it.”
And finally, a photo of what happens when local bike builder Ira Ryan does some spring cleaning and hauls away “all the beer from the last five months.”
Speaking of beer…remember when Sara Stout and I hauled two full kegs across town (that’s 360 lbs)?
I find these photos, and the stories behind them, both poignant and inspiring. They make me more conscious about all the stuff I own and about using my car, or even having one to begin with.