Saturday morning by bicycle
Last Saturday was my favorite kind of Seattle Saturday morning.
I left the house around 8:30 armed with a moderate sized shopping list and a bike trailer. In the next three hours I visited an interesting garage sale (noted because they listed a lathe in their ad) where I bought some useful tools at reasonable prices. As I biked down Stone Way I found this interesting cargo bike hanging out by a clothing shop. I’d noticed it before, but this was the first time that I got to stop and really check it out. It’s somewhat similar to the cycletruck that I’m building:
Onto the hardware stores where I bought fasteners for my frame jig and the deck that we are building off of our bedroom. Seattle is blessed with some great hardware stores including Stone Way Hardware and Hardwicks, both of which I visited on Saturday. Stone Way Hardware was absent it’s bike rack, I found out that it had been knocked off of the sidewalk during a car accident. I emailed the city and theysaid it would be fixed in a month or so.
My final stop on the ride was the farmer’s market. There I ran into a few friends and bought some fresh salmon, pork and steak for Christine, fresh eggs, strawberries (Seattle has the best strawberries anywhere, even in an off season like this one), salad makings, and of course a pastry.
This is what the trailer looked like when I got home (after unloading most of the pershables…but I had to put the strawberries back in for the photo). This would be a good load for the cycletruck once I’m done with it.
Unloaded it and made my normal Saturday morning omelette. In the afternoon Alistair Spence stopped by for a quick visit and I made some progress on the cycletruck and frame jig. In the evening Christine and I went for a nice dinner and visited yet more hardware stores picking up the last items for our deck. I wish I could have relaxing but busy days like this every day of my life.
Looks the life of Riley out there.
Good hardware stores are a sign of something good about a community and having nice bikes like that one around is inspiring.
I like the twin tie rods on that bike. Not sure they”re necessary, but I like ”em anyhows.
The last couple of weekends we(Emily and I) have been going to the Ballard market for gorceries. My homemade bucket-panniers have gotten many positive comments. Which market did you go to?
What’’s in the omelet? Don”t leave a guy wondering.
Robert — Typically smoked salmon and cheese, or whatever veggies look good in the fridge. The important thing is good eggs from the farmer’’s market which is are so much better tasting than what I can buy at the grocery store (even Whole Foods).
Jimmy — We go to the University District market most weeks. The Ballard Market is good too, but has a little too much crafty stuff and not quite enough produce for me. We”ll be there tomorrow, probably on the tandem.
Nice, I hadn”t even realized the U District had one. We”ll be hiking Sat, though.
What are your thoughts on attaching the cycle truck’’s rack? I was wondering if you”re going to make it removeable, like the one above, or like the James Black ones, or more permanent?
Hi Alex, let me know if you need any tie-rod end ball joints — I think I have some unused ones laying around from my old full-suspension bike project. If they”re something you can use, you”re welcome to ”em!
Jimmy — The U District one is at 50th and Brooklyn on Saturdays from 9 to 2. If you guys ever want to go just give us a call on Saturday morning. We could meet at our house, get breakfast (there is a good place halfway between here and there) and walk down to the market. It’’s a 10 minute walk.
My current plan is to permanently braze the rack into place. I don”t see too much of a reason to make it removable.
JimG — I”d take those. I don”t plan on doing remote steering for this cargo bike, but if I feel like it’’s front heavy then I might retrofit that.