Date: Sun, 4 Oct 2009 09:32:05 -0700
Reply-To: Poppie Jagersand <poppie.jagersand@YAHOO.CA>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Poppie Jagersand <poppie.jagersand@YAHOO.CA>
Subject: Bikes and VW busses. was: Vanagon emissions
In-Reply-To: <6e95da690910040504nfd907d0m48a2d4ba56364a6f@mail.gmail.com>
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On a day of errands at the suburban mega-stores, I can get there before the gridlock if I start early Sat or Sun, but I often end up moving at creeping speeds between shops and parking lots in the traffic jam that ensues after everyone else wakes up.
A solution is to bring the bike, park once and then bike around the back lanes to the stores. Saves time, saves idling and stop-and-go driving, saves gas and the environment a bit.
This also works well for going to the city hall or other downtown places where nearby parking can be difficult to find. Just bike the last part and turn a 15min walk into a 5min bike ride.
An adults bike is easiest to put in a VW camper by pointing the rear wheel forward and sticking it a bit between the front seats. Turn front wheel 90 degrees and rest against rear bench. Two adult bikes will fit that same way.
When camping it is obviously better to have the bikes on a rack on the rear or front of the Westy to not obstruct the interior. Bikes stay a bit cleaner up front. There are also bike covers to keep the dirt off. It is great to have a bike at the camp site when the wife and kid wants to rest in the camper but I want to go some place.
For next summer's camping season I'm planning to bring my eBike (motorized electric bike) as a second transportation. It is a bit heavier than a regular bike at 30Kg so I may have to think about how to reinforce the bike rack. Would also be nice to be able to charge it from the alternator when driving. (There are RC chargers that do this, but not for the particular 72V battery I have now.)
Martin (and '82 Westy 1.9TD "Poppie")
--- On Sun, 10/4/09, Joy Hecht <jhecht@ALUM.MIT.EDU> wrote:
> From: Joy Hecht <jhecht@ALUM.MIT.EDU>
> I'll second that. The only
> problem with getting around LA on a bike is that
> it's a big place - it could be too far. No need to
> take the freeways,
> though. Unlike many other suburban areas (I'm
> thinking of New Jersey,
> actually) where it can be very hard to find a route from
> one community to
> other except the highways, because residential areas are
> deliberately
> designed to funnel all traffic onto roads that are pretty
> nasty to bike or
> walk on.
>
>
>
> Joy
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 4:10 PM, Dave Mcneely <mcneely4@cox.net>
> wrote:
>
> > On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 1:01 PM, Don Hanson wrote:
> >
> >
> > On the other hand, one would not long
> survive trying to get around
> >> the LA
> >> area by bicycle..Nope! Imagine riding
> through the normal gridlock on
> >> any of
> >> the freeways on your bike...doing 20-25mph (a easy
> sustainable pace
> >> for a
> >> fit road cyclist) past literally hundreds of
> thousands of fuming and
> >> stationary drivers...You would very soon be a
> victim of road rage..
> >> "If I am
> >> stuck here in this traffic, that frikken'
> lycra-clad bike f-- is not
> >> gonna
> >> go anywhere either" And on the
> rare occaisions where traffic is not
> >> stalled, the drivers are so exhuberent that they
> could give a crap
> >> about
> >> some cyclist on the shoulder...No Mercy for bikes
> there..and no public
> >> transportation either.
> >> Happy friday
> >> Don Hanson
> >>
> >
> > Can't really speak for LA concerning utility of using
> a bike from
> > personal experience, but two friends who live there
> use bikes for most
> > day to day trips. I haven't asked them, but I
> doubt that they ever get
> > on a freeway with a bike. Fact is, in most
> jurisdictions it is illegal,
> > as well as downright stupid behavior. To bring
> in California's more
> > northern metropilis, my daughter commuted between
> Oakland and Berkeley
> > by bicycle for a couple of years, and didn't use the
> freeway there.
> > Like I have learned the surface streets of the cities
> I navigate most
> > often, bicyclists learn them as well. In most
> cities, most folks who
> > are not long-distance commuters can get by for most
> day to day
> > excursions within 5 miles of home, and who needs a
> freeway for that?.
> > Even suburbanists like myself can mostly do
> that. When I have been in
> > LA, I've seen more bikes on the streets than I do here
> in Oklahoma,
> > including Oklahoma City. For myself, I do a lot
> of walking to the
> > library, shops, and so on. Oklahoma drivers seem
> to see a target on
> > bicyclists, and there are no bike paths in most
> Oklahoma cities,
> > including my suburban one.
> >
> > My wife was flabbergasted when a coworker said she
> could not get home
> > from work in a snowstorm because the freeway would be
> clogged and
> > dangerous. Bonnie asked the woman why she didn't
> take an alternate
> > route, and she said she didn't know any. She
> lived a quarter mile off a
> > through surface street that runs between the suburb
> where they worked
> > and her city neighborhood. Every day, not just
> in snowstorms, that
> > freeway clogs with folks driving from the city to the
> suburb and
> > vice-versa, while reaching either takes half the time
> on the streets.
> >
> > David Mc
> >
>
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