597 here's your new career

Remember last time we mentioned spinning this "Bike & Battery" part of the blog off into it's own thing?

Well, the URL isn't available. We're thinking of alternates (any ideas?) meanwhile, the show must go on.

At top, a delivery scooter. What a great idea! Bikes are better for hauling more stuff longer distances, but scooters are great for short distances and compact spaces. Like, delivering food in a city. You might even be able to fit that little cutie into an elevator.

Here's another delivery option. Domino's is developing a pizza oven bike. It doesn't actually cook the pizza (this is Domino's after all) but it keeps the pie warm on the way.

That high center of gravity is going to make for an interesting ride, especially in high wind or slippery conditions, but I suppose stuffing a pizza vertically into a pannier isn't a great option for delivery. (Not that we haven't all experienced it.)

Here's another delivery cycle. This is looking pretty finished. But look at what it's made of. That cabin is fabric. The back is basically a locker, albeit one capable of holding a Euro-pallet, which is a small pallet.

The dashboard looks a lot like a bike. That's great, because bikes already work and are relatively cheap. Why reinvent the wheel, when you can simply ring a bell?

Now, it's not a bicycle, because it has four wheels, but what is it? We got curious about the difference between a quadricycle, a quadracycle, and a velopede.

Let's see...with an "I" it doesn't have to have pedals? With an "A" pedals are included? 

Somehow, we just got more confused.

And then what is this? It's not a tricycle. Or is it?

And how exactly does "cycle" describe this small car? We're not sure, but we'd be happy to test drive one and learn more.

Either way, we're pretty sure this is a "velopede."

And while those four wheel delivery "bikes" look sweet, if we had to pedal, we might opt for three wheels. Less rolling resistance plus less weight equals easier riding. (The electric motors of course will help on all of these.)

Cycle-logistics. Hey hippy dreamer kids, here's your new career!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

603 Cyberbike Mullet R eMTB review

Image
Hello friends, welcome to the most exciting dispatch from Bike & Battery ever. It's such an exciting dispatch, it has taken me almost two months to start. Why?  I've been busy. I wish I could say I've been busy riding our new ebikes, but that's only partially true. Mostly it's been other stuff. But we do have new ebikes, and that's the story we're here for.  At top, the 2024 Cyberbike Mullet R. This is bike number one. After having an eye on Cyberbike for a few years, we pre-ordered this unit last December as part of their Black Friday/Launch sale. It arrived 2 months later, in mid-February, a couple weeks after promised. We paid $1995, including shipping. It's the second or third generation of the Cyberbike Mullet. The full retail price is supposedly $3295, but they're still "on sale" for $2495 as of this writing. "Mullet" means the front tire is larger than the rear. This is a thing in mountain bikes.
Read more

589 thumbs down

Image
We're in San Francisco.  The picture above is Valencia Street, where the city has moved the bike lanes to the middle of the street.  When I first moved to the city, I lived around the corner from here. In the past thirty years, I've watched this street evolve.  First, it was four lanes of traffic, two in either direction, with a curbed median and fairly skinny sidewalks. There was a bus line, the 26. The street was already gentrifying, but it was pretty well dominated by cars. Then they put Valencia on a "road diet." They got rid of a lane in either direction, axed the bus service, put in a center turn lane and bike lanes on either side. So it went sidewalk-parking-bike lane-traffic-turning lane-traffic-bike lane-parking-sidewalk. It was this was for many years, and the street grew very popular with bicyclists, diners and shoppers. In the pandemic, entire sections of the street closed to traffic. The parking
Read more

588 quadricycles of the future, today

Image
You might be wondering why this is another Bike & Battery, when WakeBlake posts are more engaging. The answer is: screenshots. Screenshots and a clean phone ethic. Yes, there are apparently more interesting things going on in my life than screenshots of micromobility, but goshdarnit, they're in the photos area of my phone and first I need to get rid of these screenshots. That screenshot at the top was from a video I watched after my friend Mr. Snake spotted these quadricycles on a trip to Europe earlier this summer. The photo above is one I took in Amsterdam at the end of the summer. What does that mean? They're pretty cool looking. And our collective travel resources have evolved.  The Fiat Topolino/Citroen Ami at top, limited to local road speeds and driveable by anyone over 14, no license required (at least in France), is just one example of the exploding category of micromobility. While I've heard of at lea
Read more