Recreational Sabatical

With my bike tour of the Adirondack's of upstate New York now completed, I must let my faithful readers in on a little secret.  I am effectively taking a sabbatical, of an undetermined length, from recreational cycling.

I have been riding bikes seriously for more than 20 years.  During that time, I have spent countless hours from home.  My family, especially my wife, has made huge sacrifices.  A few months ago I told my wife that once my Adirondack Tour was over, I was going to hang the bike up for a season and focus on getting work done around the house.  My wife heard me loud and clear and took me up on the offer.

With that being said, I comfort my faithful flock with these words.  I will continue to ride my bike for utility purposes.  Therefore, I will continue to blog about all things bike related in the genre of utility riding.  I hope to be back to recreational riding by Spring, but I have a lot of stuff to do between now and then, so we will see.

Pedal Powered Poop Hauler

When you camp for more than a few days without sewer hook-up, it's a good investment to have a portable dump tank.  However, I always feel a little funny and guilty when I hook my little 15 gallon tank to the back of my big pick-up truck to tow it to the nearest dumping station...

The sheer contrast in size looks rather ridiculous.  Furthermore, burning all this gas for such a small task seemed like such as waste.  This past memorial day weekend, as I was sitting outside my camper drinking a cold beer (which is when I do some of my best thinking),  I pondered this conundrum of a 15 gallon tank being pulled by 1/2 ton pick-up and had myself a bit of an aha moment.

When I got home, I found a piece of aluminum flat bar hanging around the garage and after a few grips in the vice, banging with the hammer, cutting with the hack saw and filing everything smooth, I made myself a little adaptor to go on my bike...

which transformed my bike into a "Pedal Powered Poop Hauler"...

No more looking ridiculous!!!

No more burning gas!!!

Bicycle or Motorcycle or Both

On a recent ride, I noticed a bicycle locked to a light post. Then I noticed something peculiar about it. Running along the chain stay was the tell-tell sign of a muffler. A bicycle with a muffler - hmmm - that deserves a closer look.I had never seen anything quite like it. Notice the 2-cycle engine mounted beneath the down tube and forward of the bottom bracket and the fuel tank integrated in the rear rack.

When I got home, I googled it and found that it was a Motorella S1, made by Micromachine.