Berkeley based Clif Bar recently unveiled their new mobile tour bus–a retrofitted, biodieseled, bike hauling interactive exhibit–dedicated to inspiring folks to take the 2 mile challenge. The 2 Mile Challenge urges visitors to commit to bikeride rather than cardrive whenever possible, and within your 2 mile radius.

Apparently, about 40% of auto trips happen within 2 miles of one’s home–trips to the grocery store, to the launderette, to a restaurant or to the gym–and 90% of those are traditionally driven (here in the U.S.). What better way to make a dent in carbon emissions, get exercise, spend time outside, meet others? Than to ride your bike? And what better bike to ride to the grocery store than your Xtracycle? Obviously, we’re preaching to the choir here.

Take the 2 mile challenge yourself online at: http://www.2milechallenge.com
This site includes a sweet Google maps program that identifies your 2-mile radius and helps you pick what kind of things you want to find there (your friend’s house, restaurants, car dealerships [gotta sell it somewhere!]).

Having recently had a child myself, I’ve been fully obsessed with the myriad ways bikes and bike makers attempt to haul small people on bikes. Mark came into the Emeryville office last week and asked a few questions and then casually asked if I’d like to see his bike… I was blown away. The bike he showed did not include the cute kids pictured, but it did feature the childseat which Mark fashioned himself from 3/8″ marine plywood, nylon straps, a beautiful padded seat with Koi print fabric, and even a classy Asian style woodcut behind the seat. I ran into Marc on the road with his son yesterday and he told me that he and his son were loading up the Xtracycle and going camping in the Berkeley hills this weekend. Hat’s off to you Mark — an inspiration to parents and cyclists everywhere. –Nate

I think the coolest part of Trish’s adventure is that she sold all of her stuff before leaving! Talk about liberation.

I’m trying to decide how to spin this, because it was partly one of those inspiring loads that makes me feel “hell yeah, that’s why I ride an Xtracycle” and partly I just felt stupid.

The plastic company I use for the polycarbonate in the Down Low Glow had my home address on their file for my shipping address. So there I was with eight feet of polycarbonate tubing, well more like 160 feet, actually, that I had to get to the Rock the Bike workshop across the Bay in Berkeley. A few months ago I would have borrowed my girlfriend’s car. But, umm, I can’t do that anymore. And I need to work with that tubing tomorrow. Hence the Xtracycle.

At first I felt pretty badass. I stuck my messenger bag in the front of the freeloader to separate the box from my pedal stroke, since I didn’t have a longloader handy. I loaded the tubing quick enough. I felt good enough about the whole affair to stop and snap a picture.

Then I realized the tire was flat. And it was getting towards 4:30PM. Which means I wouldn’t be able to get on BART if I patched the thing. So I threw on a wheel from another bike, which worked well enough.

BART was tricky. I used the escalators and rolled into the last car. People weren’t stressed about the wierd bike, but I could tell they were having to think a little harder to get to their seats. At the West Oakland platform I decided to get off. There was no down escalator, so I slid the bike down the stairs, Travois style, on the tubing.

The worst part of the whole thing was that it has happened before! It’s just that before, I had that car as a backup, so I didn’t even take the time to call my salesman at the Plastic Company and get it sorted out. That’s car culture for you!

Well, there’s certainly a lot of competition for the best Xtracycle family of all time but these Santa Barbarians are in the running.

Send us your nominations for others.

Do we all have it?

Several years ago we had this customer in San Francisco who kept calling to order another FreeRadical. We ourselves have the luxury of enjoying quite a fleet of longbikes for every forseeable fashion event, but a customer who orders more than two for himself (eventually five, I think) raises eyebrows. Turns out he was trying to live car-free in the City, with a family. He soon started fiddling with electric modifications to his SUBs. He seemed to try them all, having one or another problem with each, and eventually deciding that no one was making an electric bike or kit for a “serious” cyclist, i.e. one trying to carry cargo up hills while pedaling in the 60-90 rpm efficiency zone. So he, Todd, the Clever Chimp, started making his own kit. It’s called the Stokemonkey, and it’s been creating many a zealous afficionado out of “serious,” i.e. fun loving load and family haulers, cyclists for the past couple of years. Now he’s really gone off the deep end with this whole cargo bike thing and has opened a dedicated store in Portland, OR, home of much of the cool bike stuff happening in this country right now. (I was at a fancy dinner there last year and the local US Congressman tried to recruit Xtracycle: “We already have more than 50 bike manufacturers in town, why not come join us?”)

Tim rode his bike most of the way around the world. When not pedaling, he paddled and “cheated” a little by sailing. I just read a well-written, fascinating, inspiring account of the part where he crossed the Darien Gap in the latest issues of the print magazine Wend. Highly recommended for the armchair adventurer.

There’s a new rag for people who use or want to use bikes as tools. It’s called Practical Pedal, and you can get a free subscription.

This year’s mild winter certainly conspired in helping my dome dreams come together. While many talked about global warming, I at least felt some warming in my heart knowing that I was contributing few greenhouse gases in the process of making my dome. To my knowledge, it is the first dome to be constructed utilizing Sport Utility Bicycle Lifestyle Technology (SUBLT). All of the materials had to be transported by hand, dolly, wheelbarrow, or SUB out to my ridgetop retreat via the challenging single track trail that we built.

I also charged up 2 large batteries on our solar array and carried them out to run saws and charge tool batteries through an Outback inverter.