Let's start at the begining...

So I have decided to make a bit of a lifestyle change, and this blog will be my journal of both the successes and failures that are associated with that change.

The change I am making is an attempt to go Car-Lite. This will be a new experiment for me as I have never in my adult life tried to get by without using a car for pretty much everything. Being that we are a single car family with a 4 year old, and now an infant as well, the ability for me to seldom need the car is going to make life much easier on my wife when stuff like doctors appointments or play-dates arise.

My current bike, which I love, is an Orbea road bike. 

For several reasons trying to go car-lite on this bike was not really an option, at least not a good one. It is designed to go fast, and really not do a whole lot else. Aside from a small seat bag which holds an extra tube and a small multi-tool there is zero capacity to carry anything, it also has special pedals which require special shoes...shoes which work great on the bike, off the bike however they make you look like a duck with special needs. The riding position is hunched over, which is nice for riding for the sake of riding, but tooling around town with the wife and kids I look a bit out of place.Commuting to work required either the use of a backpack (while a backpack sounds like an easy solution, riding with one is torture), or planning ahead and leaving a duffel bag of clothes at work as well as lunches for the week, not very convenient.

A couple of weeks ago while browsing around the web however I was reintroduced to a section of bikes that I had seen once or twice before. Some people call them Longbikes, xtracycles, cargo bikes, but regardless of what you call them they are very utilitarian. While I had seen them before I had never really given one much though because of the enormity, the cost, and the fact that then I might actually have to commit to this crazy idea.

The most popular bikes in this category are the Xtracycle brand, the Kona Ute, and the Surly Big Dummy. The Xtracycle brand is more for converting an existing bike to a longtail which I wasn't really in the market for (although they have no started doing a full bike it is pricey), the Big Dummy is almost $2k which was out of my price range, and that is before adding any sort of bag, which aren't cheap. The Kona Ute was the most promising of the lot coming in at about $1400, but it still shared one issue with all of the other bikes in the category, they were MORE than what I needed. These bikes are designed to be able to haul just about anything and are very long. I wanted a bike which would not only haul things when needed but could also be used for family rides, and the Ute was going to be overkill for that.

As luck would have it, Kona decided to solve my problem for me and in 2012 released the MinUte. This bike is pretty much everything I wanted in a bike. It is the same design as the Ute but the rear deck is about 2/3rds the size, and the cost is also about 2/3rds as much. So last night, after a week of mulling it over, I went down to Bike Gallery and picked one up.

The Minute gives me the ability to carry my daughter with me as she can sit on the rear deck (hence the stem coming off the seat post, handlebars will be added as soon as they are delivered), the bags will hold everything from my work clothes and lunch, to two full reusable grocery bags, library books, picnics in the park, no problem. Add a trailer to the back (which we already own) and our infant son can come too, once he gets a little bit older. The gearing is super low, which is great for trying to pull anything up Portland's rather hilly terrain. Brakes are disc on both the front and rear which is nice because they work predictably in both wet and dry conditions. The ride is more upright and more suited to just getting from point A to point B. 

This bike will not get a speedometer or odometer, but if I can stick to my plan it will get plenty of miles. While some of those miles will come as 17 mile trips to the office, just as many will come from 2 mile trips to the grocery store, or leisurely rides to the park to play. All the things that normally I use the car for.

Here goes nothin'.