A BASKET CASE - "carrying" on with life!

No, the Ecorider is NOT a basketcase... not yet, anyway..

But this is a short post about "carrying on" - more specifically carrying things ON a bike. It is about adding a simple and VERY USEFUL accessory to my bike... a small black wire basket!

I visited the most amazing garage sale a few days ago. The couple who held the sale took quite an interest in my recumbent bicycle, and after a few minutes of shopping, out came the nicest gentleman with 2 brand new 20 inch tires AND tubes in perfect condition... that he thought would fit my wheels. So he measured my wheels, and sure enough, I left the sale with 2 tires in new condition, and tubes, for $3! They weren't even out in his front yard for sale... he just thought I might be able to put them to good use, so he went and found them in his garage!

Before I was finished shopping, out he came again with a $20 bicycle basket that he had bought down south in California, years before, and sure enough, it installed beautifully on the front of my bike. He showed me how it locked into place automatically when the basket handle folded down, and how it released when you lifted the handle up. Then he installed it for me, and my total bill was now up to $11. \

Wouldn't you know it... for another $4 I found a nice solid maple wooden chair just the right size to sit on when playing my cello, so I bungie corded that to my handlbars perched on my new front carrier!

Then I found a voodoo doll, believe it or not, that had 20 common ailments written on it, like stiff neck, sore knee, upset stomach, balding, sexual dysfunction... but I told them it wasn't worth the posted 25 cents because it didn't come with a pin, so it wouldn't work. A few minutes later out of the house came the owner with a nice 2 inch straight pin to stick into the respective ailments, so it was now a functional voodoo doll, and well worth the 25 cent asking price!

I stuck my new voodo doll friend under the bungie cord, and off I rode back towards my house, with quite an assortment of new acquisitions. Voodoo doll, large wooden cello chair, 2 tires and new tubes, and front basket to pile all the "new' and useful acquisitions on. It was even a more strange sight than my recumbent bike usually is, with the assortment of incongruous odds and ends piled up somewhat haphazardly just below my line of vision!

I often attach a small bike trailer to my bike, and carry groceries, shopping acquisitions, or even a small collection of garbage if I am traveling through a nature trail, and I get a chance to pick up what other's may have carelessly dropped.

I hardly notice the extra weight once the bike and trailer are moving, and it is amazing how much can be carried in one small trailer. Instead of riding with one hand and one sore arm full of groceries, I am now using my new basket for short trips to the nearby local grocery store, and I don't even need any plastic bags to put $20 to $30 worth of groceries onto my bike.

Reduce... reuse... recycle.. there's my story for today. A small and handy basket on my relaxing recumbent bike, purchased at a second hand garage sale of used but useful things that someone else wasn't utilizing... and I can tell a simple story about being a more ecologically friendly and ecologically responsible urban dweller. I shop in smaller amounts when I shop by bicycle, but I find that I can buy things more carefully and less wastefully in these smaller amounts. I just don't need to fill an SUV or a truck with groceries for a family of 3!

Trailers and bike baskets are very functional and useful accessories for urban cycling. I wonder why we don't see more baskets and trailers behind bikes... and a few less cars and trucks and SUV's... especially for local shopping trips close to home?

Len (Ecorider)