vol

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FedericoMena

Ah, the Taxi of Shame incident.

One day I had to do a supermarket run, so I set up the panniers and the big-ass saddlebag.

There were some bulky and heavy items on the list. Fabric softener, big bottles of shampoo, lots of milk, bag of sugar, that kind of thing. I reasoned that if I balanced my panniers well, I would do fine.

The first problem was to keep the bike from tipping over while loading it. I didn't have a double-legged kickstand back then.

The second problem was actually closing the panniers and the saddlebag. The heaviest things were at the bottom, but bulky items meant that I had to squeeze some things awkwardly and then had a hard time tying everything up.

Then my rear tire looked flat when I mounted the bike. "More pressure", I thought. I dismounted, nearly knocked the super-heavy bike over, unloaded half the saddlebag to get to the pump...

Eventually I remounted again. It was just too damn heavy. I couldn't steer safely, and it would have been crazy going out to the streets like that.

So I flagged a taxi from the supermarket's front entrance and asked the driver if I could load all my stuff, and then he'd follow me. "Will you be fast enough?", he asked. "I will, once I'm unloaded". And I was - although the jerk clearly was driving fast, there was thankfully some traffic that helped me catch up.

And that is how I learned just how much weight my bike cannot carry. Small grocery runs are fine

vol

God, wouldn't have imagined such a story! At least you didn't have a bad accident. Some other taxi driver could have driven away with all your stuffs if he liked them.

Thanks for replying to the thread. I thought there will never be a reply.

Cyclosaurus

About a year ago we bought a ton of flowers for the front of the house and I loaded them up into my Bullitt. I was feeling very proud of myself because we fit what would have normally been a carload of stuff onto my bike. I tried to push the bike off the stand and it wouldn't move. Duh, I forgot I had put the wheel lock on. Double-duh, I left my keys at home! I had to ride home on my wife's bike, face my mother-in-law who was watching my son and thinks we're crazy to do all this stuff on bikes and admit I forgot my keys and so are stranded at the store, then ride back to unlock the bike.

canklecat

My maiden voyage with the loaded bike a couple of days ago wasn't quite that difficult, but I definitely overestimated the balance, and underestimated the need for a center stand for heavy loads. For now I'm just using a bag atop the rear rack, no baskets yet. I tipped the bike toward me to hoist a stiff-hipped leg over the bar and nearly dumped it. Then when I got home I really did dump it, but fortunately it was in my living room - no witnesses.

I've dumped far more publicly and more embarrassingly with motorcycles, many times!

rdlange

Caught my heel when dismounting a 'tall' mixte and dumped the loaded bike on top of me, right at the interseciton. all groceries were in cat litter buckets so no spills. Sold it and got a lower frame.... casually considering an even lower, step-thru 'ladies' frame with fatter tires for the shoulders, fields and shore. We are practicable, not macho, I guess...

Enjoy the ride.!

fietsbob

Drama Free, nothing spectacular, carried a basket ball sized watermelon in the sling suspended bag of my Carry Freedom City Bike trailer,

Towed Behind My Brompton. to share @ a pot-luck occasion.

CliffordK

Nothing too dramatic.

Last year I decided to register for the Eugene Disaster Relief Trials (DRT) Cargo Bike Race (Saturday, October 11, 2014). Problem was that I heard about it a month in advance, and didn't have a cargo bike.

So, I decided I'd build a cargo bike + cargo trailer.

Well, time flew by as I was designing and planning... And the week before the race I was hard into building.

I think I did the maiden voyage on the bike on Thursday before the race, and managed to break the chain twice in the first 2 days (at which point the Bell chain was removed, and I put on 1 1/2 new Shimano hg73 9s chains).

My trailer frame was aluminum. I'd been wanting to weld aluminum for quite some time, but I had never welded it before, and it certainly was quite different from steel. So, I was busy practising & learning, and finally was welding the trailer together on Friday before the race. I got it done (enough) Saturday AM, and the maiden voyage was the ride to the start line.

Needless to say, I hadn't shaken out all the bugs yet. The bike/trailer performed well, other than a moderate shimmy when heavily loaded, and at high speed.

However, the trailer design included 16x3" tires (used/recycled, of course) which I blew up to their maximum pressure rating.

About 3/4 through the race, I blew the bead off of one of the trailer tires

I did have a spare tire/tube at home, but it hadn't gotten packed, and I didn't want to ride home. And a blowout means unpatchable.

And try to find a 16x3 bicycle tire and tube at about 5:00 or 6:00 PM, Saturday evening.

I had to make that call of shame... that I was going to be indefinitely delayed

Anyway, I managed to find a super-thick rubber (thornproof) 16x1.75 tube at Wamart. I put it in. Blew it up to about 10 PSI (the tube took a lot of pressure to blow up to the point where it filled up the tire without the floppy bead falling off.

By the time I made it back to the start/finish line, everyone was gone... And just a few drunk bums hanging around the park complaining that my bike headlight was too bright

I managed to catch up with the race crew at an after-party to dump off the stuff I'd been hauling around (minus the water that I had already dumped). And, the tire with the bad bead, and thick, undersized tube held until I got back home.

=========================

Oh...

If anybody ever complains, I now run right handed rear skewers.

I managed to snag my antique straight lever Campy skewer on my trailer and busted the skewer.

I did discover, a #10 threaded rod with appropriate nuts and washers will substitute for a broken skewer in a pinch.

CliffordK

It seems as if I do quite a bit of thrift store shopping. And, there are times when a load just won't fit on the regular bike.

So, it seems as if I'm always buying something that ordinarily would fit in one's trunk, or on the back seat, and I just have to ask the store to hold onto it for a couple of days, until I come back with a trailer. It is always something little... for example one day a painting struck my fancy... so I had it held.

Oh, then there was the time I bought a thrift store trailer that seemed mostly complete. Trouble was that I was already towing a trailer. So, rather than try loading up the trailer, I decided to have them store it for my next trip. Then I could just pick up the trailer 15 miles from home, and finish my shopping trip with my newly acquired trailer.