Nifty Gadgets for Family Bikers Nicole Harkin

Holly Harper is a strategic marketing consultant, working under her brand - Blue Bike Communications. Known as your marketing Mary Poppins, Holly understands, creates systems for, and implements marketing campaigns for small businesses and nonprofit organizations. Blue Bike is named for Holly’s 2010 Fiji hybrid, the inspiration for going out on her own as a consultant. Now she’s the proud owner of a 2018 RadWagon. Recently, Holly was participating in the #TheFrontStepsProject and #FrontPorchDC - a bike-powered photography tour during this insane pandemic. She was taking pictures of families on their DC rowhouses front porches and steps. She uses her Rad Wagon like a car riding about 100 miles a month for all the daily living stuff. 

Talked About on this Episode:

Holly gives us a ton of DIY hacks for family biking in this episode. From homemade snow pants to a sidecar for her dog, she hopes someone will make these things for bikes. Her bike has a motion-sensor rear light in case I forget to turn the back light on. And she loves her ABUS bike lock.

John is a global nomad who has lost track of the number of different places that have been called home over the years.  He and his family reside in Guatemala and spend as much time as possible on two wheels.

We chat about the joys of riding with kids and the importance of "taking the lane" when you are riding. 

I chatted with Dianna Douglas outside with her bike. The audio quality isn't the best, but the conversation is a blast!

Dianna rides a Yuba Mundo from REI that her husband electrified. They mad their own runners and other accessories with the help of neighbors. 

You might recognize Dianna's voice from NPR. Dianna Douglas is a DC cyclist and a mother of four kids—7, 4, 3, and 10 months. She’s also a journalist—her most recent project is a podcast called Zion’s Suffragists, about the history of women’s voting rights in Utah. Her podcast is amazing and well worth a listen.

Matt is a retired engineer, current full time dad. He's been biking for transport for decades now in cities all over the country. These days you'll find him riding his kids around his small PA town in a Madsen bucket bike and blogging about biking and other ways to save energy and money at profitgreenly.com.

Tools Discussed:

1. Niterider Mako 200 USB light. This is the light that gave me the confidence to finally ride at night. After I got it I started riding poorly lit suburban roads back from work late at night and really decreased my car use. It also let me ride in the winter when there's less sun, and to evening music shows, parties, and evening grocery trips. It's old enough that it doesn't seem like they actually sell my exact model any more. The Makos now look like they run on regular batteries which will quickly cost more than the light itself but the Swift 500 seems like an upgrade to my Mako that is still USB chargeable. Any USB rechargeable headlight that provides 200 lumens or more of light and can easily be put in your pocket would be fine. Lights like these used to cost hundreds of dollars, but now you can find them under $40. Honestly, I think new bikes should be required to have lights built in just like cars, they're so important to safety.

2. Third Eye Pro Helmet Mirror. Honestly I owned this mirror for years before I started regularly riding with it. The problem was that the double sided tape it came with did not hold to my helmet for long and it kept falling off. I finally solved this by wrapping electrical tap around it and the a plastic strip in my helmet. Having a mirror while riding now has honestly been a revelation. Instantly seeing behind you without having to physically turn around is really nice, particularly when biking a cargo bike filled with children. I have grown so accustomed to the mirror now that I find myself looking for it when walking even. I don't think this model is the best mirror and honestly I'd like to see a helmet maker actually integrate one instead of them all being add ons, but even a bad helmet mirror is a million times better than no mirror at all.

3. Ortleib back roller classic panniers. I think of these as another essential item for making a bike truly useful (of course you'll also need a rack to mount them on). 

4. DIY GPS Bike Tracker. My main ride for years has been a 1989 Cannondale touring bike I got used for $300. I used a u-lock and locking wheel skewers to keep it safe, but mostly relied on it being cheap and old to avoid theft. When I bought an expensive Madsen bucket bike to haul my kids I decided that I needed to up my security game. Even my beefy fahgettaboudit lock could be cut by a battery powered angle grinder in a few seconds and the huge Madsen bike is hard to fit on a bike rack for locking. I decided I wanted to add GPS tracking to it, but all the trackers I found online cost a lot per month and I don't have faith that the companies that sell them will keep supporting them for years to come. I decided to DIY my own GPS tracker out of an old android phone I had laying around and connect it with a Google Fi data only sim card. This costs me about $1/month for data and I'm confident that Google will keep supporting the software I power it with for a very long time. Now I just lock my Madsen with the front wheel lock right where I'm going and don't worry about it being stolen. It hasn't been taken yet, but if this happens I'll be ready.

Montana Harkin is a father of two and a Software Engineer in Seattle. He is married to his partner, Erin. Montana is an avid cyclist, skier, and bike mechanic. Montana works on Amazon Photos, building ”delightful” experiences for customers. Pro tip: Amazon Prime comes with unlimited photo storage. 

Gadgets:

1. Crank Brothers M19 Multitool - https://www.crankbrothers.com/products/m19

He also use to carry a wrench to undo the rear wheel so I could patch the tire if needed. Side note, gator skin road tires are amazing.

2. Wool Skirt shawl

Perfect cold weather insulation for rides. Buy a wool skirt from your local thrift shop. Cut it open and add a button to close.

3. DIY vestibule. 

PVC pipe, clear plastic, zip ties, metal snaps 

I built this for the Seattle rain and it worked great. Kept us riding through the winter. I zip tied it to the monkey bars on our Mundo.

4. Metal pannier basket

I love this thing. Super useful. Hangs off the rear rack. Holds so much for its size. Sturdy. Great for shopping.

https://amzn.to/2uXHdiv



Current Project:

I’m building a DIY Long John Cargo bike. I saw Phil Vandelay’s video, https://youtu.be/SDlnDEXlfm8, and plans and decided it was awesome and for me. I didn’t want to spend $2k on a Larry vs Harry. I also saw a video of someone cycling with their dog and need to build it even more now. https://youtu.be/DIPOGQ4-YUg

Tom chats with Nicole about his work on the local Bicycling Advisory Council and biking in DC generally. More info can be found here:

http://www.bikedcbike.org/.

***On March 3rd, Tom resigned from the DC Bicycling Advisory Council..***