Chicago Bike Blog

3 Bikes For Supreme Winter Fun

We interrupt the rigid order of this Holiday Countdown Gift Guide to bring you an installment that seems most relevant to this week's weather conditions: bikes for supreme winter fun. All from Surly. All monstrous. And all guaranteed to put a smile on your face.

Pugsley and Pug Ops. FAT. 3.8" tires. Plow through snow.
Moonlander. FATTER. 4.8" tires. Eat snow for lunch.
Krampus. BIG and TALL. 29-er with really fat tires. Commuting? Offroading? Bushwhacking? Yes!

I went out to shovel the snow this morning, and it occurred to me that I desperately needed to enjoy this snow before it turns soggy and grey, and becomes yet another obstacle for us to overcome this season. I needed to seize this day and enjoy it's spectacular, muffled, gorgeous whiteness.

The Dignity of Bikes

This ad, found in a weekly circular of major home improvement center, is frankly insulting.

It is insulting to bicycle riders, bicycle advocates, bicycle shops, bicycle manufacturers, and all of us who have worked relentlessly to raise the profile of urban cycling. This ad undermines the very notion of the bicycle being a legitimate human-powered vehicle worthy of being used on the road.

Unfortunately, the people the above ad insults the most are those consumers who get lured into buying one of the items being advertised. It cheats them into thinking they're getting the real thing. It turns the noble Bicycle into yet another cheap and disposable thing, that brings only superficial smiles at Christmas, and can be discarded along with the heap of other unnecessary stuff before the wrappers have even made it to the recycling bin.

Now, it is true that a Bicycle, a real Bicycle, with a capital B, such as the Kona Makena pictured below, may cost as much as ten times the item being peddled in the ad above.

But you get so much more than an item to be shoved under the tree! A quality, professionally assembled Bicycle is a piece of finely tuned mechanical artistry that is powerful, reliable, durable and safe. And, there are many ways in which a real Bike can make your child a better human and better citizen.

1. It will teach your child independence. It is the first vehicle many children ever ride on their own. Don't treat it like a toy. Let your child learn about the freedom and responsibility associated with controlling a vehicle.
2. It will teach her autonomy. It offers a way to get from point A to point B without relying on the automobile. Children from a very early age can appreciate the difference, and older children can actually use the bike to chauffeur themselves around.
3. You can help your child learn the rules of the road using your Bikes on quiet streets around the neighborhood
4. You can sign up for a bike repair class with an older child to learn practical skills, and further boost the sense of responsibility and autonomy in your kid.
5. You can use the Bike to illustrate some principles of physics (many online resources are available).
6. A Bicycle is a vehicle for social change. You can discuss how Bikes are used around the world to alleviate poverty and and offer mobility solutions in developing countries (for some ideas, click here).
7. A Bike will help your child build awareness. Unlike a car, which isolates us from our surroundings and fellow humans, the Bicycle puts us in touch with the environment & people around us. It's hard to space out on a Bike. You have to pay attention. And when you are not looking out at the world through a smoked glass window, you notice things like prowling cats, sparring squirrels, dragonflies, homeless people under a bridge, the weather, nasty smells exuded by cars, and other interesting things you might otherwise miss.
8. It will teach your child about health and fitness. He will learn how using his own body, and the food he has consumed to fuel it, can produce the energy to propel him efficiently from one place to another. We would all enjoy better health if we committed some of our daily travel to a Bicycle.
9. The Bicycle can teach your child economy. The cost of a Bicycle and its maintenance, spread over the number of years the owner will enjoy it, adds up to a very affordable annual expense. If we use a Bicycle in place of a car or bus, the savings increase dramatically.
10. The Bicycle can teach your child the value of unstructured exploration, and how to unwind and relax. 

And, as Christmas gifts, Bikes are unbeatable. A bike doesn't need batteries. A couple of strong legs, and a little air and oil once in a while. That's all. It won't scatter small parts all over your house. And it is the most fun your kid will have without being plugged in.

For most kids, it is simply THE BEST gift you can give. A Bicycle, especially The First Bicycle, is different from any other gift. It represents a coming of age, a new independence, a right of passage. Owning a Bicycle creates new transportation options, and your child will instantly recognize the new independence. Because of this, a Bike is a gift that will keep on giving. It will not be discarded or forgotten. Your child will use it enjoy it for a long time to come.

But, you say, it's winter. SO? Your child will actually WANT to go outside in the cold. Trust me, I've been there. So a Bike is really a gift for your whole family. Now you can enjoy cycling outings together. Or you can walk or jog, while your child cycles along.

It is a fancy gift that's worth it's price. Think of a price of a popular doll with a couple outfits, a fancy box of Legos , or a video game system, and you will see that the price of a quality child's Bicycle is actually quite reasonable. Plus, it makes a very effective presentation. Imagine this giant package under the tree!... Or rolling it with great fanfare from the garage... wow!

And that's the best reason for putting a Bike under the Christmas tree: the expression on your child's face. As they say: priceless.

Navigating the suburban wasteland with my son

My son, who is 12, recently asked if he could ride his bike alone to Games Workshop, where he could indulge his passion for playing Warhammer, without the inconvenience of having me wait for him and tap my foot.

The Games Workshop is located in a suburban shopping center, perhaps three miles from our house. There are several major arteries that have to be crossed, as well as an interstate, but there are also plenty of signaled crosswalks, a bridge over the highway, and a number of small neighborhoods streets that I imagined could conveniently be used. So, I thought that with a couple of trial runs with me, he could handle it on his own.

I decided to follow a route along residential streets that we sometimes take to our martial arts class. With a light at Peterson and a push-button light at Devon, this route would take us about half-way there. Then, I was planning to show him the special shortcut I like through suburban Lincolnwood.

Like others, I look back with longing and nostalgia on the days when kids could easily go off on their own with little or no parental supervision, but these romantic visions don't seem to find any reflection in modern day reality that I see before me from the saddle of my bicycle. And, what I thought was going to be a fairly simple undertaking turned out to be much more complex and fraught with difficulties, partly having to do with my own nervousness, partly with my son's inexperience, and hugely with the inconsistent, unpredictable, haphazard traffic patterns, city planning, street signals and bicycle/pedestrian facilities in place on the border between Chicago and its neighboring suburbs of Lincolnwood, Skokie and Niles.

Although I have ridden the first part of the route with my son many times previously, my nervousness kicked into high gear when I realized that I was now prepping him to ride without me, to make his own decisions and rely on his own judgment. It was one thing to have him ride on the pavement behind me, and quite another to imagine him trying it on his own. Suddenly, things that I do through force of habit acquired over 20 years of street-riding experience were not so obvious. After all, he doesn't have that experience to guide him.

The frustration with the urban-planning aspect of the ride began as soon as we got to Devon. A bicyclist riding on the street is too light to activate the green light. The push-button activator for the green light was placed with pedestrians in mind. If I was riding alone, I would simply wait for the gap in traffic, and ride through regardless of the traffic signal (gulp!). But with my son, I insisted we cross with the light. Thus, we had to duck-walk our bikes onto the sidewalk to push the button to get the light to change.

Things got even worse when we turned onto Devon. With two lanes of curb-to-curb each traffic way, I had already planned to ride a few blocks on the sidewalk, thinking we would again use the push-button crosswalk signal at Cicero. Well, I am here to tell you that that is the most poorly designed set of signals in the city, and while the right-turning vehicles get their own special green arrow for the entire duration of the green light, pedestrians have to wait out a full light cycle to deserve their own signal. My nervousness increased as I was having visions of my son getting impatient, and running the light while traveling on his own, with all those right-turning cars just waiting to run him over.

We proceeded along the sidewalk on Devon over the Edens Expressway, and arrived at the very pleasant street called Sauganash just on the other side. A broad, quiet, tree-lined residential street runs on a soft diagonal through the posh Lincolwood suburb. The kind of street bicyclists dream about. If the route consisted of only streets like this, I would have absolutely no qualms about my son riding alone. Alas, after several blocks of this paradise, the street ends abruptly at Central, with no bicycle or pedestrian crossing to make things easier. There is a light half a block down at Pratt, but there is no sidewalk, and not enough shoulder for a young bicyclist to safely reach it. So, we make a run through a gap in traffic for the sidewalk on the other side of Central. But I can't have my son do this when he's riding without me!

Now, we're pretty much home-free. The sidewalk continues down toward Touhy, and curves around the shopping center to deposit my son safely at the Games Workshop. Because we are riding on the sidewalk, I still admonish him to look over his left shoulders for any cars who may be turning right out of the parking lots.

By the time my son is done playing games, and I have scoured the shelves of the local second-hand book store, I have completely revised my riding strategy. Although I have always believed that cyclists should ride with traffic and behave like traffic, I find that my convictions do not hold when the safely of my child is at stake. Sidewalks in this part of town are rarely used by pedestrians, and they might as well be used by budding cyclists. On the way back, we forget all shortcuts and finesse. We ride in straight lines on sidewalks to major intersections with dependable pedestrian signals, we make only right-angle turns, and we arrive home safely, in one piece, and with little stress.

Biking for wimps

My morning began with a slap in the face.
In my previous post, I had imprudently revealed myself as eagerly awaiting the arrival of spring, and being tired of the trudge of winter. A reader took advantage of this weak moment, and accused me of having a "delicate constitution".
Humph.
I jumped up from the computer and took a few indignant paces across the living room. I must defend myself. I must protest and set the record straight. After all, not only do I have years of all weather commuting under my belt, I also have a proven track record of turning other people into...
But then the coffee kicked in and my brain started working again.
Where is it written that cycling is something that can only be practiced by people with strong constitutions?
Like it or not, the majority of people in this country still view cycling as a fair-weather activity whose purpose is primarily recreation, rather than transportation. There are many reasons for this, chief among them perhaps the long tradition of cheap, accessible and abundant fossil fuels, resulting in extravagant urban sprawl. Because of deeply ingrained habits and social conditioning, changing people's views to accept the bicycle as a viable form of transportation has been a bit of an uphill battle.
This battle has been fought on several different fronts, through advocacy, street happenings such as Critical Mass, even fashion. It has also been fought day in and day out in forward thinking urban bike shops, such as my own Rapid Transit in Chicago.
For the past fifteen years, we have been engaged in the battle for the hearts and minds of cyclists young and old, would-be and practicing, new and experienced, timid and die-hard, fair-weather and all-weather. And we have come to the conclusion that you can't win that battle with shock and awe. Chances are you will not entice a new cyclist by painting visions of snot icicles, foggy goggles, blue fingertips and admonitions about the importance of layers. You will not smooth the way for him by describing the joys of your 40-mile daily commute. I do not mean to deny that there is a contingent of folks who do find this appealing and fun. But if the point is to create more cyclists, than this is not a winning strategy.
The truth is that few people are warriors, and even fewer are warriors every day.
Most of us (including myself, my earlier indignation notwithstanding) are wimps. Different things is our lives make us wimps: habits, children, distance, weather, aches and pains, fear, sometimes age, sometimes youth, winter colds, whims, moods, barometric pressure, stress. And frankly, while the heroic feats of others may sometimes inspire us, they probably won't motivate us on a daily basis. If the bar is set too high, we won't even make an attempt to reach it.
So I make allowances. Bike a little. Bike when the weather is nice. Bike when you feel like it. I would rather have a million wimps rejoicing in biking one mile, than feeling guilty about not biking at all.

Related posts:
Biking goals
Some of us are wimps. Others - ninja warriors.
Bike if you want to
How to get more people on bikes
50 ways to leave your car
Riding motivation

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Art credit:

Thrift and the urban biker

Yes, I did. I rode down to the local thrift shop the other day to take advantage of their 50% off sale. Half off on second hand stuff that's already so cheap , it doesn't need to be on sale. But, hey, I love a bargain as much as the next person.

My bike, packed to the gills with thrift store finds.

So there I was, rummaging through the overstuffed racks, when it occurred to me that over the years, I've used a lot of stuff from thrift shops as my cycling gear. 
I don't mean the specialty gear stuff. Those things never get donated. It's so pricey, that, if it doesn't work, you return it to the place of purchase right away, so you can get your money back. And if it does work, boy, you hold on to it, cherish it, and get every last red cent of use out of it, and when it starts to fall apart, you see if you can get one more season out of it, and then build it a funeral pyre.
I certainly have some stuff that will be going on the funeral pyre at some, hopefully very distant, point in the future:

• Thin tights, made, oh, probably ten years ago by Hind. They are synthetic, but feel a little like wool. They are fantastic by themselves on mild days, but also work great as an underlayer when it's really cold.
• Any pair of Smartwool socks I have ever owned.
• Smartwool winter gloves. Amazing.
• Smartwool next-to-skin women's v-neck. Ditto.
• Powerstretch windfront tights made by Traverse Bay back in the days when they sold to bike shops (now they deal with the likes of Cabela and LLBean). The best tights for winter cycling. I'm pretty sure there is nothing like it on the market.
• Thin nylon over pants made by DeSoto, a triathalon company. They go over tights or ordinary pants to keep away the cold.
• Microfleece headband (fits under helmet).
• Swrve Milwaukee Hoodie. I just got it, but I think it will be on my funeral pile list for many years to come.
• Ecco Gore-Tex boots. Forget cycling shoes. I loosen the toe straps all the way, push my panniers back on the rack as far as they will go, and I wear those boots.

I hope you will forgive the digression. I realize the point of this post was to talk about all the great things for cycling you can find at a thrift store, not to brag about all the fantastic stuff I have. I just wanted to emphasize that some great stuff is worth the money, and you're wasting your time trying to find it used.
So, back to the racks. Can I find equivalents, or at least adequate substitutes for any of the items above? Let's give it a try:

• No luck on the thin tights. The only ones I found were cotton. Stay away from those.
• I'm funny about socks at thrift stores. But there were a bunch of Wigwam wool blend socks (50 cents on half-off day!) They were actually in decent shape, so I guess I would just wash them and give it a go.
• Gloves? Nothing here that even remotely compares to mine. But, there were a couple of pairs of very warm looking ski mittens (for two bucks, they are certainly worth the risk), and in the past, I have found a terrific pair of fully winterized leather motorcycle gloves. But you gotta look.
• Surprisingly, thrift stores have oodles of fine-gauge merino wool crewnecks and turtlenecks, both in the women's and men's department. They are great, low bulk, warm cycling layers. Check the label. The best ones are pure merino wool, but sometimes a blend is OK. Go for the thin ones. And for layering, head over to the vest department, and see if you can find a boiled wool or another tightly knit wool vest to layer over your torso. Keeping your torso warm helps to warm the extremities.
• Nothing like the windfront tights here. Any tights they have are pretty worn and gross. But there are some good, stretchy fleece pants. Go for them, if they're not too bulky, and you can turn them into a windfront garment by pairing them with the next item.
• A veritable treasure trove of thin nylon over pants. Take your pick. None seem to be more than $3, although there are some pretty arresting colors. That might be a good thing when you're on a bike. For the best emergency garment, choose ones that are super-light-weight and unlined.
• Headbands. Eh... Not too great. Most of them are too bulky for helmets. Buy one at the bike shop. They're not too expensive, anyway.
• Technical jackets? Forget it. You may find a light-weight windproof top similar to the pants for under five bucks. But if you want a warm, water resistant layer, go for the real thing.
• Yes, you can get decent boots here. It's just a matter of finding ones in your size. And you may need to shop before real cold weather hits.

And one other thing that I found: a backpack to schlep some of my stuff home in. I spent less than $40, and completely overstuffed my two grocery panniers, so I needed extra capacity. You can get a very decent urban backpack here. I got one with a mesh section and two temperature-controlled compartments for like a buck fifty. It will be perfect for my grocery hikes.
Anyway, that's what I found on my recent thrift shopping expedition. I'm curious if anyone has found anything in second hand stores that works really great for winter cycling. Let us know.
That's it for my bargain tips. Tomorrow, I may tell you how to spend money at Rapid Transit.

Staff Bikes: Al Schorsch

If any of our staff have really fancy, expensive bikes, as bike shop employees are presumed to do, I don't know about it. What I generally see them riding to work are utilitarian frames, often diverted from the waste stream, upgraded with functional components and home-made adaptations for urban travel.

Like Al's bike:

Al rides an old Fuji Candenza, a very early mountain bike model, dating from the days before the distinct mountain bike geometry evolved. It's almost as if they took a road bike frame, and stuck 26" wheels on it. That adaptation may have been factory-made. The rest was done by the current owner.

The most eye-catching feature, no doubt, it the steering configuration, enhanced by the copper-hued stem that really matches nothing else on the bike.

Those stylish handlebars are nothing more than ordinary 3-speed bars turned upside down. You can see them in their intended orientation on my bike:

But the really interesting thing is that Al took his old XT thumb shifters (just like the ones I use too), and mounted them on the underside of his handlebar.

This actually makes a lot of sense, because this arrangement allows him to push the gears with the natural downward motion of his thumb (rather than reaching the thumb up and over the top of the hand as I have to do on my bike). But there is one problem. To be mounted this way, the left and right shifters had to be switched. I was curious: did that mean he shifted his rear derailleur with his left hand and the front with the right? That would be very confusing, especially when switching from one bike to another, with the traditional shifting arrangement.

But Al was a step ahead of me. These thumb shifters allow him to turn off the indexing (click-shifting) and shift using the friction mode. Indexing automates, to some extent, the placement of the chain on each cog as you shift. In friction shifting, the rider manipulates the shifter until he has aligned the chain with the desired gear to his satisfaction. In the friction mode, the left and right shifter become interchangeable. Pretty cool, I thought.

Al says he uses this bike to haul stuff around the city. He is ready for sloppy weather, with fenders and custom mudflaps fashioned out of a Tide detergent bottle.

And he can certainly haul stuff atop a premium quality wire closet drawer, found in the alley, mounted on top of a stocky rear rack. Milk crate, large capacity messenger bag, and Bob-Nutz for attaching a trailer to the rear axle, attest to the fact that this is a hard-working cargo bike.

Putting to use a worn-out chainring and some discarded pedal reflectors, Al has put together and ornament that is both decorative, and visibility-enhancing.

If you're crious about the bikes of other current and former Rapid Transit employees, here are the links:
Ronnie's bike
Alex's bike
Justyna's bike
Our family bike

Is this man a cyclist?

It's a cold morning. The plants in front of my house, and the cars on the block are covered with frost.

I run a quick errand to a local Target (by car, if I may add). As I stand in line to pay for my purchases, the man in front of me is having a conversation with the clerk:

"It's cold, biking on a day like this." he says.

"Oh, sure is. But it's good exercise. But I don't ride, not even in the summer, even though I have a bike." she replies.

"I ride all the time. All winter, too. Every day." he says, pulling on his gloves, and collecting his bags.

"It sure is good exercise!"

The man walks out, and I pray she rings up my stuff fast, so I can get a glimpse of him riding away on his bike. I do. There he is, just as I saw him. Basic bike, bulky hooded parka, thick gloves, leather oxfords. No helmet, no gear, the Target bags just dangle from the handlebars.

Is he a cyclist? Or what?

Rapid Transit Winter Biking Guide

"Will people still ride their bikes this winter?" I wondered.

I was driving back from Florida, and was filling up my rental car somewhere around Mt. Vernon, Illinois, where the marquee advertised gas at $1.99 per gallon. While it is unlikely that we will see gas prices like these in Chicago, it is undeniable, that, at least for the moment, they are going down. Before I returned my rental, I filled it up at $2.67, and later that afternoon, the same gas station posted a price of $2.58.
In case you haven't figured it out, high gas prices are great for the urban bicycle shop, like Rapid Transit. When they start falling, especially at the same time as mercury does, we worry.
A little.
Bicycle retailing is an emotional business. Two months ago, a line at our counter was several layers thick. Today, hours may go by before anyone enters the store. Is it the weather, or the price of gas?
More rationally speaking, we know from experience, that many people will continue to use their bikes without regard for the price of gas, and despite the weather.
Unlike fluctuating gas prices, winter weather cannot be disregarded by the winter cyclist in these latitudes. For you, brave souls, I have compiled what I hope is some useful winter cycling advice in one convenient spot: right here.

• Why ride in winter in the first place? 10 great reasons, courtesy of RocBike.
• Think it's cold here? Here's a kick you in the butt for you.
• Some winter riding essentials.
• What would your mother say? Advice on keeping warm. And some more.
• A story about winter riding hazards, and some other things (like tires).
• Tips on how to keep your bike in good shape this winter.
• If you're gonna ride your bike in Chicago this winter, you'll need service. This is it.

(Photo from Dingbat)

And what about red lights?

My recent confession that I tend not to stop at stop signs when biking, prompted a reader to ask me about my attitude toward red lights.

To me, a red light pretty much unequivocally means "stop". I even go as far as to not try to beat traffic by using pedestrian signals to go around the intersection at three-way crossings, such as Elston-Western-Diversey which may be familiar to you if you live in Chicago. I wait for green, and proceed across the intersection with other vehicular traffic.

I guess you could say that stopping at red lights while riding a bicycle is a pretty strict rule for me. But a rule is proven by exceptions. I would, and have, made exceptions, when I've felt that my safety was endangered. This is when I think running red lights is justifiable:

1. You are approaching a red light on a deserted street at, oh, 2 am in 10 degree weather. Go ahead. I would (after looking both ways, of course). If you stop, you could lose valuable body heat that you need to get home.
2. You are approaching a red light on a deserted street, in a neighborhood where you have legitimate reason to fear for your safety. Why you would be there in the first place, I don't know. But if you find yourself in that situation, I would encourage you to just keep moving.
3. You are ahead of a long line of cars on a really busy street without much of a buffer zone (think Sheridan Road), and you have an opportunity to safely proceed just before the light turns green. You may want to avail yourself of the opportunity to jump ahead for the car traffic, so you can safely claim your space in the lane. This is especially useful if you intend to quickly get off that road anyway at the nearest opportunity.
4. You are crossing the "T" part of a T-intersection (eg. heading northbound on Elston at Sacramento, or biking in any right lane, where there is traffic merging into the left lane from, say, a highway ramp). Your movement isn't going to impact the flow of traffic. While your safety is not at risk, and I personally might choose to just wait for my light, I think proceeding on red in such circumstances is justifiable.

Have I ever blown a red light just because I could? Yep.

And the only time I didn't feel sheepish about it is when there was no one, not a soul, to witness it. Otherwise, I've always felt like a bit of a cheat. It's almost as if I've taken away some of my own legitimacy, as though I've said to the drivers waiting in their cars: "Oh, I'm not really a vehicle. These rules don't apply to me."

Sometimes I feel that way too if on a short bike hop to the store I decide not to wear my helmet. If I happen to see a helmeted cyclist along the way (which I almost always do), I always feel I am less of a cyclist than that person.

Why don't I feel that way about running stop-signs? Well, usually, the reason I run them, is precisely because there is no one else there. If there is another person there, and he waves me through, that means that he has recognized how ridiculous it would be for me to come to a complete stop. And if this other person elects to exercise his right of way, I do in fact stop, and act like a vehicle.

I love my trailer!

I don't live in one of those neighborhoods where you have a hard time finding bike rack space when you want to run in for a gallon of milk. But even in my sleepy neck of the woods, there have been bikes tied up at the local natural foods giant bike racks. It seems we are, indeed, on the road to accomplishing step one: getting more people on bikes. If they are biking here, in the land of the Lexus, they surely are biking elsewhere in the city. Not that I think it's time to rest on our laurels, but I'd say we're making some headway.
Here's the thing. Once they get to their destination, in this case, the supermarket, many of these folks have no idea how to get their load home.

OK, they guy in the front has a milk crate, and I think those are great. And once in a while I see someone with something resembling a grocery pannier. But the others? How are they going to carry their shopping home?

If they are using a backpack, a shopping bag thrown over the handlebars, or even that milk crate, chances are they are not using the bike for major errands. And that obviously limits the number of occasions that they will rely on their bicycle. With two trusty grocery panniers, you can carry two large, fully stuffed grocery bags, and even lay something extra across the rack. That's often enough for a small household, and it may be all that you need.

But what if you are shopping for a family? Or if you have a bunch of people coming over to your house, and you need to carry heavy stuff, like beer? Or what if you are, or want to be, car-free, and you need to use you bike for more than just the occasional trip to the store?

You need a trailer.

I have to admit, that until fairly recently, I was biased against trailers. The trailers I have tried have been child trailers, which are great for their stated purpose, but somewhat wide and cumbersome for other applications; and the single wheeled BOB trailer, which has fabulous handling while riding, but is annoyingly wiggly to maneuver with the bike when trying to get your load in and out.

Earlier this summer, in preparation for a bike camping trip, we bought a Burley Nomad cargo trailer. I hadn't really planned on using it for groceries, but, as long as it was sitting in my garage, why not? This thing is pretty amazing. Burley offers several attachment options, but we have the classic hitch, which allows you to quickly connect the trailer to many standard bikes with several turns of a nut. In my neighborhood, I don't worry too much about locking the trailer. But it could be locked up with the bike using a cable. I emerge from the store with a fully loaded cart, and arrange four fully stuffed canvas grocery bags, three six-packs of beer and a gallon of apple cider in the trailer with room to spare.

The Nomad is rated to 100lbs. You could probably get away with a little over that, if you're going a short distance. The cover opens all the way, allowing you to arrange the load just the way you like it, and then stretches over your load, keeping all the stuff securely in place. The two wheel design is superior for this application. It keeps the bike and the trailer completely stable while it's being loaded and maneuvered into position, until you are ready to get on and ride back home. You do feel the load behind your bike, but it tows easily and tracks beautifully. If you've ever towed children behind your bike, you will not believe how easy this is in comparison.

While for me it is the perfect trailer, if you live in an apartment or condo with limited storage, it may be tricky to conveniently stash the Nomad and keep it easily accessible for errands. It does fold flat for storage, but that may cut down on its ease of use. I really see its optimum application in households with a garage, where the trailer can be kept assembled and ready to roll, as a simple and convenient substitute for a car trunk.

It's priced in the low $300's, which is competitive with other quality bike trailers. I can't tell you how quickly it will pay for itself, but I'm pretty sure it's a more lasting investment than the $80 you can pour into the gas tank every time you fill up...

I know this particular trailer has been around for a very long time, marketed primarily for bike touring. But, as I recently discovered myself, it is the perfect tool for extending the usefulness of your urban bike.