Utility Cycling - In Vietnam bikes do everything, carry everything.

Click below for fotos from Vietnam.

"Vietnamese use bikes for everything."


http://www.terra.com.co/noticias/galerias/gal140460-.htm

I was amazed by those photos. Most of those loads would go by truck, in the US. Some of them look like they would need a flatcar on a freight train.

In some of the photos of bigger loads attached to the bicycle, rather than loaded on a trailer, the bikes are being pushed, not ridden. Still hard work. I suspect Vietnam and other Asian countries will continue to benefit from rising labor costs in China. Recent economic reports have shown that lower tech manufacturing, such as textiles, are already moving out of China to Vietnam and Bangladesh. I suspect other higher tech jobs will begin to follow over the next 2 decades.

If you did that in the US or Canada I think you would get pulled over before you made your delivery.

If you did that in the US or Canada I think you would get pulled over before you made your delivery.

Hell, in the US you get pulled over just for being on a bike!:twitchy:

Aaron:)

In some of the photos of bigger loads attached to the bicycle, rather than loaded on a trailer, the bikes are being pushed, not ridden...

Interesting too the bamboo handlebar extensions and stouter upright extensions attached towards the rear of some bikes to allow the driver to control the bike from a distance! Is a bicycle better than a four wheel pushcart for jobs of this kind?

If you did that in the US or Canada I think you would get pulled over before you made your delivery.

I know, right.
Anyway, some of those photos are really shocking. I didn't know that bikes could be used for hauling huge loads like those.

The Vietnamese used bike detachments to great effectiveness to defeat the French at Dienh Bien Phu. They took bikes through terrain considered impassable by conventional motor vehicles and they did it before mountain bikes came on the scene!