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Old 01-28-11 | 12:38 PM
  #22  
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hotbike
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Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 3,787
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From: Long Island, New York

Bikes: a lowrider BMX, a mountain bike, a faired recumbent, and a loaded touring bike

Originally Posted by subcinco
I appreciate your work. I now thinking of building a box. More pics of what your working on please.
No, sorry, I don't want to post any more pictures. You can do a forum search for my name "hotbike", and maybe you will find more pictures already archived here at bikeforums.net.

I plan to concentrate on strictly utilitarian cargo bikes for the time-being. I must be the only builder who tried to combine utility heavy cargo bikes with aerodynamic streamlining. I had marginal results. The Type 5, was a Type 6 without the roof, and lately I have realized how bad this was. The attempt was to create "interchangeable parts" . So instead of a fairing, the Type 5 has the front end of a velomobile, which always encumbered my arms and forced me to saw down the handlebars to 20 inch width. Then the Florida testing proved the Type 5 to be too hot. Mellisa came up with the Type 9, which can NOT support a roof... every design change is a compromise.

Fiberglass can take a high degree of polish. Most people only see the glossy paint and assume it to be fragile- this is not the case with the Type 9, it can carry over a hundred pounds (>100 lbs.)

I want to say a few words about crash protection. You may have seen my thread titled "a fairing is a protective shield" . I think any utility bike with a front, head-tube mounted box has better crash protection than a conventional bicycle. Or maybe the cargo box can do damage to the cars that I hit. Or maybe the motorist thinks he can win if it's your flesh versus his metal, but metal-on-metal makes the motorist think twice?
I'd rather hit a car with a cargo box than with my face.
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