ricardo kuhn

first in this case I'm more a narrator & picture collector that anything else.

the task: to transport Five 1 inch diameter and 28 feet long pieces of "Rubar" (steel rods use in construction) with a total mass of 225 pounds for about 2.6 milles...

The tools: I really nice and strong "TriHauler"(sorry my ingles do suck) made by a company in oregon, plus whatever we can find that make sense for the operation..




The Place: berkeley california departing from the B.C.A.T. a.k.a. Berkeley Center for Apropiate Transportansion, base out of a comunity oriented multidiciplinary comunity call the "Thinkers Workshop"

The Actors...
Mike the "Power unit" at least in my eyes the ultimate example of the "Ant Load" , incredibly smart, nice and playful not to mension extremlly skillful.agil and strong as hell, also won the "Track stand" messenger world championships in NY a few weeks ago, also knows how to go fast when need too..and even more provide steady and reliable power for endless amounts of time


Danny...The "Monkey" in this case, another incredibly nice and smart fellow, really into sail boats and Biodiesel and making funky stuff out of nothing


Ricardo...Me in this case just a Posser compare with Mike,, taking pictures, stoping traffic,pushing the rig sometimes and some how engeniering a few strategis..


Now for the Real action, the trip to the metal shop was pretty unevenful we road on 3 diferent bikes at pretty much the same speed, even if the triholer is about a 120pound, mike keep up with us just fine..

first thing the guys at the shop say was "Please bring your TRUCK to this door" oviuslly they were set for a Big surprise, actually most of them were cyclist and really nice


the owner of the shop recognize one of Mike's old invensions, the "Crab bucket saddlebags" from a old rivendale article


I love this Foto,,in the back the super dupper mega Interational truck with a One mille per gallon consumtion and "little" Mike ready for action.


More to come soon,believe me is going to be fun

karmical

great post....

i've seen that mike guy someplace before...

ricardo kuhn

welcome to part two....

as wonderful as the Trihauler is, it suffers from a really big problem, it only have traction on the front wheel this becomes very evident in any kind of climp(even when not loaded) and for sure any time you have a big load, specially if is rearwards,,so you need to be extremlly careful to place the load as close to the front as possible


for the Gear geeks(like me) the TriHauler feature 3 diferent sets of gears.
First a convencional compact drive crank that can be chance by hand,yeah no post for the derreileur, then a multigear 8 speed cog like on any mountain bike all this run on a 3 speed nexus hub, i don't have the data to calculate the last rathio but i'm pretty sure is about 2' per stroke,,beleive me becomes handly on any climp with 200/300 pound of load.

well lets get right into the ride

the first turn was a little difficult but in no time we have it figure out.


remeneber what i was saying about "TraCtiOn" well the load is so far back the whole trihauler tends to lift (I know i know why do you lower it on the platform, well was not possible) here is were Danny the Mon
key boy becomes extremlly useful

second turn, you can see already mike have no Freaking trouble moving this thing, he is super powerful, remenber we are towing about 450 pounds some of that mass directlly on top of the trihauler.

ricardo kuhn

some turn on the other side,,is all about momentum


yes we need to deal with city streets, we are lucky berkeley have a extensive network of bicycle friendlly streets (bike boulevars) but we still need to cross a few avenues


personally i don't think the people on their fancy Dotcom movils were Hunking for danny's butt, i like to think they were doing it because they were impresse.


wait for the light and cross the street like any other "Truck",,,regain momentum is a pain in the A^^

ricardo kuhn

the poor monkey, looking for a place to fit his big all feet


ready to turn,,,to the RIGHT since the radius is so limited


upss when over the double yellow a little


We did about 15 turns,,some at high speed, the ones at slow speed i was helping to push ergo i did not time to take pictures


Happy, happy, Fun, fun FUN...


the confidence before the "Storm" well the climp

ricardo kuhn

man i Suck as a camara man


little Truck, big truck, actually ours was even longer than the red truck.




danny was always checking the back, just in case.






we stop at thinkers to get all the tools so we can bend the steel, was useless to carry them on the way it,,about 50 more pounds are added


checking tyre pressure, we even carry the pump,,we run about 120Psi on the tri tyres and about 80 on the trailer.

ricardo kuhn

Danny is a sailor and he knows every knot that is, so we have a bunch of ropes "come-alongs" tye downs, whatever but we end up ussing just a wire that they gentle guy from the metal shop made for us,,,hey he knows his S^^T better than us.








this guys were super sopportive,,good for them.

ricardo kuhn

so far everything was flat, now is time to climp about 50 feet in about 10 blocks


just checking


half pusher half monkey


finally we reach the destination.


the whole purpuse of all this metal is to make 4 arches so plant can grow on them, all this is located on a comunity garden in a berkeley high school


again no powertools all human Power.


me ussing the come-alongs to bend the rod


sometimes i don't know if Danny thinks to much or does not think at all.


after a long day at "work" we when for a well deserve dinner, this time mike was sitting on the TriHauler and I became the Motor...


man is freaking hard, a was not carring that much load,,only about 250/300 pound and i was ready to quit a few times on the somehow step hills on the way to the restaurant

anyway, I much rather put my fisical body and menthal energy into something usseful whan going to a silly Gym and let all this power go to waste..

I hope you gals and guys like the little report, again sorry about the ingles and the somehow lamme fotos..


be sure i will take more pictures when the project is done.
to clarified we are BUilding(in the present) a structure so arboreal plants can make a nest, this structure is compose of 4 arches and a bunch of trellis in betweeen them, hopefully in a few months we will have a eleveted garden for the kids at the highschool to eat from, be sure i will post the pictures when the project reach other stages.

ricardo kuhn

He use to ride for pedal express, the guys and gals with the RED bikes and uniforms in berkeley that deliver breed, groceries and whatever else on bicycles.

he also rides a unicycle in the dirt and compete
a few times at the messanger "World championships" this year won the track stand competicion and i think place bronze in the "Skid" contest with about 350feet long skid on a fixy.

hotwheels

pretty cool post, thanks!

Roody

Great posts, thanks for sharing! I like your ingles and your photos. I love what you accomplish with human power and monkey power.

ricardo kuhn

thanks guys, i'm glad we can share a comun passion.

Rodney Crater

Is it possible add a torque converter to store energy centrifugally? Something like the flat round weights that weight lifters use and gear it so one can stay in drive gear and gear up the spin rate on the weight. Then when you go up a hill, gear down the converter to add force to the main drive. It would be neat if somehow this could be integrated into the front wheel to add weight to the front. I do not know engineering. This is just an idea I have been wondering about for a long time. Don’t even know if it could be worked out or if it is feasible.

[EDIT]By the way, this was a neat documentation of your devices and trip[/EDIT]

karmical

beautiful story, great project!

cerewa

For your flywheel system to work, it would have to be heavy and probably more mechanically complex than the rest of the bike put together. And for it to be worthwhile the power the flywheel provided would have to be more than the power used up in simply bringing that amount of weight up a given hill. Personally I think batteries are a better way to store power (despite all their inefficiencies) than flywheels, and flywheels are never gonna become a good power storage mechanism for small vehicles. But I might be wrong.

Rodney Crater

I was thinking afterwards that the gyro effect ( if that is what you call it ) might throw things around a bit and bumps might cause chaos. Definitely the front wheel is not a good place for it.

KristenGilbert

Those pics look familiar, is it south of Gilman? I think I ride my bike around there on my way home from work if I want a different route.