I went over to a site called 1 World 2 Wheels and used their cool widget and came up with the following:

A big shout to all of you who have supported this effort….thanks for encouraging me to pedal on!

It probably doesn’t sound like a lot, but considering there are no bike lanes, and big mountains, I am pretty dog-gone proud of this accomplishment.

It looks like I’ll reach 2000 pounds before the weather turns foul.

You remember back in the day when you worked for a month mowing your parents’ yard so that you could buy those shinny white “Chuck Taylors” to wear to Jr. High?

Remember how proud you were? How you laced them up “just right” and made sure that your socks were sagging just low enough to look cool? How you wore your cut-off camouflage army pants and your favorite faded t-shirt that used to be bright orange and now looked the color of orange marmalade ice cream?

Remember how carefully you cut across the gravel-asphalt-knee-skinning outdoor basketball court on your way to class as you walked around all of the puddles of murky water? Then out of nowhere the kid that always had to mess with you makes eye contact, and you know that this isn’t going to be good…your first thought is to run, but then you remember your clean, new, white “Chucks” and change direction to avoid the inevitable.

Seconds later you’re covered with mud after the class bully stomped his foot in a puddle the size of a manhole cover. As you look down, all you see are your brand new “Chucks” covered with black dots that would make a Dalmatian blush…remember the good ol’ days?

Well, I had one of those days today when I took the cargo bike out for a spin. The bike had finally morphed into one-mean-hauling-machine…equipped with the custom bed, aluminum box that fit just right, and a flip camera with a mount situated perfectly on the handle bars.

45 lbs. of coffee and 3.5 miles later, I pull into Stick Boy’s parking lot and make my way to the side of the building when disaster strikes: I un-clip my left foot and my right foot hits the curb and throws me down to the ground. My new cargo bike, kinda like my “Chucks”, are now dinged up, and all of the air has left the balloon. A big shout out to the momma who helped me get out from under my bike and 45 lbs. of coffee.

Stay tuned!

enjoy…

A while back, I started delivering coffee into town on a tricked out Giant Cargo Bike that I purchased from my buddy over at Magic Cycles. The purpose for this was simple: get in shape, reduce our carbon footprint, and train for a pretty ridiculous ride carrying lots of coffee.

During the course of a year another idea began to “percolate” and kinda made sense: Ride a bike from Atlanta, GA to Boone, NC carrying a sack of green Rwandan Coffee to raise awareness and money for Rwandan coffee farmers. However, I needed a bike that would handle over 300lbs to cover 300 miles with wee bit of a climb at the end (approx 1800 feet).

Anyway, I don’t want to “spill the beans” just yet…so getcha a cup of joe, kick back, and check in regularly for updates, videos and pics. Oh yeah, here is a link to the original blog post and a more recent overview of Beans for Bikes and Project Rwanda.