Countdown Day 8 Wednesday

Started the day with a quick ride to my buddy Steve's house who is a leadership coach.  I took him up on his offer to help Hope and Sean with their Green Rider messaging.  We spent a couple of hours role playing and talking about  ways to best generate enthusiasm and support for the trip and the sustainability movement.  It was great to see the clarity that we all gained demonstrated by our improved ability to deliver  strong messages about this project.


Then I rode down to my mother's house where my sister had just arrived and we spend almost an hour with a photographer from the local paper who needed images for the article that is coming out on Friday.  She was a wonderful person to work with and we had a lot of fun getting shots riding up and down the street in front of our family home.   I hope the paper prints a photo with us on bikes, our mother and the house.  Sean also came down and took some video which I sent off to Steve who will probably have a video post out in the next day or two.  

Here's Steve (our leadership coach) Hope and Sean after our successful session.

Countdown Day 9 Tuesday

Today was trailer day.
I met Sean and we put in a shelf, drilled some holes through the trailer for the solar panel and took care of lots of loose ends.  I think Sean is going to work out well.  He's taking on a lot of responsibility and there will be hard times but I think he'll rise to the occasion and have a successful trip.
On a negative, I found a leak in my hydraulic brake line.  Not a good thing.  Sean and I are figuring out how to replace the line and bleed the system.
Lots of action in Bakersfield and Tehachapi thanks to Dave, our guest rider from here to Flagstaff.
Looks like we'll get a good look at wind projects as well as a group of electric vehicle enthusiasts.  We're going off schedule by about 25 miles to spend the night in Tehachapi.  Just too much to do there to make it a short stop.

Check out the photos of SEan taking his first ride on a recumbent and our solar panel doing it's thing on one of our batteries.  It's so good and not even x-rated!

The Countdown day 10

Lots to do before hitting the road.
Aside from the usual logistics, I worked on the solar panel rack that will be mounted on the trailer.  Came up with some clever tricks to hold the panel securely, I hope.
Also arranged to have my 5th grader Lucy come to our send off with her whole class.  There will be some surprises that promise to be very entertaining.
Talked to Marcus at PiMobility and Sean will go up there next Monday to pick up the bike and learn as much as he can about the rig.  
Tomorrow is a trailer day.  Put in a shelf above the bikes, work on the solar rack and deal will lots of little details.  Sean is going to join me and I promised to teach him how to ride the recumbent.  It should be pretty easy for him since he's a good rider already.
Talked to a Wind Expert in Bakersfield  today who we will visit when we pass through in two weeks.
He'll provide some great sound bites for a video blog!   Here's his website http://www.wind-works.org/books/WindEnergyBasicsRevised.html
Still raining but this may be the last of it before we leave.

Green Batteries, Long rides and e-bikes on campus

My daughter Lucy had no friends to play with yesterday so we painted our batteries green.  Really green!

My brother Michael rode his "long tail" bike 75 miles yesterday from his house in West Marin to Palo Alto.  He managed to get lost a couple of times, adding about 15 miles to the trip.  He arrived looking pretty good!

I got a note from a fellow in the midwest who is promoting electric bikes on campuses.  It's a great idea and he's found a funding source that will help him purchase electric bikes for 2 campuses.  The hitch is that he needs our votes and he asked me to help spread the word and encourage e-bike enthusiasts to vote for his project.  Blogger article -  http://www.blueplanetgreenliving.com/2010/04/08/green-campus-project-wants-your-vote/

It's this kind of passion that's needed to get folks to embrace electrical transportation and campuses are a great place find converts!!

The Bike Arrive Part 2

My daughter and I captured some footage the day our bikes arrived at my mother's house last week.  As you'll see, my mother is the power behind this project and you will also see the skill and grace with which   my daughter handles a bicycle.  She will be riding the last 10 days with us on one of the upright bikes. (Thankfully!)
This video was put together by a new friend and volunteer filmmaker, Steve Marra.  As we travel, we will be sending Steve files with video footage and some stills and he has graciously offered to edit them into pieces that will be posted on this blog.  I tried to get Steve to ride with us but he can't take that much time so this is the creative solution we came up with.  It's actually perfect.  Sean, our driver and I both love shooting video but adding the editing and posting to our activities was overwhelming.  Thank you Steve!!
Here's the video.  

And because photos are always fun

The Bikes Arrive

On Friday April 2nd, brother Michael brought Catherine and my bicycle down to our mother's house.  We also met Dave Werkley who will be riding the first two weeks with us.  He's a gem and we are thrilled to have his company.  His wife, Donna also came and we enjoyed the afternoon and evening together.  We took the rigs out for test rides around the streets where I learned to ride a bike as a kid and it was completely delightful!

Now we are in the final push.  Taking longer rides, gearing up the bikes and support vehicle and nailing down visits along our route.  The reality of this project is finally hitting Catherine and she's having some anxiety.  I feel better that I have someone to share mine with!!

Michael seems a little sad to let go of his babies and send them out into the world.

The Solar Panel is on its way!!

While researching and buying batteries for the bikes, I ran across a portable solar panel designed to charge the battery packs we ended up ordering.  When I talked to Mike at Golden Motors about the solar panel, he had to admit that he had just gotten his first one in and he had no experience with them.  Mike offered to test the panel to make sure that it would charge the batteries without damaging them.  He ended up building a charge controller that shuts the power to the battery off when it reaches full charge.  (Quite surprising that the panel comes without any connectors or charge controllers.  I wonder what the supplier was thinking?)  Anyway, Mike skillfully built a charge controller and shipped the panel to me yesterday.   When I get it, I will install it on the roof of the trailer with a quick disconnect.  I started building the frame today based on the dimensions I got from Mike.
The plan is to charge a battery pack on sunny days. (We estimated that it will take about 8 hours to fully charge a flat 14 amp hour 36 volt battery with  our panel.  Time will tell!)  The rest of the plan and the reason for the quick disconnect is so that we can put the charger on the ground at our events and demonstrate solar power turning into vehicle miles.   As Street Theater, I think our set up will be very impressive.  Suddenly, reliance on fossil fuels is gone!

I'm excited to see people respond to an actual demonstration of a solar panel making power.  Spinning wind turbines are easy for me to translate into electricity but solar panels just sit there looking shiny.   It's not obvious that electricity is being generated.  Not only will our panel be hooked to a charging battery but I am also able to hook a volt meter into the line (thanks to Mike) so that the charge traveling into the battery is visible. Way cool.