Still Carrying On

Freshly returned from a wicked ‘Me and My Mirror’ work trip to Sri Lanka, Myanmar and North Vietnam. Happily, a lot of it I was able to do by cargo bike. Lots of places I work, like the Middle East for example; doing it by bike is just not tenable. A lot of S and SE Asia is, however, is just built for bikin’. And for Me and My Work a cargo bike is the optimal solution.

I’ve now taken 3 different bikes on ‘Me and My Mirror’ work trips. The bike this time is made by an outfit called ‘BENNO’ and the model is a ‘Carry On’. And it is, by a wide margin and for me personally – and my biking/carrying/pleasuring needs – the best cargo bike by far.
It’s significantly more compact than any other variant I can think of, particularly if you consider that the robust rear cargo rack and the super-useful front ‘utility tray’ are removable. An added bonus is that it is far easier to plead it on to a plane or sneak it on to a train if you’re hot and you’re tired and you feel like cheating.

One size fits all… how about that? And I’m 6’1” (and fat despite everything).

Wheel size too, is a perfect balance: 24”. I’ve ridden cargo bikes with wheel-sizes all the way from 20 inch to 700c and the ‘Carry On’ sits perfect and purty on the balance between load center-of-gravity and riding like a real gen-you-ine bike. It’s tough as nails too, and I’m hard on the gear: 3 and one-half months on this trip and not one mechanical. Not even a flat (the stock tires are both cool and burly).

I’m stoked. She’s idling in the garage just now and champing for another voyage and Me and My Mirror has some big ideas.

Maybe Colombia in the autumn where there are plenty of amputees (many, tragically, due to ‘narco-terrorism’). The Benno will be a bonus in Bogota and thereabouts, but with that terrain and that altitude I’d best get fitter and lose a few lbs. Then how about the Balkans in the spring, then Kiev and the Ukraine, then on down to the Crimea, right? They’re hurting everywhere, and I got wheels.

I aim to carry on… and keep on carrying on.

April 2019, Vangroovy