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This is a great platform for an errand bike. This is the catalog picture straight from the Kona web site. I’ll post updates as the Paddy Wagon evolves into a suburban grocery getter. Are you as excited as I am? I didn’t think so but thanks for humoring me.

And yes – it has pedals…

I have started a new project (no big surprise to those who know me and my penchant for starting new projects all the time) I’m calling the “Cycle On Project” and you can read about it in the Cycle On project category. This project is about a whole host of things but primarily it is about using a bicycle as a tool to run errands and make short trips rather than fitness equipment.

The goal of the Cycle On project is to use a bicycle as my primary mode of transportation for as many of the small trips I make as possible. This means riding my bike to class on Wednesday evenings, riding my bike to the grocery store when we need a couple of bags or groceries, riding my bike to the liquor store when I’m low on beer, and generally riding my bike whenever I can to keep money in my wallet.

What’s the payback? I expect to save money in lots of areas but primarily gasoline and health care expenses. I put about $50 of gas in the car each Wednesday and I am going to the doctor more and more as I get older and fatter. I can’t predict what I’ll save but I’ll try and track it. And I won’t hide the costs of the bike build-up. I don’t save any money until the bike has paid for itself – but it will and that’s something you can’t say about a racing bike you only ride a few times and then hang up because it becomes too much work to gear up and ride.

I am the perfect case study

It goes something like this: 20 years and 45 pounds after my best riding days, suiting up to ride an uncomfortable bicycle in a circle is the farthest thing from my mind. It takes too much effort to put on the spandex shorts, the team jersey, and the shoes I can’t walk in, pull the bike out from corner of the garage, and ride somewhere only to turn around and ride home. So I hang the bike back up, take off the spandex (and the spandex and my wife and family breathe a sigh of relief) and the shoes, and go back to the sofa. Does this sound at all familiar?

So the task at hand is to create a user-friendly errand bike that I can ride to class, ride to the store, ride to the liquor store (yeah, ride a bike to the liquor store!), and go to all the places I go that are probably less than 5 miles from home. But my 14 speed aluminum road bike won’t work because it fit me long ago, was an early-90s trend “race bike,” fits someone who likes to have their back parallel to the horizon, requires that I wear ridiculous shoes, and there’s no way to put racks on the bike. So the “I Wanna Be Greg LeMond” bike isn’t at all capable of meeting this challenge.

What to do? Get a bomb-proof, single speed bike with lots of carrying capacity. Enter the Kona Paddy Wagon – one of several five to six hundred-dollar single speed (that’s right – no derailleur gears) steel frame (yes, steel!) work horse bikes you can buy today. This project, tracked in the Cycle On category, is all about creating a user-friendly errand bike from readily-available bikes and accessories.