Here’s Grasshopper, a Joe Bike Workahaulic/Shopahaulic double-decker cargo bike and a cousin of the ShuttleBug, chilling in his habitat over Memorial Day weekend as he waits for parts.
With almost no signage and lots of distractions up and down the street, our shop at 3953 SE Hawthorne is easily overlooked. Telling people it’s right next door to Linus Pauling’s childhood house is of limited help. As soon as the rain stops, we’re giving the outside of the building a makeover, and with it a new logo. These signs will be mounted to the 28″ rim of a roadster, which in turn will be mounted up high on the wall, perpendicular to the street.
Pretty, isn’t it? Today David Meredith, chief designer of Stop Cycles, Portland’s new urban bike brand, dropped off our first sizable chunk of Alfine/Gates belt-drive Proletariat 
framesets.
The Frida, E.T.A., Linchpin, and Jackhammer frames are being powdercoated at Class Act, and we can’t wait to get them in our workstands.
Watch for Stop Cycles-sponsored rides and events this summer. These bikes are going to revolutionize serious urban cycling, and we’re proud to be North America’s first–and Portland’s exclusive–Stop Cycles dealer/distributor. Our Stop Cycles page will be expanding rapidly as we build our fleet up. For more information, please also visit Stopcycles.com.
Totcycle, a blog about family biking written by a Seattle pediatrician, has posted an informative piece on finding and fitting helmets for very small kids. Their favorite, and ours, is Bern, but several brands are discussed.
Here’s a Joe Bike customer making the most of the Torker Cargo-T’s abilities as a smaller-scale but sturdy work/family bike. The Cargo-T is usually overlooked by our customers, who gravitate toward the better-known Mundo, XtraCycle, ShuttleBug, and Boxbike, but we like its combination of short wheelbase, low stepthrough frame, stable ride, low price, and the ability to have front and rear child seats while also making use of the strong front and rear racks. Shown above is our own build of the Cargo-T: an 8-speed internal hub instead of the typical 3-speed, front and rear drum brakes, Bobike Mini with windscreen/bugshield, Maxi Plus in the back, capacitor-equipped front and rear Reelights, skirt guard, chainguard, rainproof bags…and an optional multifunction office machine including a laser printer/fax/scanner/copier/telephone—technology that, to our knowledge, no other cargo bike offers.
For many decades Ceres, the goddess of grain, has stood proudly above the Chicago Board of Trade building, maintaining balance over her domain by making sure that Midwestern droughts are followed by Midwestern floods and then back again. Now Canada’s Norco brand has gotten her into cycling. Specifically, she’s a high-performance urban commuter that’s corn-silky smooth, rainproof, droughtproof, genetically unmodified, and very low maintenance: Gates carbon belt drive, Shimano Alfine 8-speed internal hub, disc brakes. Perfectly suited for Portland. Rides like she’s just eaten a bowl of Wheaties. New shipment just in. $1165.
A reporter from Discovery Channel’s Treehugger visited Joe Bike on Saturday and Sunday to put the Yuba Mundo and our own ShuttleBug through their paces. The result: Both were named among the top 5 kid/cargo bikes available…and the ShuttleBug was singled out as the champagne of them all.
The Shopahaulic’s new self-limiting kickstand is neither bolted to the frame nor part of it. When retracted, it’s held by neither spring nor latch. So how does it work? Some sort of magnetic vortex core reversal by excitation with short bursts of an alternating field, you ask? Maybe. Or maybe you should just stop in and see for yourself. 
Our handmade-in-Portland, belt-drive ShuttleBug made its debut at PedalNation’s bike show this past weekend. The reaction has been excellent. Please see this Bikeportland.org story.
The bike shown in the photos is at the shop and available for test rides for those interested in placing an order. We’re working hard to get into production mode.
Come visit with the Joe Bike crew in booth 108, between the Hopworks beer bike and our friends the Bicycle Business League. See our new, handmade-in-Portland boxbike, the ShuttleBug: Gates carbon belt drive, Alfine hubs, Portland geometry, rainproof steel/fabric cabin with quick-release mounts. It weighs less than the average 2nd-grader. We designed and built it ourselves, so you can talk to the people who made it.
And meet Stop Cycles, Portland’s new urban bike brand. They’ll have a Proletariat 29er commute bike on display. Several other models arrive next month. Joe Bike is the nation’s first Stop Cycles dealer.
Also check out the latest generation of the Yuba Mundo, which will be available for test rides.
At the OBCA (Oregon Bicycle Constructors’ Association) booth, we’ll have a one-off, mixte-esque, low-riding cargo bike frame on display. You can’t miss it–the green turned out a little greener than we’d expected.
And finally, we’ll have a pimped out Flying Pigeon on display in the Pimped Bike contest area. Please vote Pigeon!
For more information about the show, go to www.pedalnationevents.com.
