Haven't had one of those for a while, what's new with you and yer wheels, folks? Any questions for things?

I recently came back from a vaction in Berlin and like half the fun was seeing cool bicycles all the time and having an actual bike culture, with like, cool shops n shit. It owned super hard. Even got a show of Fixie Riders doing mad spins and tricks.

Any projects on your mind? After having seen so many of the old steelframe roadbikes, I kinda wanna get one, even with frame shifters, just as a second café racer. Also still looking for a cargo bike that doesn't break the bank, but the local used market is ... fairly nonexistant, sadly. I'll find one of these days.

DA GUIDE

Anyway I recently converted an old trekking bike into a sort of cargo bike (transportation bike?). And it fucking rules, man. Panniers are nice, but the convenience of always rolling around with 70L and 40KG of carrying capacity on your daily fucking owns. Oh look, a computer monitor I need for home office, into the crate it goes!

So what you want is a front rack that affixes to the frame, not the fork. Because then your bars don't drop to one side and bring the whole thing clattering down when you leave it. This is about 25€. And then you put a fitting crate on it, that's somewhere between free and 5€ or so. Make sure it has holes so the rain can drain.

For the rear, you want your standard rear rack and then put a bigger baseplate on it for BIG CRATE. In the old continent the M-Wave Racky Baseplate (sorry for the advertising) is probably your most convenient bed, for the rugged individualists elsewhere in the world I'm sure you can find or just make something similar to screw onto a standard rack. Maybe take the Racky as a guide, it's not like it's a complicated system.

And then you just ziptie on a big crate. I got a 46L one. Make sure you you have somewhere to put your lights if you're running clip on lights, as the seatpost is probably going to be hidden by it. I'd avise a step-through frame for ease of use, but being young I've had no problems kicking my leg over one on a step-over frame. As long as the crate isn't too far out to the side and lower than the saddle it's the same motion anyways, allthough it does sort of limit how high you can stack goods in the back.

Et voila. The front racks take about 10kg, your usual rear rack can take about 30kg and together you have about ~70L of storage space on your bike. It's not particularly aero, but some plastic crates also aren't going to be all that heavy and the baseplate / front rack probably add around 3kg. It's noticeable, but you know have a quasi cargo-bike!