ekay @ewankeep@mspsocial.net

History of Electric vehicles. '... a hundred and twenty years ago electric vehicles were all the rage.'

https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/en/2022/06/a-brief-history-of-e-mobility/ (you can pick Deutsche, Francais or English on the sidebar to the left of the page)

I hacked my zoris.
I took the plastic strap out and used paracord instead. The plastic stopper on the bottom of the sole was jabbing me in the foot when I walked. I made up the lacing pattern on my own, but it's vaguely based on classical era Roman and Greek sandals. These are much nicer, more secure and comfortable. This is a primitive, simple sandal made of modern materials.

#wx in MN. Boom!

My honey is plus sized, so a regular bike wasn't going to work for her. We did a ton of research on tricycles, recumbents, electric scooters, pedal cars and more. We settled on Sun EZ-1 recumbent bicycles for the both of us, for $500 each. The car sale paid for one bike and we saved up for the other. That was steep one time entry for us at the time, but we knew we were going to be saving $5k a year ongoing costs. Stay tuned for more of my 20 year car free journey!

I grew up bicycling pretty seriously, biking was my go to option. I did a 700 mile bike camping tour of the Colorado highcountry, went over Trail Ridge Road and my highest mile day was 80 miles. I even did a solo tour up the Connecticut River in Vermont But then I became disabled and thought I couldn’t ride a bike again. I got a 10 speed at a garage sale a few months before going car free, but it was clear a regular bike wasn’t working for me.

We started following Andy Singer and his Bicycle cartoons. https://www.andysinger.com/ And got connected with a growing car free movement. We went to a ‘How to go carfree’ talk of his at the Green Living Expo. We took the plunge! We sold our car for $500 to a desperate expectant mother and dad. I gave them the entire service history and LOTS of details about how much work the car needed. But they needed a car to get mom to the hospital on The Day.

Cities set parking minimums are required to have 2-3 parking spots per car, 450 sq feet, which is about a one bedroom apartment. (paid for by taxpayers). Highways have cut through urban areas and devastated historically black neighborhoods, often with those neighborhood specifically targeted. Highways enable white flight to the suburbs and create enclaves of people trying to ‘escape’ the ‘dangers’ of the city, redlining and divestment from the city core.

We knew we were one unexpected repair away from having a junker. Paying blood for oil was so heartbreaking. At least on a bike the fuel you pay for goes inside you. But back to that $10k. That’s $800 a mo, a big chunk of rent. But that’s only part of the picture. There are externalizes. And the more seriously we started to think about selling the car the more hidden costs we started to uncover. We picked up Katie Alvord’s Divorce your Car! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_Your_Car!

We ran the numbers. We paid ~$3000 USD for the Volvo and kept it running as best we could. I was a car mechanic, before I became disabled and I did the oil changes and as much of the repair work myself as I could. We ran the numbers and realized that gas, maintenance, repairs, insurance, the price of the car over the working lifetime we had the car added up. Fast. In 2002, that was for us about $5k a year. It’s now something like $10k. https://www.finder.com/cost-of-car-ownership

It wasn’t just the blood = oil that tipped our decision to sell the car, but it was a big factor in keeping our motivation up when things were more difficult for us. Our society is built around private car ownership and choosing to do without can be punished in a multitude of ways. Some people can’t even make the choice, they are locked in by habit or by necessity.

We knew this wouldn’t be the last oil war. My use of gas in was directly causing bloodhsed in other parts of the globe. I thought I was ‘enlightened’ and we didn’t drive much – only for necessities and the occasional trip to the lake or road trip to visit family. I knew about climate change and post peak oil and was an activist on environmental issues. But that blood = oil equation really hit me. It might be hitting you, too, given Putin’s war in the Ukraine.

I’d like to share why I went carfree . My wife was taking classes. I was on disability and our income was tight. This was after the start of the war in Afghanistan and leading to the war in Iraq. My wife was selling plasma to get a little cash but it all ended up in the gas tank of our aging Volvo station wagon. The blood for oil war in the world came home to us vividly. We were literally putting her blood in our car. We realized that the two were related.

This month is the 20th anniversary of me going car free. I'll be posting thoughts about how to go car free, why to sell your car, what you gain when you take that step and other random thoughts about car free life for the next month. There will be thoughts on post peak oil, climate change, racism and suburbia and other heavy subjects. But also hopeful, even joyous explorations of public transit, life on foot, human powered conveyances and recently, electric assist.

There are not even any speed sensors connected to the controllers. I'll need to order those. He didn't even finish the god damned brake job and major tune FFS. I'm getting a local bike shop to work on the simple stuff like brakes, while I tackle the bigger issues.

I just got a programming cable for my bafang mid-drive and am going to do this damn thing my own self. He overclocked my trike even when I told him not to. And I may have to reflash the controller. I need to actually solder on the after market battery connector he put on the charger with some mickey mouse stuff. No I don't know how to actually do this yet, but I'm in ebike school. Moral support and/or technical guidance accepted, if you have any to spare.