Product Review: Bike Burrito

You may have noticed something different about Arielle and Tosca, my road and fixed-gear Mercians.


Lately, I've been riding them without the Carradice Barley bags I'd attached to them.  I decided that, especially in the warmer weather, I don't need a bag of that size for rides of a few hours or less. 


When I first started this blog, I'd been alternating those  bags with Bike Burritos.  You might recall that I had pink Burritos on Arielle and Tosca.

Jayme Bassett makes Bike Burritos in three sizes--Tamale, Regular and Grande--in Long Beach, California.  On her website, she offers some Burritos she's already made.  The "wet" ones are made from cordura, the others from duck cloth.  She offers a variety of patterns and colors.  If you don't see one you like (or that matches the color scheme of your bike), you can tell Jayme what you'd like or send her a photo of your bike.  She'll tell you what patterns and colors she has on hand, or can get.  

Every Burrito has two layers of fabric.  On the inside are a series of pockets.  On the Regular and Grande, one is about twice as wide as the others, which allows you to carry an inner tube.  The bags  fold over on themselves, much like the Mexican food for which they're named.

Folding over section containing inner tube and blinky.

Folding over section containing patch kit and tools.

Pulling it together.

Would you like rice and beans with this?

The pink Burritos you see in my early posts were the Regular size, made from duck cloth.  I'd taken one of them off the bike, set it down somewhere and never saw it again. The other was spending time inside my Barley bag.  Since getting the new Burritos (with the print pattern), I've been using the pink one in my handbag or backpack for pencils, pens, lipliners and other things I want to separate from the rest of the bag's contents.


I decided to buy Grandes this time.  They give more capacity:  I can carry my rear "blinky" and front "frog" light easily.  Plus, because they're longer,they can be attached in an interesting way to a B-17 saddle:

If you look in some old catalogues or British or French bike magazines, you can see tool rolls or raingear attached in a similar way.  It can also be attached to the rings on the outside of the Barley's flap. Most people attach their Burritos on the underside of the saddle rails, like a sew-up tire bag or the round TA-style underseat bag.


However you attach or use it, the Bike Burrito is a functional, stylish (or funky, depending on your point of view) accessory that looks right on a classic, modern or anywhere-in-between bike.  Jayme does a great job of making them, and she's very nice to deal with.  For those reasons, I highly recommend Bike Burritos.

The Point Lookout Orca: Such A Privilege To See It

I've done this ride at least a hundred times before.  Still, every time I do it, I never know what I'll find:

Could this be the Point Lookout Orca?  Or is this proof that Pac-Man evolved from some sea creature that waded onto land--or beached itself?  Hmm...Maybe there's even more to Darwin's theories (or Genesis, for that matter) than we thought!


Some of you might see it as a claw.  That would make sense, given what I saw on the path leading to it:

All of those black dots or specks or smudges you see are crab legs, or fragments of them.  Among them were also some empty mollusk shells.  The birds of Point Lookout don't realize how good they have it:  Meals like these would easily cost $30, or more, in my neighborhood--and even more in Manhattan!


Then again, I wonder whether the people who live there know how good they have it.  I know how good things are for me when I can ride there on an absolutely perfect day

and I have Arielle to take me there.

Electric Bikes

Not so long ago, if you ordered General Tso's Chicken, Curry Shrimp, a container of hot and sour soup and wontons for you and your loved one, it would be delivered on a beat-up mountain bike or a bike-boom era ten-speed.


That bike was, more than likely, rescued from trash that was set out by the curb.  Or it was purchased for a few dollars from any number of corners where thieves sold their booty.  (Pre-gentrification St. Mark's Place used to be the epicenter of this trade.)  


Now the men (All that I've seen are men) who deliver your favorite Chinese foods are likely to go to a showrooms to buy their delivery vehicles.  Most of those put-put palaces are out of the public's (and, ahem, law enforcement's) view, although a few operate openly.  The vehicles they buy now are shiny and new and those men have had to save their money for months--or borrow it--in order to buy one of these vehicles.


I'm talking, of course, about electric bikes.  The delivery men love them because they're faster (about 20mph) than most bikes and are almost as easy as bicycles to maneuver in traffic.  Best of all, from their standpoint, those "bikes" don't have to be pedaled.  And now when restaurants hire delivery personnel, they give preference to those who have those low-voltage velos. 


There are just two problems with this scenario.  First of all, electric bikes are illegal in this city.  But, as more than one police officer has admitted, the ban is not enforced because "we have more pressing issues."  There isn't any public demand to raid and close down the shops that sell electric bikes, as there is for, say, "drug dens" or houses of prostitution in residential neighborhoods.  


The second problem is that it's, quite frankly, all but impossible to penalize careless electric bike operators--ironically, because of their illegality.  Because those bikes are illegal, there is no licensing requirement for them.  So, most of their operators don't carry--or even have--driver's licenses.  In fact, one of the few operators who's been arrested--for getting into a fight with a pedestrian--admitted that he and many other delivery men don't read or write English well enough to pass the written part of the exam for a driver's license.  The lack of a license makes it more difficult to keep any kind of record of violations.


As a matter of fact, as that same operator admitted, some delivery men don't have documentation of any kind.  Now, I'm not a lawyer, but I feel pretty confident in saying that there's not much you can do with an undocumented scofflaw but to detain and deport him or her.  Most local law enforcement officials don't want to get involved with the latter (which would involve dealing with Federal agencies, which nearly all of them are loath to do), and feel there are more pressing needs for their jail space.


To be fair to delivery people, though, they are simply people who are trying to make a living the best way they know how.  Worse than them are some of the teenagers I sometimes see riding electric bikes on bike/pedestrian lanes, especially the ones that line the bridges.  The bridge lanes are almost invariably narrow and shared with runners, people pushing baby strollers and such. You know how young people (especially men) who just got their drivers' licences drive their cars. Well, they operate motor bikes with even more reckless abandon.  I am not the only cyclist who has been grazed (or nearly so) by one of them, and I am not the only female cyclist who has had to deal with a young man on an electric bike riding as close as he can, then taking off.


Since banning electric bikes has done nothing to keep them off the streets and paths, I think they should be legalized--and that anyone who wants to use one should be required to get a permit.  To get that permit, of course, they would have to take safety classes.  And, I think, electric bikes need to be governed by a different set of regulations from those for bicycles, motorcycles or automobiles.  Perhaps there could be a "points" system, as there is for automobiles, and anyone who accumulates too many would lose his permit--and his ability to get a license to drive a motorcycle, car or larger vehicle.

What do you think?  Have you seen many of these electric bikes in your community?  If so, what's your experience with them?  Do you think they should be regulated--or allowed at all?