Adventures with a Long John named Margret

I did some neighborhood scavenging a couple of weeks ago and stocked up on lots of wood. Since then I have been drawing up plans for lots of new projects. The first one is a captin's chair for the long john.

Right now the back and bottom rests are removable, as we will be adding our own custom cushions and upholstery to them. Also, I'm on the lookout for two small speakers, about the size of computer speakers, that can be hooked up to a battery. If you look hard, you can see a speaker bungee corded to the frame behind the basket. The one I carry around now is not amplified, so it only plays as loud as my ipod will go. With amplified speakers, I think I will actually be able to hear the music that comes out of them while I ride. I plan on building little speaker boxes in the back of the captin's chair, that will be amplified and hook up to some Dewalt power tool batteries that I have. This should provide me with enough juice to last a 20 mile ride. I also plan on re-doing the arm rests, as they ended up shorter than I expected.

A & A Cycles- Custom Bicycles

Two friends of mine are starting a bicycle company. A & A Cycles in San Jose, building custom long john bicycles. This bike can carry up to 225 lbs, not including the rider. This is Margret, the second bike built and also the company bike. Last week I used this bike to complete a wide range of errands.

One day I used it to make two runs down to the recycling yard. In my first load (pictured above) I took an old tv and some bottles. The second load I carried bags of cans and plastic bottles. During both trips, the bike handled beautifully and got lots of cheers from passerbys.

Another day I used it to take my air compressor to my friends shop. Also on another run, to pick up a table saw that the same friend was giving away. Awesome.