November update: pedicabs + food

I've been busy! Not doing much bike taxi stuff, but other things.

Anyway, we're back out regularly now.

David got quite the workout Thursday night with Vintage Blue our Joy Luck Club pedicab (b. 1952)... between the Fox Theater, Luka's Taproom and other spots it was quite a busy night!

Tonight (Saturday 10pm~Sunday 2am) Dewey is pounding the pavement around The Trappist, Flora, The Layover and other happening Uptown spots.

Call (510) 545-CABS most Thursday Friday and Saturday nights for first class service to multiple downtown Oakland destinations!  You can also check out our twitter to confirm that we're out working.

In local scene news, a partner of the Flora-Tacubaya food-empire told me last week that their new spot Xolo Taqueria (by Flora, Fox, Den, Sears, Uptown) will open "in six months" which is April 2011. Knock on wood! The beer-pizza place there hasn't opened yet either...

NEX Oakland next door to MUA is a very sweet getup: gorgeous breadstick starters, PISCO SOUR (Peruvian national beverage), food sooo good! EBX has a full write-up. And Matthew Stafford's right--Oakland's seeing a counter-intuitive resurgence of eating (and drinking) establishments. Bar Three Fifty-Five. The Trappist. Liege. Beer Revolution. Adesso. Commis: we LOVE Commis!!! Bakesale Betty Satellite---please extend your hours M&A! :) Plum. Vegetarian Filipino. Geisha. NEX. The eateries coming to Jack London Square market any year now. ;) Brown Sugar Kitchen of course. Long-time Chef Edward's continues to impress. And COTTON CLUB. (See next paragraph.) You'd almost think we're having a food.com bubble...

If you haven't been to this secret restaurant yet, you have to get in!! Awesome food+grog == dementedly.good.times. MORE THAN makes up for downtown Oakland's utter lack of bacon-wrapped hotdogs! Stab at it with gin or other spirits.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Ken

October 9th Green Drive Expo Photos!

Dewey providing door-to-door service for Expo attendees.

We had a GREAT time in Richmond last week taking people on comfortable human-powered rides to the Green Drive Expo at Craneway Pavilion! The sun was radiant, Blue Angels flew loops on the San Francisco Bay behind us for Fleet Week festivities and we saw hundreds of people test driving Teslas (and going pretty darn fast too!), Priuses, Think's e-car, Mitsubishi's i-Miev, and Ford's PHEV Focus at GDE... lucky for us we had white tents provided by Autobytel and small gusts of wind off the bay!  Take a look at our event photos and feel free to contribute yours!

Great thanks to our sponsor Autobytel (they match you up with cars all the way through to point of purchase), project coordinators Lulu Lin and Caroline Schweich, our indefatigable drivers Jerry Meissner, Tom Horner and Dewey Sprenzel, the show sponsors (Ford, Toyota, Nissan and others), show organizers Becky and her husband, and all the staff and security of Craneway Pavilion.

In between giving rides we also had good conversations with people attending the show from all over... Orinda, San Rafael, San Francisco, Oakland, BERKELEY, Albany, Hayward and even San Jose!  Thanks again to everyone for helping out and jumping on board!

We're happy we were able to serve so many passengers in style and make this event memorable.  Here's to Green Drive Expo 2011!


Cheers,
Ken
Backseat Driver Pedicab

Update: Summer 2010!!

Hi everyone,

We've had an ultra busy 2010!!

Every First Friday for the past few months (except this past Friday 10/1) we've been not pedaling around downtown at night. Sad, yes. Instead, we were posted up with our vintage cab at Telegraph and 23rd Street peddling our organic home-made ice cream. So that's why you haven't seen us out and about on First Fridays. We've also been pushing cold creams at hipster-heavenly forageSF underground markets in SF and Oakland. A couple times a month you will find me zipping thru Alameda's Webster-Posey tube (it's hellish biking on a tiny pathway above cars hurtling toward you at 50-60mph with all the wind, soot, asbestos brake dust, noise and diesel PM2.5-10 exhaust... plus their lights on, sorta crazy) to get to Lucky's over there for dry ice. Oakland has no dry ice. What's up Oakland?! (Oh yeah, we did have some. But the West Grand am/pm is closed now.)

We provided first-class wedding service for a bevvy of lucky couples between May and September. Pedicab weddings are always a blast! So many awesome people who definitely should be getting married. While catering weddings I've lost count of which of my personal friend's weddings I've been to this year (two for sure) since weddings seem to blend together if you go to too many... but I do remember vividly my friends' weddings in Lima, Peru and Berkeley, California during the end of this September. Okay, there was Lizzie & Adam's sweet one too, but I'm not really recalling any before that this year :)

In July we went up to Portland and took a PDX pedicab around the aptly named Pearl District, then biked up the hill to the city of roses' rose garden and japanese garden... theirs gives SF's a run for its money but ours is still better :P The Met is okay but I wouldn't live there. Oakland is much preferable. Lima on the other hand... hm!!

Backseat Driver provided festival service to disabled people, children and plain tired-out adults at this year's Rockridge Out & About Festival last Sunday 9/26/10. Huge thanks to Scott and Sara of Market Hall/Cactus for providing us pulled pork sandwiches. They are "the bomb" times ten! Big thank you to the RRDMA for inviting us! We in turn invited Tom, owner-operator of eMotion Pedicab to join in the fun. It was a bit of an exhausting day for me since I pedaled one of our bikes all the way up from downtown Oakland. Great workout though!

You'll be pleased to find tech specs, photos and details about our electric-assist pedicab in ZEVTech's old website, now archived at Archive.org. You can also get the lowdown on True Blue's microcontroller.

I've been spending a lot of time hunting down spare tires to replace the seemingly 50-year-old tires on our beautiful vintage pedicab. The tire size is "26 inches by 1 and 3/8 inches" which is super generic and thus like a shoe or pant size these days. What I really need is a tire 582mm from bead to bead. Thanks for Tom Pisillo, Clay "Cash" Wagers and the dudes at VeloSport Berkeley for advising me on tire sizing and sourcing. If you have any 1950s era American or Chinese "26x1 3/8" tires loafing about please get in touch.

You have probably seen advertisements on our cabs this season in preparation for the upcoming local November election. These are for Robert Raburn (BART Board D4) and Rebecca Kaplan (Oakland mayor). Robert has given a lifetime of work into pushing for bicycling as a normal everyday transportation option in the urban East Bay. We heartily applaud Robert for his work. Rebecca has pushed for downtown Oakland's overhaul in various ways including the new "B" Shuttle on Broadway (aka freebie) and making it easier to open a nightlife establishment downtown.

We're working with the rough and ready crew over at California Covers to custom build a tight new awning for our 1952 Taiwanese Victory pedicab. No, we're not going all out with the LV leather this time! This cab is slightly awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing a new roof on this badboy after spending many late night hours patching up the old pvc canvas one with needle and thread...

I saw RadioGuy last night on his pedicab... it's now painted ALL PURPLE (instead of red with white stripes) and looks tres cool. Awesome! He'll give you a ride with plenty of bass pumping out of the surround speaker system. Radio Guy has been in downtown O. for the past 15 years.

Last but not least, we're gearing up for a huge event in Richmond this month with FOUR pedicabs out starting the party over at Green Drive Expo!

Thanks for reading and let us know where you'd like to see us next!

June Update

After a cold spell of a week, next week looks to be nice and hot!

We'd like to thank one a fellow Pedicabbist, Tom of eMotion Pedicabs, for helping us tune up ye olde Vintage Blue pedicab. Hats off to Tom!

We'd also like to thank Adam and Clay for their work on our other pedicab, True Blue.

Look forward to seeing you at Oaklavia this Sunday 6/27/2010!

Pedicabbing Report

Went out last night since FOX was having a show. Good crowd. It's warm enough now even at night that it's fine to wear shorts, though I banged my shin pretty good on the bike frame somehow. Somehow the freewheel stopped working -- so had to cut things short before midnight.

Thanks everyone!
Ken

Live from the bottom of the Ocean

Somewhat unrelated to pedicabbing...

PBS is now showing BP's live feed, with an oilpocalypse gallons-gushed counter.

Check it out here and on our Media page.

Thoughts on the lingering effects of the oil volcano on Gulf Coast habitat and communities by Richard Heinberg over at TheOilDrum.

Memory Lane

This post has little to do with pedicabbing but everything to do with travel, vacations, trips and memories.

Normally we're rather against the label "consumer" but that is what we all are to some extent.  Either air, water and food, or those three and much more.

I've spent the last week sorting through thousands of receipts mostly from 2006-2010. What I notice about these is multi-fold...

• They tend to pile up and go with you from apartment to apartment;

• Receipts chronicle your exploits more accurately than any blog can due to the printed cost, date, address and timestamp;

• They show your "consumer" metabolism -- in between jobs, few receipts, perhaps the telltale "EBT" on certain grocery receipts if you were really down and out.  Making money hand over fist but no time to cook? Lots of train tickets, restaurant receipts, parking receipts.

Thrown into the mix with receipts are business cards, brochures, flyers, scribbled notes or letters or diagrams; statements, knick knacks, coupons and point cards. I've had fun reviewing where I've been, what I ate.

Lan Zhou Handmade Noodle, 144 East Broadway, NYC 10002 Tel.: (212) 566-6933 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (212) 566-6933      end_of_the_skype_highlighting. "We Delivery" (A couple days after New Year's 2009. BEST hand-pulled and -cut noodles I've had in my life, except for Lin's grandmother's noodles, and cheap! Starting at $4.50 a bowl.  The owner pounds the flour out next to your head while you eat.)

Kimi Ryokan, 36-8, 2 chome, Ikebukuro, Toshima-ku, Tokyo 171-0014, Japan. PHONE: 03-3971-3766
(May 2009 super nice and super cheap "international house" hostel right in the middle of Tokyo. Say hi to Miho for us.)

City of Oakland parking receipt for 12/17/09, 02:05 PM. $2.00. Doesn't say where.

1 2 3 4 (front)
All sex maniacs pick 3 (back)
Compliments of Todd The Bubbleman 510-848-6017
(The guy in tie-die at the pasta stand, Jack London Square farmers' market, Winter 2010.)

Hand drawn map of Ikebukuro station and roads to nearest drugstores.
(I was helping a Chinese mainlander find safer baby formula for her sister on a layover. How do these people find me? May 2009.)

The pieces of paper jog my memory better than a polaroid can.  A polaroid photo has no date or other context. 

Time flies when you're pedaling

It's late April 2010. It's been a year since we soft launched. Happy Birthday to Backseat Driver Pedicab, BDP!

I made myself a mojito yesterday under careful guidance from a bartender friend. Will do a full on party next year.

We've been busy training new drivers... here's hoping they soon pedal effortlessly and gainfully across downtown. =)

More pedicabs in San Francisco now!

Golden Gate Pedicabs is now operating five pedicabs in Golden Gate Park.

So says SFExaminer. Also see CBS5 article. Good work GGP!

GGP is also keen on plying the East Bay market.

See GGP's Facebook page.

Ken

Valentine's Day

I was lucky enough to be commissioned to give a woman and her husband a romantic ride around Lake Merritt for V-Day. (aka singles awareness day)

The ride itself was nice, though more hurried than I would have liked, since I was a bit late in picking them up.  Of course, it being mid February in the early evening, it was a little cold and cloudy toward the end too.  However, the sunset was nice.  I'd do a ride a little sooner for any future VDay rides. 

For future rides I think the pedicab should spend less time lakeside, and more time on the road, since the cab takes up nearly the entire width of the walking path at some narrower stretches.  I don't like inconveniencing others, including joggers and walkers.  However, for a few stretches it is okay and nicer to be by the lake.

Thank you Sarah & Francisco and hope you enjoyed it!

All the best,
Ken

Old news: attacked by uncouth passenger

I've posted up most of the details of my attacked-while-blacked-out attack on the main bike taxi website.

Read the first and follow-on reports here.

I'll post suspect sketch and other info in the near future.  Stay safe out there people -- lots more unemployed young men running about these days.

Ken