Thanks for the reply!
I do LOVE it… especially as a platform for experimentation… just commenting as I’ve recently gone through a mini purge of technology and accessories on my bike – I’m trying to go farther, with less “stuff”. I also ride Brevets – so I’m always trying to balance stuff I MAY need with stuff I DO need.

I love the “badass” desctription. I think some neon ground glow, an air freshener, and defeinitely a go faster wing thing on the back would do it.

Pimp my ride gets a whole new meaning.

-Cheers, Mike

PS – We do have the occasional car swallowing pot hole here in VT, and if I were to guess, 50% of our roads are still dirt, so I do think about susepension as well…

After that description of your badass bike, please hook us up with some pictures…if it is linkined on this thread, I have missed it.

Buddy

Jim, Thanks for the OIFS idea and yes, print those Tee�s and get them out by the millions to cyclists. Your retirement funds will be secured within a year or two!

Todd, Believe it or not, I actually strongly appreciate, and even endorse, the minimalist bike approach. My tandem is stripped lean and goes like the wind. I’m actually thinking of trying a track bike and the ONLY thing I’d add is a front rim brake and that’s only because of SF hills and traffic congestion.

But, um, yes, the Bike That Ate Detroit is over the top. I intended it that way for a couple of reasons:

1) I do love gadgets & I wanted this to be a platform to try different things, but only out of a considered reason for each addition’s utility. (For example, I just added the brass bell after riding Lake Merced’s bike/pedestrian path and realized my air horn was less than polite, but the air horn is a necessity in SF traffic sometimes. So keep both. And isnââ?¬â?¢t the brass beautiful?)

2) I wanted to create a MonsterMonkeyBike that got noticed, in order to spark curiosity, but, hopefully, not revulsion. I get in lots of conversations and if you (Todd) would ever send me some business cards, I wouldn’t have to get people to try to remember “cleverchimp.com” until they get home at night. I may have to make some business cards for you, but you’re a much better designer!

Besides, I happen to like the state-of-being called “mutant vigor”. Maybe I’ll get T-shirts printed up with THAT slogan.

Mike, You’re absolutely right: over done. Over the top. Nothing succeeds like excess. But as a matter of fact, I do quite a lot of “just pedaling” on this rig. I’ve achieved as low as 10 Wh/Mile (in SF hills, remember) when I’m trying for extra range. On the levels it pedals just fine, and the close, even increments of the Rohloff’s 14 gears come in very handy. I get to feel all purist until the next big hill comesââ?¬Â¦ and I roll on the throttle to smugly pass the spandex-carbon frame-drilled chainring-shaved legged dudes.

Now, as far as the Thudbuster and sprung Brooks are concerned… This started when I experimented with airless tires made to a 120 psi. equivalent. Ouch! I’ll never do that again. But I’ve left all the springs on because unlike your enlightened neighborhood, I ride in San Francisco, notorious for potholes that can swallow small sports cars. And patches that stick up above the street surface 3 abrupt inches. And hundreds of steel plates with no asphalt ramps on the edges. I can’t always see the land mines coming, since I’m watching no-signal car drivers on cell phones, SUV drivers who think they’re in their living rooms, in-your-face bus drivers, I-Poded pedestrians wandering anywhere they want at any time, double-parked delivery trucks/semis/buses/taxis/pimp limos, and, of course, car doors opening in my path. So I like all the butt/spine/neck/hand/wrist shock protection I can get. I wish there was some way to rig up a rear shock. Or a water bed.

Actually I HAVE had the thought of what the Monkey could do if it weren’t saddled with a 100 lb. bike, carrying 30 lbs of work stuff and 180 lbs of butt. And I have considered that I’ve overdone things in an SUV kind of way simply because I have a motor to help me out. In the end, I concluded that it all works together rationally and appropriately for a working heavy hauler on some tough streets, and I AM 62 years old, so I deserve some real cush since I’m on it all day long.

I’m eager to see your simpler version on your nicely done website. Bring it on!

Finally, at the risk of being too long-winded (long-typed?), here’s a quote from a younger generation Stokemonkey prospect after seeing my photos. I’m sharing this because I love his hyperbolic enthusiasm:

“This bike has serious badass exuding from it. I didn’t think that was possible for any bicycle to achieve.

You know when you see somebody riding down the street with some tricked out mountainbike with shock absorbers pointing in all directions and enormous knobby tires making that energy wasting SUV howly hummy sound? The guy riding it feels like a badass but anyone who knows about bikes is chuckling at the poseur. They’re like the dudes in driving little Hondas with the screaming, giant exhaust pipes, and wings you could hang glide with. They only inspire respect to the extent that you hope the drivers can get out of their own way and don’t self-immolate next to you.

But your bike is authentically menacing in its strength and utility of purpose. Wow. Very cool. You HAVE to respect it. It’s like a well worn fatigue jacket with a peace sign sharpied on the back. Even a flagwavin’, bushvotin’ chickenhawk dipshit knows better than to meet the thousand yard gaze of its owner. He shuts his mouth, turns around slowly and then, quickly walks away.”

Oh yeah! (My part played by Clint Eastwood, no doubt)

And yesterday, on my ride home through the Mission District, some Latino dudes in a low-rider yelled at me, “You a gangsta!” And gave me big grins and thumbs up. Who knows what Stokemonkey SUV’s will inspire?

I had the thought of bolting on a 4-in-1 motorcycle exhaust on one side of the Xtracycle and putting a big bunch of plastic roses in the back exit pipe. Nah, that would be TOO much. Or WOULD it?

Will we enter an age of SUV bikes, simply because we have electric assist?

Go Bill, if it suits you…

…but I’ll take my dreams of an alternative bike thing vehicle and keep em a lot simpler than yours.

Bill was Stokemonkey’s most active remote beta tester in 2005. His bike is like the Olduvai Gorge of late Stokemonkular development, the many strata of which lay bare the mutant vigor and occasional evolutionary culs-de-sac of the species.

Bill has great fun passing roadies uphill in SF, or at least he did before moving to a 60T Stokemonkey drive ring, which in conjunction with the Rohloff hub and 30Ah of lithium polymer batteries equip him ideally to keep the streetcars rolling during blackouts.

I followed the link and browsed through the photos of Bill’s, um, vehicular unit.

Bill has a lot of ‘splainin’ to do.