About this website

Bikes-as-Transportation is a joint venture by three bike bloggers who focus on practical cycling, with an emphasis on electric cargo bikes.
  • Don hails from Seattle and primarily rides an electric Rans Hammertuck. He formally blogged at mycargobike.net
  • Larry Clarkberg is in Ithaca, New York. He rides an electric Surly Big Dummy and is continually inventing new accessories for it. He formally blogged at bikeforth.org
  • Mark Stosberg reports from Richmond, Indiana. He shares experiences with an electric Yuba Mundo, a bakfiets and a Surly Big Dummy. He formally blogged at stosberg.com
Here they each introduce themselves in their own words.

Don Marsh

For at least 3 decades I wrote software for Apple, IBM, Microsoft, and a couple of my own startup companies. I left Microsoft in July 2009 to support my wife (she works full time in wind energy) and two very busy kids. Now I do more shopping, getting kids to and from school and other activities, and so on. In many respects, I’m an average stay-at-home dad, except our family spent last year living in Copenhagen, Denmark. We didn’t own a car there, so we went everywhere using bikes and Copenhagen’s exceptional public transit system. This only strengthened our convictions regarding the benefits of bike transportation for individuals, society, and the environment. My attempt to integrate a cargo bike into our suburban American lifestyle is a way to transplant some of our Copenhagen experience in Seattle. While it feels good to align my best intentions with our transportation needs, the fact is that I love our well-designed cargo bike, and it’s just fun to ride! Gliding through the fresh air and taking a little time to appreciate the beauty around us beats another tedious ride in the mini-van. Full disclosure: I have absolutely no relationship – financial or otherwise – to any of the companies whose products I describe in this blog. I value my freedom to provide an unvarnished opinion about these products. Contact Don at: don [at] mycargobike.net

Larry Clarkberg

Say you took the time you would’ve spent in a car and instead spent it on a bicycle. And say you took the money you would’ve spent on a car and instead spent that money assembling the most practical bicycle possible with the most practical accessories available. (And say you had some fun inventing new accessories when none were available to meet your needs.) Say you used that bicycle to run all of your errands less than 10 miles away. What sort of bike would you create? How well would it work? How would these changes affect your lifestyle? How would they shape your dreams? I am conducting just such an experiment and this blog is a sharing of my results (and a wee bit of my opinions). I am a father, a quaker, a web developer, and of course a bicyclist. Contact Larry at: larry [at] bikeforth.org

Mark Stosberg

I write about the following kinds of things here:
  • Stories and photos about my experiences with my own bikes and a Bikes-at-Work trailer. My wife and I ride them with two small children.
  • Notes on my bike advocacy efforts, working on signage, bike maps, bike racks, Complete Streets and long-range planning, all with some success.
  • Notes on bike touring, by myself and with my family, including a bakfiets tour with a toddler.
  • Tips and photos for year-round bike commuting
  • Links to other worthwhile content on the topic around the web.
It all started with this vague sense that I shouldn’t be wearing my car to the grocery. It was close enough to walk, and I was often buying less than my backpack would carry. Not being able to think of alternatives at the time, I wore my car. My 2,000 pound car. It kept me dry and protected me from extreme temperatures while I was outside, but most of gas going into the car was being used to move the weight of the car itself around, not me. Weather protection was the only reason to use my car on some of these quick trips. Years later, I’ve learned what else I can wear to get to the store in all kinds of weather. Somewhere along the way I got rid of my car altogether. I’m now part of a one-car, four person, car-lite family. Some bike resources specific to the Richmond, Indiana area include: Contact Mark at mark [at] stosberg.com or follow him on Twitter as @BikesAsTrans