Monday, February 7, 2011

Xtracycle Adventure on Westside Express Service

We did a nice ride today through the Fanno Creek greenway from Beaverton to Tualtin, OR with our sweet new xtracycles.










Took the MAX light rail from downtown Portland over to Beaverton. Technically, the Xtracycles are too "big" for MAX, but we went off-rush hour and had no problems. One thing we figured out was take a bungee cord and strap the front wheel to the post behind the bike rack. This combined with the Xtracycle kickstand makes the bike stand-up very stable in the train.










The fun part of the ride (for me) was to take the WES diesel commuter train back to Beaverton. We again went counter-flow for the commuters so we had space.


Of course, we forgot to bring the camera today, but the bikes again fit really well. The WES has a set of straps and you can strap two bikes in at the handicap space. In this picture below (stolen from Tri-met) you can see how it works, but on the train we went on, there were not the two seat there, so there was lots of space for the Xtracycles, and they strapped in really well.



The WES is very comfortable and nice way to end a bike ride - and even has a nice friendly conductor - not something you see on most transit.