Prep This

I’ve just spent the past week hauling scrap metal up from a nearby dump on my electric bicycle – a good investment, that, by which I mean the electric bike. There’s no way I could have carted all this metal up the hill on a regular pushbike. And that, my friends, is precisely why I need to build a power station on my property.

My mates say I’m turning into a quintessential prepper, and the truth is they’re not wrong. See, I don’t trust the so-called ‘energy providers’ to provide me with energy into the foreseeable future, and while I’m happy to be involved in an energy descent, I’m not willing to give up my electric bike for tasks such as hauling scrap metal.

You could say that this example is a little circular – as in, I wouldn’t need to haul the scrap metal if I wasn’t building a power station to power my electric bike, which I need in order to haul the scrap metal. Obviously, though, I use the bike for lots of other things, like hauling water and wood and dirt. And I’m using a whole heck of a lot less fossil fuels than if I was moving those things in a ute, which is what most people would be doing.

Don’t get me wrong – I frequently find myself gazing at other people’s aluminium ute canopies, remembering the feeling of knowing that my cargo is safely secured and protected from the elements. Things would certainly be easier if I’d just get a danged truck; I have no illusions about that.

It’s got me wondering if there’s a bike-drawn equivalent to ute trays. Around Melbourne, there are fabricators who might be willing to build such a thing, and if that was possible then the possibilities for installing protective canopies are endless. My only concern is whether, once you get to that point, the weight of the load might become an issue for the bike’s power capacity, and it might just be more efficient to use a conventional motor vehicle.

 

I’ll keep you posted, anyway.