The biggest thing I’ll ever tote on a bike

I have carried a lot of things on my cargo bike. It’s become a game: what unlikely object can I next transport via bicycle? I clearly remember the rush of hauling my first big item, a suitcase, five years ago. That load was liberating then, pushing the boundaries of what I could do, but now I wouldn’t think twice about it.

Yesterday I reached my high score in this game, if you will. Like in a heist movie, I sought to pull off the world’s greatest job before taking it easy evermore. And I did it.

I’m not done hauling – I’ll still carry things on this bike every day – but during the record-breaking ride I swore that if I made it home without incident, I’d not try anything this big again. This is the tale of hauling a 275 gallon plastic tote, in a metal pallet, six miles across Ann Arbor.

To augment the rain garden installed last year, I ordered a used tote from the Washtenaw County Conservation District. They’re huge: cubes with edge length of about four feet, holding 275 gallons – that’s over two thousand pounds of water when full. Empty, they and their metal cage clock in around 120 pounds. It will be a mega-sized rain barrel.

(Sidebar: my neighbor has what I believe is an 800-gallon rain barrel. It’s all relative).

Yesterday was pickup day. I thought about getting it via bike, but dismissed the idea: six miles away, at the Scio Township Hall, was too far for a stunt. Like a sensible fellow, I brought my Honda Odyssey minivan. To my chagrin, the tote didn’t fit.

I returned home empty-handed and considered my options. Was it a sign? I went for it. I swapped out my longtail bike’s kid-carrying seats and bars for its cargo rack and headed back. The deck was stacked against me: I was still rolling on my winter tires, whose metal studs slow me down by a few miles per hour. And as I biked west to retrieve the tote, I found the wind gusting into my face.

I got help lifting the tote onto the bike and strapping it down. I took a test lap around the parking lot. Pretty wobbly, I had to admit, but once I was rolling it was okay. I headed south on Zeeb toward Jackson. My plan was to stick to the sidewalk, in case I tipped over. I usually advocate for riding in the road, but this was not a usual trip. Off I went!

Spoiler: I made it home fine. But it was hairy going at first. Gusts of wind pushed me sideways as I biked south on Zeeb, catching the tote like a sail and requiring me to steer against them. I’d seen this effect with semi trucks on the highway but never felt it like this on a bike or in a car.

Stopping was okay. Starting was harder. To get rolling again, I’d push along like a skateboard for a few pushes, then wobble as I got moving faster. At speed of 10 mph or more, it felt more stable, though the tote would bounce every time I hit an uneven seam in the sidewalk.

The tote obstructed my ability to look back, but that wasn’t a problem on the sidewalk. And at least I was getting noticed by drivers – I could see that in their facial expressions. Here’s what I looked like from the back:

I noticed the tote was grinding on the bike’s tail as it bounced and clanged. All I had to pad the frame was a rag and my jacket and knew those wouldn’t work. I’d once used a fleece jacket to stop my bike from rubbing against a bike I was towing and that quickly wore a hole through the jacket. Could I find some scrap cardboard? And could I hold the bike still while I retrieved and inserted it?

I kept an eye out and found a discarded box outside the cemetery on Jackson Road. I carefully stopped and rested the bike on its kickstand. Then I flattened the box and wedged the cardboard between the tote and bike, tightening the straps while I was at it. I was halfway home and feeling better about my odds.

I followed Jackson east until I got to Stadium, where I turned right. This trip’s unique perspective gave me insights into aspects of cycling and traffic that I normally miss. For instance, the toughest obstacles were cars that had pulled out of a parking lot and were waiting to turn onto a main street. While waiting, they obstructed the sidewalk. This put me in a bind.

On foot or a typical bike, I’d grumble and detour behind them. With my 64 cubic foot load, I wasn’t nimble enough to swerve around them, and I really didn’t want to stop. A few of them pulled back or pulled out quickly when they saw me, but the couple who didn’t were a problem.

One such driver on Stadium, pulling out of Westgate Plaza, caused me to take to the street to avoid a sudden stop. I took the lane – I really took it – and finished the trip in the street. When I got home, I checked out what I looked like from the back:

On the positive side, I appreciated having sidewalks available the entire way on routes that are dominated by cars. The sidewalk on Jackson is pretty decent and I was grateful that the city had recently filled in the last sidewalk gap on that street.

The only tricky part remaining was a “Michigan left” turn: I needed to turn left from southbound-Stadium onto Pauline, but couldn’t see if it was safe to switch into the left turn lane. So I turned left by turning right on Pauline, turning around in a parking lot, and proceeding back through the intersection.

All was well that ended well. I didn’t need to be browbeaten by loved ones to never do something like this again – I was making promises to myself during the trip. I’m glad I accomplished one for the record books, and much more glad that I made it home safely.

My run was a personal record, but not more than that. I’ve heard of people moving couches on certain bakfiets / front-loader-style cargo bikes. And there are photos of people from global south countries hauling extraordinary loads on even modified conventional bikes, out of necessity.

But on a longtail bike like mine, in the United States? For six miles? If anyone out there has hauled similar or bigger loads, I’d love to hear about it and see pictures.

Now I’ll go back to taking it easy, i.e., hauling a couple of kids to school in the morning rain like normal. And I’ll ask my neighbors if next time, I can borrow their truck. But it was fun to expand the frontiers of what’s possible on a bicycle and be able to say, “hm, this doesn’t fit in my van. I’m gonna need my bike.”