One of the joys (for me, anyway) of the Sea Otter Classic is the unusual bikes that people turn up with, and the stories behind them. I clocked this heavily stickered and accessorised cargo bike and had to find out a bit more about what it was all about.
So hello Erik, what is this underneath all of that?!
Right. Yeah, it’s a heck of a lot of stuff strapped onto a Omnium cargo bike. It’s a cargo bike made for and intended to be used by bike messengers who might be carrying, you know, 20 pizzas or a bunch of banker boxes or, you know, a sofa or anything like that doing deliveries. But I’ve been riding it around North America for about a year and a half.
That’s a nice long time to be riding!
Yeah, it’s been pretty good!
It’s got a lot of stuff on it, but there’s some high-end pieces underneath there.
Yeah. Bike touring kind of ruins everything, you figure out the limits of what components can handle, what bags can handle. I’m getting good at repairing things, whether it’s by hand sewing, or fixing the bits on the bike that goes wrong. But I broke three crank sets before getting the EE wings. I figured they have a 10 year warranty and if I can break them then I’m doing something right! Yeah, I’m figuring out what works and what doesn’t.
So what drive training are you running on there?
12 speed friction shifting SRAM GX derailleur and GX cassette.
And are you considering that’s a consumable then? It’s gonna wear out, you may as well have a budget one?
I have to get a new chain and cassette every two months with the miles that I put on it. And because it’s fully loaded, this bike weighs about 200 pounds when I’m riding it around.
And how many miles have you done on this bike in the last year?
Last year I did 21,000 miles, but in total the bike has about 36,000 miles on it.
And is that all in North America?
All in North America, mostly the United States, but I did a bit in Canada, when I was coming on the top of the States, and I rode through Mexico for a month. Yeah, just wandering around North America, seeing all the internet friends, turning them into real life friends, and then eventually I’ll hop on a boat and get over to Europe and do the same thing over there.
And so are you some kind of digital nomad influencer thing, or are you on a mission? Like, how are you not starving?
Yeah, um I’m trying to figure that out myself! Like, not being too much of the cliche influencer in terms of posts for products – like, people sending me stuff to talk about for money. But I will absolutely talk about companies that make gear that I can’t break or that actually work. So, send me stuff and if I still like it in six months maybe I’ll talk about it. But as far as funding, I worked really hard for about a decade as a designer in advertising. I spent all my money on stuff. I was a really material sort of person, not experiences. You know, never traveled, never ate out, didn’t really party, spent… At my worst I had like 25 bikes in my house and like 40 grand of camera gear and like a built-out Sprinter and all this stuff. And the corporate life kind of got boring and repetitive and breaking me down and I sold all my stuff.
So is this everything you own?
Just about. Most of it is at the campsite where my tent’s pitched but everything I own fits on the bicycle. And just being generally frugal, I get 95% of my calories through dumpster diving. I like to call it food rescue because it sounds a little better! But in the United States we are terrible about wasting food.
Well you have giant fridges so it’s really easy to waste food because you can fit a family in those fridges!
You’re absolutely correct. Staying with friends or camping behind churches or post offices or things like that. Because I’m not paying rent on a place, I’m not paying for a car, my bills are really small. So it’s nice being functionally retired in my late 30s and it’s nice that I don’t have to monetise every aspect of the trip because I get to ride where I want, talk about what I want, you know not feel obligated to ‘I have to finish the video by the end of the the week because I promised so and so that I’d get it done’. And I much more enjoy this phase of my life than the corporate world where I had deadlines and things like that.
Yeah, fair enough. And what’s the like… Nomadic lifestyle… it kind of goes against the way that society is set up in lots of ways It can be quite hard to live a nomadic lifestyle because the government systems don’t work that well with that. They need you to have an address and stuff.
Yeah, yeah
What are the barriers to this, apart from just continuing to feed yourself?
The hardest part of living on the road whether it’s on a bike or living in your car – I lived in my van for a year before doing this – the hardest part is finding a place to sleep every night because in the US there’s so much private land even though no one’s using it for anything productive. We have this thing like ‘you don’t go on my land!’ blah blah blah, and if i could just ride for eight hours every day and then stop and camp here wherever here is, like just on the ground where I want to stop whether it’s, I don’t know literally here in the middle, or someone’s front yard, or in some city, that’d be great. Yeah, finding shelter and finding places to sleep is the biggest challenge. Finding food is easy. Just checking dumpsters, finding water is easy. If you have the right kind of square tap key to get it from any building… But yeah, finding places to sleep. The whole food, water, shelter thing and like shelter is the hardest.
Okay. So what shelter are you using? What’s your tent? That would be a good tip for anyone thinking about bikepacking.
Yeah. My tent is the Nemo Dragonfly two-person and I think the common thing is like the number of people you want to fit in the tent, get the next size up. If you’re one person get a two person, if you’re two people get the three person. I’ve been living in the tent for the last 500 days and nothing’s broken on it. It has a bunch of holes and pinpricks in it from just rough ground but the pole set is still good it packs down pretty small. Granted I haven’t tried any tents from other companies to compare it but yeah the Nemo Dragonfly. It’s been working good.
And what sleeping mat are you using, because those are like the nemesis of sleep?!
I have a some insulated Nemo inflatable, it rolls up pretty small.
You haven’t put too many holes in it then?
No, thankfully not a single hole.
Wow!
And a sleeping mat. I have a ground sheet that I double up. I got a ground sheet for a four person tent that I fold in half to put under my two person tent, which might be a good pro tip. Just like two ground sheets to be extra safe. Yeah, sleeping arrangements is tough because that’s so specific per person. And again, I just went with the Nemo because it’s what REI had and they have a Nemo tent.
And it’s worked out!
It’s worked out. I haven’t busted it yet and it’s plenty comfy. I think inflating it to max and then letting out like a third of the air helps. Like, never do an inflatable sleeping pad fully blown up.
Ah, that is a good tip!
It makes it like pretty rock hard. Lay on it if you’re a side sleeper, and let air out until your back lines up right.
Good tip! And so are you just gonna carry on riding around the US or do you have some other goals ahead?
Um… as long as I can. I have enough money and savings to do this for at least five years. Ten maybe if I get extra frugal with it and want to pick up some work along the way. But I think because I have so much more… interesting stories and moments worth revisiting, living this kind of life versus a decade of working in the corporate world… I worked on some great projects for some cool companies, but it’s not worth me telling a story about staying up all night to finish some video for Verizon, but like… The priest that I met in Mexico, in Mayakoba, who lived in Brooklyn before moving there for 30 years, and his accent being Brooklyn plus broken Spanish plus broken English, like… You have the most interesting interactions traveling and especially on a bicycle.
Yeah. Cause you can stop anytime you like.
Yes, you can stop any time you want. And I’m not against getting stuck in places when working on projects. Like I hang out in cities for a little bit, get to know the bike scene, like San Diego, LA, San Francisco, I spent about two weeks in each of those, just riding around and rambling, doing some group rides and you know, enough to get to know the place, and then move on to the next one.
Okay, well, final question then, of all the places you’ve been so far, what’s got the best bike scene?
Um, shit that’s really… That’s the hardest!
Are they all just different?
Honestly, they are. Tampa was surprisingly good the first time I went around. But then when I came back through to revisit, I had some friends, like the bike scene had changed and it wasn’t as good as the first time. Boston has a really cool bikepacking and bike polo scene. San Diego has great group rides. LA has a lot of great group rides. But so does San Francisco. I think any city that’s big enough to have multiple sort of genres of cycling supported – roadie stuff and mountain bike, and chill cruisers, and maybe there’s like a wheelie kid group meet up. I like that the cargo bike can go between all of those different types of group rides. I can show up on the roadie ride and people are confused by it and I can still hold on. And I can show up to the wheelie kid…
If you can wheelie that, I’m impressed!
Well, no, granted, I can’t wheelie this, but they love how ridiculous the bike is. And I take a lot of photos when I travel, and they like having their picture taken, and me just being curious about what they’re doing. It can just do anything, and it’s wonderful for that.
Cool. Well, thank you very much, and enjoy your travels.
I’ll try my best, yeah, it’s good!
If you want to see more of Erik’s travels, follow him here:
