There is a good reason for that. In September, I was being asked, if I wish to rent a small shop at Oporto seaside. A shop, where I left my vCard some weeks ago and forgot about it, because I was not really expecting any feedback. But then – all over sudden – the owner contacted me. The rest is already part of history, we agreed upon the renting and I took a closer look on the surrounding of my new place…

I wasn´t aware of the ideal position, it has. It is located at the main cycle lane, directly at the seaside in a recreation and nightlife area at Foz do Douro. Thousands of people (and potential customers) are passing there every day, and on the weekend it will be even more. Not to forget about the thousands of car drivers, who are stacked in the traffic jam, every Saturday and Sunday afternoon, like an always repeating procession throughout the year.

We were discussing in the company the need for a showroom already for a long time, but we always ended up with the conclusion that we might need it, but we will not have the time to promote it. After this new opportunity came up, we had to realize:

That place is the solution we were looking for, without knowing that it already exists.

The area itself was until August 2010 one of the ugliest short links to pass the old centre of Foz do Douro the fast way. No parking area, no cycle lane, a two lane inner-city road without any beauty (beside the sea view). You can still see it on the old Google Street View recording. Meanwhile it was transformed into a ONE WAY lane with parking areas, cycle lane and a pedestrian crossing directly in front of the shop. Take a look on the actual situation here.

Conclusion: There came up a lot of unexpected work on top of the schedule we already had: To start our distribution for Germany´s top cycle brand Kalkhoff and some other accessory brands, that we contacted on Eurobike, like Busch und Müller and Speedlifter for. ex. That made me stop any social network activity, I was just glad to continue some postings on Facebook. But don´t worry, I will not continue where I ended in September and bore you with Eurobike re-views.

There are others, who made this work for me in a very professional and extended way, so please take o look at the article in the famous blog of our good friend Henry Cutler from Workcycles, Amsterdam. What his professional eye registererd on the fair represents exactly the subjects, I would have mentioned. Even when I do not always share his opinion (especially concerning the weight and the handling of modern cargobikes.. I recommend his blog-post and his pictures on Flickr) Well done Henry, I should consider sending him again next year…

Another subject, concerning our blog:

Many people asked me about the future and the target of Lisbonize.com. I initially started this blog to keep people from abroad in touch with Portuguese UrbanMobility. I was asked to do this in Portuguese language, but I refused. There are meanwhile a lot of other quality blogs in Portuguese language, as for ex. LisbonCycleChic so that I will continue my target, to keep the non-Portuguese speaking community in touch with our developing country on the edge of Europe in English language.

People from Portugal are always invited to follow us, the information we are spreading is mainly orientated on national subjects – with the small,  little difference, that our main language will be English. Any guest authors, who wish to publish on our blog in Portuguese are welcome to join us. Just register as a user and I will give you publisher rights to start over!

And today it came to Portugal!  Probably the first bionicon bike ever in Portugal…

We adapted some accessoríes like the famous bootbag from Hebie and some other Goodies” that we will present later. But the most important: This bike is really cool! It rolls like a Chopper, it looks like a MTB and it is 100% practical and carries a real load. Who is not in the urgent need for our Bullitt CargoBike, because he won´t ever carry more than 50 kg on his bike, will find the perfect tool with that bike. Next week we will adapt our mobile music engine from KlaraGeist/Berlin and the go out for some cool and relaxed rides! See you!?

Providing a higher torque, this model is the best in class for climbing, long rides and fast accelerations. Providing a quicker and higher % of assistance than the PL250 with the 25,9V standard battery .

Motor: 250 Watts
Autonomy*: 90 km
Battery:36,9V- LiMn – 10 Ah
Weight: 7.7 kg  (motor and battery pack)

*: Average based on one battery charge, using assistance mode level 1, according to  use in ideal conditions. Distances will vary depending on road conditions, riding surface, cyclist weight and assistance required

After testing it the first km at night – just because we were so curious to ride it – we must confess, that it is an outstanding experience, riding a cargo bike with electric assistance. The whole bike has now a weight of 30 kg (including engine and battery) and it goes easily up tom 25 km/h on a decent hill, with a little help of pedaling and in the highest gear. The engine needs for sure some adaptation for the lower speed areas. But these are small fixes. The whole system is very convincing, seems that the Bullitt has just waited for assistance..

[Show as slideshow]

Beginning of next month we will do a practice test on our new “ciclovia” in Oporto.

Rohloff Speedhub @Bullitt FastCargoBike

Due to a server switch our blog was more or less paralysed in a parallel-world for two weeks. No EUROBIKE internals as I promised, no pictures, but a lot of file back up, directory re-naming and so on…

Means, that the files were on two different servers and everything has to be copied and administrated. And last not least, there were bureaucratic steps to solve, till everything was authorized.

Conclusion:

Nothing that I wish to repeat every month..

Advice: I started today to review the categories and tags of this blog, to bring them in a helpful order. Got some interesting articles about that subject, I found on the web: A + B. Anyway, this is not totally done and not every post is being new categorized, yet. Posts that are only marked as “General” are still pending to be reviewed…

What happened meanwhile?

• I continued working on the Bullitt cargobike with BionX electric engine (99% done)
• A Rohloff 14 – gear hub for the cargobikes reached our workshop (Something nice to look at and a tecnical toy of high standard – will be tested as soon as possible)
• I visited the Portugal Bike Show in Santarem. (very interesting, will write some review later)
• We did some promo tour in Lisbon to find dealers, who are brave and innovative enough to sell commuter bikes instead of MTB´s (I am still searching…)  ;-)
• I was invited to one year ciclo-via.org in Lisbon. Nice meeting, nice people, a lot of bicycle-talk and: Bike Polo.. (Target: I must learn riding a fixed gear)
• A Fixie-Inc. Single-Speed/Fixed-gear beauty was being sent by Cycles for Heroes to our workshop: A 2009er BlackJack (my favorite toy and exercise bike – see above –  for this weekend)
• I attended Critical Mass meeting of cyclists in Porto with the Bullitt (Great event, nearly 45 people joined us – including a bunch of freestyle hard-core riders, who made the show..)

I’ ll be back!