Bicycle Camper almost blown off bridge

In this video, I take the Cyberdrop electric-powered bicycle camper south from NYC, chasing the warmer temperatures. If I’ve met you along the way, thanks for the conversations and camaraderie – it’s kept loneliness at bay!

Heading south through New Jersey, Delaware, and into Virginia. Before I could get to Virginia Beach, I had to find a way across the Chesapeake Bridge-Tunnel (no bicycles allowed). The police come to my aid and get me across the bridge, but I really thought the whole rig was going to fly off the truck for a few minutes there.

My repaired rear hub motor has been shipped back by Grin Technologies, and I should be back to full power for the mountains coming later in the trip.

Issues I’m working on:

-Cyberdrop head tube creak/play.
-Bullitt Grin All Axle front hub motor shuddering and cutting out sometimes during regen braking
-One Cycle Analyst giving random watt readings and affecting power being sent to the motor
-Sourcing wider rims for rear Cyberdrop wheels so I can put fatter tires on them and hopefully reduce instances of broken spokes.

I’m learning a ton and meeting all sorts of fascinating characters along the way. I’ll have to feature them more in upcoming videos.

See ya!

I didn’t realize you couldn’t take a bike on the Chesapeake Bridge and the tunnel there, this guy here is a toy hauler, if you go in the back of him he might be able to take you over. All right they’re gonna give me a tour of the ferry so

We’re gonna go check out the engine room. This is the generator coming into the switchboard and then distribution breakers. 350 kilowatts you said? Yeah. My battery’s 9.5 kilowatts. Nice. Are you impressed? Yeah. It’s really cool, well thanks for showing me around. Yeah, you’re welcome. How are you? Good, Jeremiah, nice to meet you.

Jeremiah, nice to meet you. So what’s this I hear about your journey? I don’t know if you can see my little rig down there or not, I guess it’s on the stern Yeah, I just built this bicycle electric powered camper and I’m heading down to Argentina or thereabouts. No kidding. And

Yeah, just on a trip of a lifetime. How long, what’s your estimate on how long it would take? I don’t know how long it’s gonna take. It takes what it takes, huh? Just taking it day by day. I didn’t even know you guys existed nine ago.

That’s typical. Yeah, we can’t get you to Argentina, but we can get you 17 miles across the bay. Please contact operations to visit us 24 hours in advance. [Powered by Dubverse] CBBT personnel will transport you and your bike. I wonder what they’ll say when they see my trailer. Don’t mention that part.

Don’t mention the trailer? Yeah, just say I’m on a bicycle. You got a cool rig. It’s a cool story. It is. [Powered by Dubverse] hopefully you’ll have like-minded people that want to help you along the way. If all goes well, I’m [Powered by Dubverse] [Powered by Dubverse]

Hi. Well, that’s a contraption, ain’t it? Yeah, I think not. Check this out. I’m in South Bethany, Delaware, where your driveway is instead a canal way. I’m feeling a little more comfortable leaving the cyber drop locked up in a parking lot that’s populated, seemingly by only retired seniors.

Oh, the ocean really excites me and I’m looking forward to maybe stopping for a week or two. [Powered by Dubverse] Going through my morning checks. Check to make sure the nail polish stripes are aligned on the bolts here. Usually just check the… just make sure it’s not loose. Check all my spokes.

I’ve done that on every single wheel. Well, that’s kind of turning into what my morning routine is. Tighten everything down, check spokes, and then give her. So, gotta love these country roads. No need to go fast on a morning like this. This is the destination. I have arrived.

Lots to see and nowhere to be. Nice road. The day was going so well, now I got a flat tire on the rear of the bullet. It’s a little staple or something. I’ve got the tire rotation on backwards again. I’m not going to bother. I’m going to just

Ride it. Now I’ve got two backwards rotation tires and I’ll just fix them some other day. [Powered by Dubverse] dog spray and a knife. Spray first through the heart if needed. [Powered by Dubverse] engaged. [Powered by Dubverse] So, we’re right here. If you go down the road there, there’s a trail here and

There’s a spur that’ll take you to their center. Oh, okay. That’s about as close as you’re gonna get. That’s the Chesapeake bridge and then it becomes a tunnel and that’s what bicycles are not allowed on. I called the sheriff yesterday. He said, well, we’ll figure out a way to make it work.

I got to meet the sheriff at the welcome center. Hi, how are you? Good. Okay, thanks. Hi there. Good. Yeah, we’re checking on the people right now to see if I can get you across. Put it on one of our roll bags and tow it over there. Okay, okay.

About 11-3. Is that what you got? Okay, I was off by a foot. Let’s see how long this thing is. About 21 feet. 21 feet to the back. Two and a half off. We could tilt the front wheel too, remember? That’ll give us four or five inches.

Yeah, we could tilt the front wheel and stuff. Is it possible to level at first just to take the weight off the hitch here? Yeah, we can do that. Can we level the bed? I was thinking of going in and around the… I don’t want to mess these up.

Not the spokes, definitely not the spokes. I want to go on the inside here. [Powered by Dubverse] I think if we go strap around and then hook to the strap itself and then tighten it that way. Yeah, that might be better. Instead of hooking it. Like that? Yeah, that’s it. There we go.

Is it nice and tight there, Ernie? A little bit more. I think so. I mean, we could do another one over top of the box too, but… We just need to get that wobble out of it. Yeah. I don’t know if we’ve got another one long enough to be able to do that.

Like, again, as long as we’re not flying over huge bumps. Oh, I swear on all things holy. I thought I was going to lose her. That wind was just screaming over the top of that bridge. The guy’s like, it’s all right, it’s all right. It’s not okay.

I thought the CyberDrop was going to pull off the back end and we didn’t even strap the front wheel [Powered by Dubverse] it means if the hitch broke or snapped or something, the whole shebang would have went rolling off the back of that flatbed.

I realized this about halfway through and I was just like, ah f**k it, let’s do this. Let’s just go for it. It makes no sense. How many thousands of hours do I have invested? How much money do I have invested? Let’s just, [Powered by Dubverse]

Alright, I’ve got a warm shower to host in Virginia Beach that I’ve got to track down.