A friend of mine recently purchased a bucket bike to tote his baby around the city. Unlike him, I wasn’t lucky enough to find a used one for cheap. So with “all that sweet free time” I was counting on during my 5-week paternity leave, I decided to build my own.
YouTube is a rich tapestry of bike enthusiasts showing off how they have taken bikes and modified them to haul a variety of items, including children! I found this video to be the most helpful. With the killer soundtrack, general lack of rigid instruction, and well-worn Blundstones, this video would be a solid base for my build.
For parts, I found an old Raleigh M30 behind my apartment that nobody in the building would claim, bought a child's bike off Craigslist for $10, and ordered enough tube steel to build 4 cargo bikes (just in case things take off).
Frame connected to the frame jig that I built
On my first day of paternity leave, I strapped my 3-month-old son, Bodhi, to my chest and started building. The whole process, under normal circumstances, would have taken me a week to knock out. But keeping a 10-lb human alive turned out to be much more work that I thought it would be. Over the next 4 weeks I slowly built the bike with Bodhi on my chest. Don’t worry: he was napping on the far side of the shop for the cutting, grinding, and welding. But for everything else, he was right there watching my hands intently.
The process of building a bike was fun, but the most rewarding part turned out to be explaining the process to an infant. I couldn’t just tighten a nut or remove a bolt. I had to explain what a nut was, what a thread was, why there are 10 billion types of bolts, and why it’s always lefty loosey—except for when it's not.
I doubt he will remember any of the details, but I hope he somehow remembers the time we shared together in my shop.
As I pedal along the streets of Cambridge in the newly finished bucket bike, Bodhi sits in his car seat, facing me. I smile at him, and he smiles back—I like to think it’s because he knows he’s riding in something he built.
