Haulin' loads, part I

When Bluegrass Bicycle closed in May of 2012, I decided that I would do some handyman stuff as a stop-gap measure while finding more meaningful work (unless the handyman stuff proved wildly profitable, which it did not). To that end, I bought a Surly Big Dummy and a Bikes at Work trailer for use when the jobs didn't require use of my pickup truck (which has since gone to the salvage yard, the engine having blown enough expensive-to-replace gaskets that repairs were not economically justifiable).

Several months ago, I took a job in a bike shop, after the prior mechanic left the company on short notice. One of my occasional duties has become "haul the stack of bike boxes to the recycling place." A bike shop generates a LOT of cardboard, since every bike sold comes in a large cardboard box, and since lots of other inventory comes in cardboard boxes.

The car that Jenn and I have won't carry many boxes, even broken-down boxes. None of my coworkers have cars. Carson, who owns the store, has a mini-van, but isn't at the store on a daily basis.

In May, I hauled my first load of cardboard to RockTenn, on 11th Street near Broadway. When I left the house, I figured that I'd be hauling a couple hundred pounds, so didn't take my camera. The load felt a bit heavier than I was expecting, but was not unmanageable.

The process at RockTenn is a common one: Weigh the vehicle on arrival, unload, weigh the vehicle again, and the weight difference is assumed to be the amount of cardboard left for recycling.

I was a bit surprised to learn that I had hauled four hundred sixty pounds of cardboard that day, and disappointed that I hadn't taken a picture or two of the load. I did take a picture of the scale ticket when I got home, though:




It was September before we had enough cardboard to justify another trip. This time, I brought my camera. This is what a four-hundred pound load of cardboard looks like: