Palm Beach Bike Tours

Ken Steinhoff spent more than 40 years in the ink-slinging newspaper business where he had a license to be nosy. Palm Beach Bike Tours renewed that license in his retirement years. The blog is ostensibly about cycling, photography and using GPS technology to figure out where you're going and where you've been. It's really an extension of his lifelong effort to tell the stories of "ordinary people doing ordinary things", which sometimes turns out to be pretty extraordinary. If all that sounds like something in which you might be interested, please sign up for the PBBT RSS feed to keep in touch.

On my way to work this Thursday morning, I saw Carven cresting the top of the 10th Avenue I-95 overpass. The fixed-gear tricycle he was on looked pretty beat-up but the trailer he was pulling is what really grabbed my attention.

His low-riding plywood trailer had two 12-volt car batteries, an audio amplifier, two subwoofers, two mid-range speakers and a pair of tweeters all connected to a Kenwood car stereo. The batteries alone must have weighed in at more than 50 pounds. Toss in what looks to be half a sheet of half-inch plywood and you’ve got another 15 pounds.

One of the trike’s wheels had a spinner. The other drive wheel used to have a spinner but it fell off and he hadn’t yet put it back on.

Even better, he had dual bicycle bells on the front chopper-style handlebars. You don’t get any flashier than that.

I couldn’t resist. I parked at the bottom of the overpass, jumped out with my camera and took a few pictures. Carven was proud of his ride and didn’t mind at all. He did think it odd that some guy in a tie stopped him on the side of the road.

I told Carven I was really impressed by the engineering but moreso his legs. All in, his full rig must have topped a hundred pounds or nearly six and half Trek Madones. No weight wennie there, that’s for sure.

After not more than a couple minutes, he left for school and I left for work. As he rode off, one of his buddies hopped on the back as though Carven was driving a taxi and caught a ride to school.

If I see Carven again, I hope it is in my rear view mirror, briefly, as he passes my bike on the road.

—Matt