Enthusiasts Move Local Family Via Bicycles

Greenbelters, College Park peddlers and other local bike enthusiasts with trailers teamed up Sunday to help Anthony and Jess Reiss move to a new home by bicycle.

Volunteers piled on beds, a couch, tables and all the accoutrements of daily living, then set off to prove what could be done. 

"It's amazing how much you can stack on a steady bike if you get it strapped on securely enough," said Greenbelt bike blogger Jeff Lemieux.

But their ambition did have its humorous moments. When one woman got off her bike, the whole thing went up in the air, launched by the coffee table strapped to her trailer, Jeff said.

After meeting up at at 1 p.m., it took the bike brigade two to three hours to move the Reiss's from their College Park apartment near Route 1 to their new place about a mile away, according to Lemieux.

It was time enough to have the couple safely transferred before thunderstorms rolled into the area Sunday evening.

The ambition to test their wheels on a move began growing after a cargo ride last year, where the bicyclists brought groceries, ran errands and shopped, all via bike.

According to Lemieux, the cargo biking movement is something that is trending, especially among Portland, OR, enthusiasts who don't own cars.

"People are just outdoing themselves to see how much you can put on your bikes," he said.

As for the final analysis, "To be fair, they didn't have much stuff," Lemieux said.

But in the end, the move was "way easier" than he had thought it would be at the start, according to Lemieux.

For more photos of the day, see Lemieux's blog—Bike Move!