Power Assisted Bikes

Jose Guzman fell in love with bicycles thanks to God.

Published March 4, 2010 by LA Times
Hector Tobar

Jose Guzman fell in love with bicycles thanks to God.

His first long bike trip was a few hundred miles through the dry mountains of Jalisco in central Mexico, in a long line with a few hundred other pedaling Catholic pilgrims. Later, he turned his passion for biking into a small delivery business, stacking 200 pounds of fresh chicken over his back wheel every day in suburban Mexico City.

In Los Angeles, Guzman pedals everywhere — from his apartment in Pico-Union to the Inland Empire, Sylmar, Harbor City and other places, often hitching a ride part of the way on a Metro bus or subway line.

Guzman is a day laborer and soccer referee for hire. He's crossed the city on borrowed bikes and on bikes he's put together himself after salvaging frames and rusted wheels from the trash.

Once he owned a rebuilt bike with a pink frame, and when a girl at MacArthur Park yelled out, "Mommy, that man is riding a girl's bike," he answered back: "Señorita, it doesn't matter what it looks like, as long as the wheels turn and it gets me where I'm going."

Now Guzman has a new set of biking friends. Every week he visits a workshop in downtown Los Angeles, picking up bike repair and riding tips from Arlen Jones and Ramon Martinez, "bicycle cooks" and volunteers with the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition.

"In L.A. we have thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people on bikes that mainstream cyclists never see," Martinez told me. He called them "invisible cyclists" but then corrected himself because really, if you pay attention, you'll almost always see them on the streets.

I've seen the cyclists in the garment district, Koreatown and Pasadena, often in the uniforms of cooks or kitchen workers. They don't wear spandex and they don't bike to lower their cholesterol or to reduce their "carbon footprint."

They don't bike because it's a cool lifestyle choice. Mostly they bike out of necessity.

"My bike is my salvation," Guzman told me. "I see it as part of me. It's my vehicle. I carry bags, backpacks, groceries on it. Everything."

At the small work space on South Main Street, Guzman and a handful of other day laborers get lessons from some young but seasoned mechanics who are also passionate biking activists.

The two groups of men fix brakes together, take apart gear assemblies and push pedals with their hands until the spinning freewheels produce their normal, soothing clicks.

Original Article:

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/04/local/la-me-tobar5-2010mar05

The gifted mechanic, who honed his skills in the Navy as an aviation machinist, has come up with a machine that’s catching investors’ attention.

Published March 7, 2010 by Boston Herald
By Christine McConville

Bike builder Ted Wojcik has a problem.

The gifted mechanic, who honed his skills in the Navy as an aviation machinist, has come up with a machine that’s catching investors’ attention.

The not-yet-named device is a recumbent-style bicycle with a lawnmower attachment on the back. It’s a pollution-free way for homeowners to get some exercise and cut their lawn at the same time.

Since introducing it to the world at last month’s North American Handmade Bicycle Show in Virginia, investors have approached the Vietnam War veteran with plans of getting rich through mass producing his product.

But this proud American will only work with people who promise to make the bikes here in the United States.

“I only want to do this if it leads to American jobs,” he said from his southern New Hampshire home. “I believe that Americans can’t compete on prices anymore, but we can certainly compete on quality. “And I’d like to see this machine sold as a high-quality object that will last a while.”

Wojcik, 63, is well-known in the high-end cycling world.

For 30 years, he has been building custom bikes, for a select international clientele, and he’s proud of his position.

“There are 4.3 million bicycles sold every year, and I only want to sell 100,” he said.

About a year ago, a customer from Portsmouth, N.H., approached him about a human-powered lawnmower.

Wojcik got to work, with his engineer son Cody. Together they created what many say is the world’s greenest, quietest, least-polluting sit-down lawnmower.

“I wouldn’t use it to take care of a golf course, but it is very capable. It has been mowing lawns since August,” he said.

The bike works on its own, too.

The prototype cost about $3,500 to make, and when it first went into use this past August, Wojcik said passers-by got out of their cars to take a closer look.

Wojcik and his son are now working on a second, less-costly version of the machine.

Wojcik is a New York native who came to New England when he joined the Navy. He later worked in motorcycle and automobile shops on the North Shore.

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