Since my bike is my primary mode of transportation, I’m constantly getting lines like, “I wish I could ride my bike everywhere I needed to go.”

My usual reply: “You can.” Which is then met with myriad excuses, “But I have a kid. And I do a month’s worth of grocery shopping at a time. And I buy lumber frequently. Blah, blah, blah.”

Anyway, for this year’s Panther City Bicycles PrairieFest display, I decided to show people just how much stuff you can really carry on a bike… if you want to. I packed the entire “booth” on my new bike, the Surly Big Dummy, and rode from the Near South Side over to Tandy Hills Nature Area.

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