America here we come! The CoBi is going to be touring the US beginning October 4 in NYC, then Boston Oct 8-9, and Washington, DC the following weekend. Then we're headin' south through Virginia, the Carolinas, Kentucky, Tennesee, Georgia and Florida. Stay tuned for updates on where we are. Then email us for a demo near where you live.


 

 

 

Nov. 20
7 weeks and 5000 miles (8000 kilometers) later, we're on the last leg of our tour: the IAAPA themepark attraction show in Atlanta. The response to CoBi was overwhelming..........

And now, somewhat sadly, we're on our way home to Amsterdam. We've met hundreds of great people and seen so many wonderful places. We'll miss you America, and our home away from home: the truck that got us there. Maggie and Cal Coffey have come on board, bringing their marketing and manufacturing skills to the CoBi team.


America, keep your emails coming. We'll see you next spring!

Eric & Sietske



 

 

 

Nov. 14
Driving through the beautiful cotton fields of Georgia, we came to the town of Plains, home of President Jimmy Carter. We mused about how cool it would be to get Jimmy on board: Habitat for Humanity meets Bike for the People; while all along thinking our chances of meeting him were remote. We pulled into the town visitor center, and the woman comes out and says "what in the world is that thang?". We explained and shared our fantasy of meeting Carter. She says: "you didn't hear this from me, but Mr Carter is going to be at a town meeting in 1 hour." We took the bike off the truck and tooled around for about 15 minutes, picking up startled townspeople. Before we knew it Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter were standing among a group of onlookers, and Carter asks "what is this?" I introduce myself and being almost too overwhelmed to tell the story I've told hundreds of times, welcome him on-board. He goes for 1 of the passenger saddles and I tell him: "Oh no, Mr President, please take the wheel." He and Mrs Carter, Sietske and I, and 3 other locals take off around town for a ride that we will never forget.



 

 

 

Nov. 10
On Monday we surprised the students at the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind in St. Augustine. The delighted reactions of the kids were inspiring. David Saunders, our newest CoBi owner/operator took a turn at the wheel. It made the front page of the paper.
Photos by Justin Yurkanin of the St. Augustine Record.



 

 

 

Nov. 7
Further south we came to Savannah Georgia, where we gave a ride to some tour guides who showed us around this beautiful town... until we drove over a screw and had our very first flat tire. The Firestone people had a good laugh repairing this crazy vehicle. As we arrived in St Augustine, Florida Sietske was so eager to go skinny dipping at night that she didn't see the beach dropping off 3' (1 meter) She sprained her ankle and we had to go to the emergency room. But in St Augustine, our biggest fan Dan was prepared with a real Dutch handicapped-friendly cargo bike.


 

 

 

Nov. 2
Monday we deployed the bike at the Citadel, the military college of South Carolina, because we just love a man in a uniform! We rode past dozens of cadets marching in formation, looking neither left nor right, and we thought "oh oh, we aren't welcome here'. Then suddenly one cadet broke rank and ran toward the bike, jumping on an empty saddle. Then another and another, until the bike was filled with giggling young men. It was one of the highlights of our trip.


 

 

 

Oct. 31
Our morale dipped a bit as we drove through the over-developed sprawl of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where we experienced our first all-you-can-eat dinner. Nasty!
In Charleston, a beautiful oasis along the South Carolina coast, we were embraced by group of enlightened folks, the likes of which this Yankee didn't know existed! We arrived just in time for the 'Tour de Pumpkin' Halloween bike ride. Eric hammed it up as Andy, giving interviews to the local radio, TV and newspaper.
Thanks to Kristen at Charleston Moves for the invite!

(CLICK NEWSPAPER CLIPPING FOR LARGER IMAGE)


 

 

 

Oct. 26
After all the mountain biking we needed to recharge our batteries and we gave the bike some service. We even had it examined by the medical staff of the University of North Carolina Department of Family Medicine, who were very enthusiastic about our visit with the bike.
This quote is from Gary Schwartz of Asheville:" My recent encounter with Eric Staller's Conference bike was exciting and so uplifting! It left me infused with hopefulness for our collective future. I could easily imagine cities supplementing their public transportation with the conference bike. This invention is very timely and so intelligent. It allows for non polluting transportation that will go a long way in supporting true community.
I wish you great success!"


 

 

 

Oct. 24
In Roanoke, Virginia The Local Catholic School Girls Came On Board And We Made The Roanoke Times The Next Day. We Continued On To Asheville, North Carolina, Where We Were Reminded Again What This Trip Is All About: Giving And Getting Joy With The Bike. We Connected With A Bunch Of Warm,intelligent And Enthusiastic People In This Charming Town. Serious Mountain Bikers From ‘Bio-wheels’ Came On Board And Powered The Bike Up The Steepest Hills We’ve Ever Been On....and Then Down, Faster Than We Have Ever Gone.



 

 

 

Oct. 22
We’ve been on the road for over 2 weeks now and sometimes we think:”do we really want to be mr and mrs conferencebike for another month?” When we stagger out of our motel room in the morning there is invariably someone standing around waiting to ask in a southern drawl “what in the world is that thang?” We answer minimally:”it’s a 7-person bike.” “Well, who would want to do that?”
We came across ‘the grand guitar’ in tennessee; it’s a radio station and music store. Sietske works her air guitar.


 

 

 

Oct. 20
Last night we shared the ConferenceBike with 20 million people as it aired on the CBS-TV reality show The Amazing Race. 7 families raced the bikes on an Alabama racetrack.

y'all come back now ya hear!
s&e


 

 

 

Oct. 19
With the White House in our rear view mirror, we headed up north to Baltimore for some famous crab cakes... and to make a scene at the harbor.
At the American Visionary Art museum we showed Mrs Lehman's art class of the Middletown high school some REAL visionary art!
Moving further south to Virginia, we provided a little of our own southern hospitality to the Waynesboro department of public works on board.



 

 

 

Oct. 17
Not being able to convince Julian to drop out of school to continue the tour, we dropped him off at his home and headed into New Jersey, where we did NOT meet Tony Soprano.

On our way out of the Garden State we dropped in on Lucy the Margate elephant, who was sorry she was too big for the bike....
From Cape May, NJ we took the ferry to Delaware for a UFO sighting. We were our own UFO in Bethesda, Maryland where we met up with firefighter Richard Hoye, who has the vision for using CoBi's to enrich community life there.

greetings from the nation's capitol,e/s


 

 

 

Oct. 11
We went down to Cape Cod to hit the streets of Provincetown.
Besides the delicious clam chowder and lobster we stopped the tourists dead in their tracks with the CoBi. We watched the whales and the whales watched us.
The Provincetown TV station got wind of us and came out to do a story and things really got out of hand as we had the local celebrities on board but then we run out of gas ;-)
Greetings eric & sietske


 

 

 

Oct. 9
After picking up the truck and the bike from the New Jersey port where we had to pay off the local port mob we were ready to start our American adventure!
The first stop: Great Barrington, where we picked up Julian who is gonna join our adventure for a week.
The weather was really bad, even for us, being used to the Dutch showers. We got rained out in Boston and ended up in Lowell, Massachusetts, where some local poets came along for a ride. There was some fine poetry performed on the bike but you had to be there.
Greetings eric & sietske