The Beginning of a Vision

Watts Up Marine is a mobile marine service company that specializes in electrical, refrigeration and air conditioning in the Kemah, Texas area.  We have always had the desire to be more conscience of our world and the impact that we have during our lives.  Our long term vision was to create a company that offers products and services that change the direction of marine living.  Most of our service business is generated within a few miles of our home and shop.  I often spend an entire day working on numerous boats in one marina, a prime reason to make a transportation change.

We were fortunate to have met the owner, Jae of Houndstooth Road, an Atlanta based importer of classical European bicycles and stylish accessories.  Jae suggested a Christiania Box Cycle as an answer to our ecological desires and due to the proximity to all of the local marinas, a service/cargo bike made a lot more sense than a gas guzzling truck or van.  The Christiania had everything that we needed, comfortable seat and riding position, 7 speed rear hub with coaster brake, front disk brakes and most important, a large cargo box.

A cargo bike is almost unheard of here in the Southern Texas area and finding such a gem locally was impossible.  We immediately ordered one and had it shipped to a local bike shop for assembly.

Our new bike arrived one day in July 2010, while I was sailing from Tampa, Florida to Galveston, Texas.  Winds for this trip west were unusually unfavorable, either nonexistent or directly from the west.  The excitement to ride it for the first time seemed to summon favoring winds, as each time I was on the helm the winds increased to that of a squall and pushed us toward Galveston.  The day after arriving into port, I picked up our Christiania and took it home for the first time.  From the first ride, it caught attention, most would stop and look or ask questions.

Our dogs immediately took to the bike, they jump into the cargo box upon the ring of the bell.  Going to the local farmers market was a treat.  After adding a waterproof cargo lid to the box, I put the bike into immediate use and found that it was easy to get around my territory.  It was a huge step for Watts Up Marine to move toward a cleaner way of doing business.