CORVALLIS, Ore. — Alden Gray breathes out a sigh, looks down at the ground, chews his lip for a moment and then responds:
“I just couldn’t buy the truck,” he said.
Gray, a 34-year-old landscape contractor and owner of Northwest Naturescapes, was trying to explain why he largely runs his business from a three-wheeled bicycle.
And perhaps it is through the bike — and its evolution — that we discover the best route to understanding Gray.
A Corvallis native and University of Oregon environmental studies/public policy graduate, Gray said he “wanted to reduce his carbon footprint and make the world a healthier place and help people grow their own food,” although that means some days wind up “being mostly about weeding.”
Gray started with a two-wheeled bike that he modified with an electric conversion kit. He added a trailer to carry his tools and off he went. But he soon discovered that no matter what type of kickstand he used, the bike kept falling over. Which did not present well to customers.
So he found a three-wheeler for sale in Ashland, lashed it to the top of his Subaru and drove it back to Corvallis. He added a box to the basket area for the battery and ringed the box with a series of tubes to hold his tools.
Then he found that the battery, which was designed to power a bike, did not have enough juice to power the bike pulling a trailer for a full work day.
“When you run out of juice,” Gray said, “and you have to pedal home well, that got kind of old.”
So he scored some additional lithium batteries and stuffed them into a backpack that also fit inside the box. And the battery pack became the power source for his power tools.
Gray prefers the more creative, artistic work of landscape construction, but overall what gets him juiced about coming to work is “I get to take care of plants. I like getting my hands in the soil and interacting with soil and creating healthy plants.
“And biking around. I love riding my bike around.”
