Did you know you can get attention from the store manager of a supermarket when you attach a GoPro camera to your shopping cart?

I stalked my neighbor Lisa as she rode down to Nob Hill Foods for her Thanksgiving feast shopping. Lisa and her husband Neal own and operate NTS Works, so she uses her 2×4 electric assist cargo bike for her shopping.

I’m the guy on the skinny tired road bike you’ll see occasionally riding alongside in this video. On level ground we rode at what I consider a normal, relaxed pace, but going uphill I had to work to keep up with the loaded cargo bike. I’m huffing and puffing when Lisa tells me, “I’m only in low power mode. Should I turn this down some more?”

Why would anyone ride a bike for grocery shopping? For the couple of the days prior to the American Thanksgiving holiday, the parking lots are a chaotic mess. Bikes allow the savvy shopper to shimmy past everybody waiting with their blinker on as they wait for a parking space to open up.

Carrying capacity can be an issue, and cargo bikes are a solution to that. I don’t personally have a cargo bike, so I grocery shop with the Burley Travoy bike trailer.

Attention Portland, Oregon: the NTS Works 2×4 electric assist cargo bike will be at Clever Cycles this Tuesday, September 10 2013, from noon to 4 PM.

Clever Cycles is the center of the American cargo bike world; I’m interested in what experienced cargo bike riders think about this bike after they see it.

NTS Works has been focusing their PR on non-endemic media — that is, they’re taking their bike to the non-bike mainstream media. Although all of the Santa Cruz bike nerds know about this local effort, I think Clever Cycles will be the first visit to a cargo bike shop for NTS Works proprietors Neal and Lisa Saiki. Last week, it was CNN’s “the Next List” blog, today it’s Forbes Magazine (albeit the writer Michael Kanellos is a San Francisco bike nut). You can also catch a review of the 2×4 in MotorHome Magazine next month.