Brent from Hillsboro, Oregon and Logan from Sacramento, California both sent me a link to this article yesterday and I wanted to share it with you.
Brian Campbell is a homeless inventor who lives in Portland, Oregon who has built himself a “mortorhome” that is powered by manpower.
This is the second incarnation of Brian’s invention, as his first one was ruined. The BikePortland readers raised a $1,000 to help Brian fund his new home. Jonathan Maus editor of BikePortland let Brian build his new and improved home in his front yard.
Brian has built several more of these for customers in the last couple of years. Unfortunately, there is not enough business to keep Brian off the street.
Brian is looking for work at a bike shop and he hopes to get some steady income. He dreams of building bike homes for others in hopes of a fully human-powered future.
Read the article on the BikePortland website. Check out another cool bike trailer house on the Tiny House Design site.
Photo Credits: BikePortland
by Kent Griswold (Tiny House Blog)
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No disrespect to Brian. He’s come up with a partial personal solution to the societal problem of homelessness. However, he says he’s looking forward to a fully human powered future? We had a fully human powered past. It was called slavery.
Jon-
A human powered past at the expensive of civil rights and liberties is not comparable to a human powered future wherein the culture is built around the concept of powering your own transportation and productivity. For the statement you made, you are an absolute d-bag.
In general-
I met Brian, he’s a really cool fellow and is obviously smart. He’s got a bit of the detached from humanity survival-vibe going on, but nonetheless is friendly and talkative. Personally I share part of his vision for a human powered future. Although I see a combination of eco-friendly electric power combined with human power being used to replace fossil fuels for the most part.
Now he’s not so homeless! I love it!
encountered elsewhere, a maybe more fully realized trike version:
http://blogericious.blogspot.com/2009/08/camperbike.html.
Jon, he’s talking about human powered transportation, ei. bikes. Not re-enslaving half of humanity. You’d think that sort of thing would be obvious…
This guy is living my dream. At the moment, I’m planning on buying a recumbent bike and making a trailer to sleep in so that can BE my home.
It’s my dream to never work (very hard) again.
Except biking, and doing stuff I like. Helping people once in a while. Hopefully not getting mugged.
Me too JMW, I’ve been living in tiny self converted cars/campers for the past nine years and have recently decided to buy a tricycle and make my own trailer to live in full time. I can work less because I have virtually no bills to pay. It’s win-win. I love what Brian has built and the dreams he has, I have much the same.
Great idea. If I found Brian Campbell I would like shake his hand and give great gratitude for building a house for himself. He needs to make his own business to build houses like that.
I met this guy in 1988 at Isla Vista. I gave him an old aluminum garage door so he could build his first sleeper. I was surprised to see it on the internet !!!
I met Brian and got to hang out with him for a few days when I lived in PDX. He is a brilliant man. I hope he is succeeding with his visions!!
THE REAL STORY – I doubt anyone will ever read this, but just in case, here’s the backstory about my old friend Brian. He grew up in West Chester Pennsylvania. He used to crash on our couch in the 1990s when we lived in town. He often said he was sick of the east coast BS, and planned to ride to California (and over the Rocky Mountains) on his first bike, which he called “the beast”. Nobody believed him. I recall he used to back up traffic on Paoli Pike at rush hour, and was harassed by local cops sometimes. Then he disappeared. He may have traveled to the west coast bike-less, and then built a new bike out there. His family (at least a brother) still lives in West Chester I think. He built his first bike in a machine shop near the scrap yards on the outskirts of West Chester, where he often stored it, or slept inside it overnight. Most of all, he was a sweet guy. He’d park his bike in the back yard of our row home, where we mostly just sat on my couch listening to music. He also said that bike could get up to 50 miles an hour with the right gearing (downhill maybe?) I believe that was the weed talking. Where ever he landed, I just hope he is happy (on this planet or elsewhere)