Look, I love bikes- I ride them, fix them, dream about them, but honestly, as a former electrician I can also acknowledge that it would be severely limiting to do that job on a bike.
If you’re working on domestic then you need a few ladders, a couple of hundred kilos of tools, at least 3 rolls of different cables, and a small shop of various outlets etc.
not to mention that ducking out to the wholesalers to pick up something to finish a job would take 1hr instead of 10 min.
Industrial electrician would just be funny - imagine cycling across town with a 500kg variable speed drive or switchboard on your pushy…
I couldn’t do the job efficiently with a sedan, let alone something with a fraction of the capacity. Also - where does the apprentice sit?
Waiting for the day we start hauling wind turbine blades with cargo bikes!
Also, the apprentice can get a sidecar lol
As much a I hate cars I can guarantee that wouldn’t work in Canada for at least half the year.
I bike commute year round, but yeah, past a certain point, the cold kills the batteries so I have to switch to a traditional bike: That would be damn near impossible with huge amounts of cargo on anything but completely flat land.
Obviously every situation is different.
When I was in electrical we’d take the truck to the site on the first and last day, and park the tool trailer sat in situ. The rest of the days we’d pile in a berliner (sedan), which still gave us wheels if we needed to grab something. I’d bike if the site was close enough.
As the apprentice, I sat in the back of the Berliner, and on a milk crate between the seats in the truck.
berliner (sedan)
People still use that term where you live? 😳 That’s like, old, real old, it used to be a horse carriage and then was used for early cars. Haven’t seen it outside a museum until now.
Québécois term. It specifically refers to a 4 door with a trunk that extends past the passenger area.
I’m pretty sure we use sedan in the rest of Canada.
I think it depends on the work that you are doing. I’m currently working as a journeyman and the most I need to bring is my hand tools. If you need to carry more the company will likely give a vehicle, but the vast majority of people drive their personal vehicles only to transport themselves and their hand tools.