Cargo bike, I have so many questions ?????

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I've ridden a couple of these. They are great in Copenhagen, brilliant in Holland and ******* terrifying in the UK. Our infrastructure doesn't suit them at all. Bit like a recumbent (yes, done that too), they don't work nicely on narrow cyclelanes with obstacles and people who don't really care.
 
novocaine said:
I've ridden a couple of these. They are great in Copenhagen, brilliant in Holland and ******* terrifying in the UK. Our infrastructure doesn't suit them at all. Bit like a recumbent (yes, done that too), they don't work nicely on narrow cyclelanes with obstacles and people who don't really care.
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Interesting. I've not done the cargo bike, but have done plenty of trailers and a few recumbents. And I've known people use them cargo bikes to transport children to school in east London. IME they attract so much attention that you get people giving you a wide berth. There is probably an optimum amount of traffic though - neither of these are bikes for weaving in and out of things as essentially you become part of the main traffic. Might not be ideal for some cycle paths either.
 
They're pretty easy once you get used to them - and while they look massive, in reality they don't take up much more width than a normal bike. Traffic takes a bit more care, but you can still get to where you need to be easily enough. And with the weight mounted centrally, and low down, they handle surprisingly well too. I can get a pretty good lean angle when cycling the kids to nursery. :D
 
The issue I had on our bike lanes and roads was the sometimes excessively tight turns in order to fit in to the rest of the road infrastructure., not to mention traffic calming and the likes. the cargo bike got round them, but I had a few near misses with peds walking round blind corners where I couldn't see them as I started a turn, or when I had to take a wide berth to get round an obstacle or tight corner. width wise they aren't wider than your handlebars, but did take a bit of planning to account for where the back wheel would sit in a turn thanks to the length.

I didn't find I had these issues in CPH or the Netherlands (not just Amsterdam) as they took account of it in their designs. fun way to get stuff from point A to point B though.

I did prefer it to a trailer but the love of my live insisted a trailer was safer for the little ones as it was less likely to fall over.
 
novocaine said:
I did prefer it to a trailer but the love of my live insisted a trailer was safer for the little ones as it was less likely to fall over.
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I used to take the missus around on the Pashley Add-1 (basically their trike with the front end turned into an attachment for the towing bike). It was great until I had to mount a curb to avoid a jogger who was running towards us on the wrong side of the road, eyes down, earphones in - completely oblivious to my shouts and bell. Poor missus was tipped to the ground - and the jogger just stepped around her and carried on regardless. She never went on it again after that.
 
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