You buy the kit for around a thousand dollary doos and you just basically bolt it do your hub and in the fork and voilá, you made your bike into a long john. It even comes with some nifty thing to change the brakes from normal to cargo bike. Holds up to loads of about 150lbs in the box there.
I think it's a pretty cool concept from an enviromentalist standpoint because you can retrofit any of the million currently existing bikes without having to produce entirely new ones.
If you only occasionally could use a cargo bike switching from one thing to the other takes about 5 minutes apparently so storage is easier even if you don't leave it permanently attached.
They just need to figure out a way to include an e-drive here, as it is it's basically for young, fit people in flat areas as it stands, allthough seeing as it already integrates into the hub it feels like a problem that could be solved.
Anything that isn't your average double diamond or step-through frame gets expensive very, very fast. This has to be about the cheapest new option for a long john out there, at least to my knowledge.
It's 1 part we can, 1 part small batch numbers because the market ain't exactly huge (here's hoping to a yet) and 1 part lacking basically any and all subsidies that make cars so cheap
Just out of curiosity, at what price point would this become interesting to you?
does it require a specially sized wheel? surely if you could use the front wheel you already have it would be cheaper. IDK anything about bikes btw.
Can't find anything on their website about it at a glance, it's probably a 20" wheel.
Which is where this gets into a very clear "yesn't" territory. 20" inch wheels arent't terribly uncommon, both for childrens bikes and folding bikes. They're usually weight rated to a far lower degree though as children aren't that big and most folding bike frames can only take about a 100kg, so they're often made to specs far lower, much more in line with 50kg per wheel (assuming 50:50 weight distribution for simplicity)
Now let's say your average bike weighs about 12kg / 25lbs without the front wheel, the thingy here has an advertised loading capacity of about 70kg or 150lbs. That puts you at 82kg / 175lbs with no rider on it with a full load. So it'd be suitable for people of about 18kg / 40lbs, going by usual ratings.
There is, of course, 20" wheels rated for higher weights, allthough I'd guess they're only from other cargobikes, some of the brompton lines, BMX's or one of the newer chinese import folding e-bikes or scooters, i.e. comparatively rare.
Could they just sell you a framekit and should they? Yeah, absolutely. Is ist understandable they don't? Pretty much
Loving these bike posts.
Interesting idea. Wish cargo bikes were ubiquitous enough here to produce an affordable used market. As it is it's cheaper to buy a clunker car than a new cargo or ebike.
I'd argue the clunker'll run you up more costs than the extra for a new cargo-bike fairly soon, but there is absolutely a problem with the pricing as it has to contend with cars, but without any of the massive subsidies, which makes them comparatevely expensive.
Some states and municipal governments here in deutschland have started to offer to chip in, usually at around ~30% to 40% of the listed price, capped at between 500 and 100€, which at least helps in some regions. What you'd really need is one or two federal subsidy programs to really kickstart making production via largely automated assembly lines viable so the price goes down.
