Hello everyone,
Welcome to Issue #19 of Cargobike Culture!
Last week I wrote about how expensive some cargobikes are getting. It got some positive feedback, with some others saying that they’ve been noticing it too. But it also elicited some questions about the other end of the pricing scale.
I mentioned that there were cheaper electric cargobikes available, but didn’t go into any details. Friend of the newsletter Matthia also quizzed me about why I didn’t include the Babboe, which is also a really popular, and affordable Dutch cargobike.
Well worry not, next week we’ll be talking about what bikes are available at the cheaper end of the market, and if they’re a good choice.
What to do when you don’t have space for a cargobike
So you want a cargobike in your life, but you don’t have space to keep one at home. The good news is you’ve got options:
Use a shared cargobike
We’ve talked about the Dutch cargobike sharing company Cargoroo a few times already. They’re in quite a few Dutch cities now, as well as internationally in Berlin and even Manchester.
In the UK, Beryl have launched their shared cargobikes in some London boroughs (Hackney and Westminster). And other schemes are popping up in other countries like Switzerland, Austria and France.
Consider smaller cargobikes
There’s a whole sub-breed of cargobikes which I’ve not written much about so far, and that’s Long Tail cargobikes. They’re not as popular in the Netherlands (yet) so it’s easy for me to forget that they’re one of the fasted growing cargobike segments everywhere else.
Some of brands you might have heard of, such as Tern and Radpower. Their cargobikes ride and look much like traditional bikes, but with much longer racks on the back, allowing for more cargo carrying.
They’re must easier to store than a box bike, and the Terns even have this neat feature of being able to be stored upright.
Buy a folding, full size cargobike
What?! Yes! It was only this week which I first heard that this was even a possibility. German company Avnson (no, I don’t know how to pronounce it either) are making a new cargobike called the Urbanox.
It looks pretty normal, until you move some levers and in a few seconds it folds up into this:
Which apparently can fit in the back of a Fiat 500:
Apart from this model, you don’t have much choice. Dahon announced a folding cargo trike earlier this year but I’ve not seen anymore news about a release date. And Gazelle used to make a cargobike with a folding box called the Cabby, but they don’t make them anymore.
So there you have it. Cargobikes for every size.
Newsletter recommendations
I’ve come across two great newsletters this week, and if you like this one, you might like these too:
English and the Dutch
It’s a weekly newsletter by Heddwen Newton who’s of Welsh decent, is half British, half Dutch, and lives in Germany. She’s a professional translator, and every week writes about some weird quirks which occur when the Dutch and English languages meet. Like how ‘the Netherlands’ doesn’t have a capital t, but The Hague does.
Dutch Deadline
My second recommendation is another weekly newsletter, this time written by American writer Kate Imbach. She does a wonderful job of explaining some of the strange (often crazy) things which happen in the Netherlands. I particularly liked her piece on the increasing use of small explosives by drugs gangs.
That’s all for this week. We’ll be back next Friday with a deep dive into the world of affordable cargobikes.
Not sure if they quite count as cargo bikes, but with possibilities, here in France there's a company refurbishing former post bikes and selling them very reasonably -
https://www.connexionfrance.com/article/Practical/Environment/Old-electric-French-post-office-bikes-get-up-cycled-for-resale
I think they look great!