The Car-Replacement Bicycle (the bakfiets)
The Car-Replacement Bicycle (the bakfiets)
I don't have kids, but this looks like an awesome way to raise them.
My city subsidized buying cargo bikes in two waves, there's a lot of them now on the streets. Delivery services use them too quite a bit. Thing is, i don't think our infrastructure is spacious enough in many places, i hope this will force the city to update it.
Transporting kids is surely much more fun in a cargo bike, but i think for many people a good old trailer would make more sense really. Much cheaper too and you're probably able to put it in the basement if you live in an appartment.
but i think for many people a good old trailer would make more sense really.
I agree. Unless someone has room for a traditional bike and a large cargo bike, a trailer can do much of the same things, but in a smaller form factor and with far more options for flexibility (storage, cost, space, manoeuvrability, etc.).
That said, I saw a few bakfiets this past weekend with kids inside (one guy was hauling his dog), and it looked like so much fun to ride and be ridden with!
I had a trailer because we didn’t really have the space for a long bike. It folded flat for ease of storage. It was a pain to get bike out, trailer out, kid out, put wheels and tow arm on trailer, trailer on bike, kid in trailer… then do it all in reverse when we got home. Living in a place where cars rule the road, even with nice bike lanes, having the wide trailer behind was nerve wracking.
I ended up getting a seat for the rear rack.
I live in inner city Berlin and see them every single day, it's amusing to see how this is a foreign concept to so many people.
Hopefully a healthy used market develops over the next few years as children grow out of their child-haulers. They seem awesome, but for people not lucky enough to live in a place where they truly enable owning fewer cars, the cost is still squarely in “luxury goods” territory. As it stands today, it’s hard to justify a $4000 bakfiets against a $250 trailer, especially when a removable trailer lets you keep using your bike as a regular bike too.
I dunno how that's going to pan out. My kids pedal themselves around now but the cargo bike is way too useful to give up. It's the best bike I will ever own in my life.
It's like minivans. The kids are in college but you're so used to being able to carry everyone and everything all at once that you can't downsize.
I dream of buying one of these but a fully loaded one is like >$10k (CAD) easily.
I've noticed more of these in Seattle lately. Maybe they're catching on! Or I might just be noticing them more.
This sounds wonderful. I live in Oakland California, and I love picking up my kid from preschool with a trailer. It's not quite as elegant as this, but it is nice that I can remove the trailer and use the bike in its original fashion.
About 25 years ago. My dad would take me and my sis to daycare like that with a bike trailer. It was fun.
That was 25 years ago, it's even easier today because of electric bikes.
I saw one today on the street in Calgary. I think it may have been electric assist.
Those might be ok here in summer, but the snow (and shitty city management) plus hills would not work out well in the winter.
The one in the image here is an electric assist, hills are no problem. If you wanted to get it to work in the winter you could buy an electric assist trike. The bucket in the front is wide instead of long. A family in my neighbourhood drops their kids off at the school near us in theirs year round, unless the snowfall has been particularly heavy, but that is the exception instead of the rule.
Not Just Bikes has a video about winter, he claims (iirc) Canada needs to spend more and prioritize clearing bike lanes and it could work
Yeah, I'd agree with that. Road clearing in general is pretty bad here, let alone sidewalks and bike lanes (especially since the "clearing" often involves pushing it off to the side and blocking up those lanes).
I found it cool how some countries had sweepers which collect the snow and cart it off rather than just pushing it around
Where's here for you?
I prefer against sharing my specific location but western Canada in an area where there can literally be a 60-70°c+ difference between peak winter and summer conditions.
Studded tires are magical for bikes. I feel safer biking than walking when it's getting slippery outside. Urban Arrow and other bakfiets style bikes have canopies to keep bad weather out. I didn't have a bucket bike but even then, my kids' only complaint about the weather is that we skipped the playground on the way home.
I could see this for ice but I'm thinking more snow and slush, which where can be near bumper-height on cars (not to mention the double-digit degrees below freezing for temperatures).
It's one of those things where it's probably a good idea for bigger cities with nicer weather (or better maintenance of dedicated bike lanes), but in smaller centres a better investment in public transit would make more sense
"Gone in 60 Seconds" An electric bakfiets story in Winnipeg.
To be clear, I love this thing and would love to have one if this city had a) infrastructure that could support it and b) enough of a social support system that the constant bike theft wasn't just a daily part of life here.