Bikes and Gear Features

Cargo Bikes

Is This the Coolest Bike Ever Made?

It's slow. It's heavy. But the cargo bicycle just might transform your life—and bring a bigger smile to your face than cycling ever has.

tom clynes

(Photo: Patrick Barber)

But in Europe and much of the developing world, bicycle vendors continued to carry everything from flowers and mail to coffee and charcuterie. The modern evolution of the cargo bike as personal transport began in Europe in the 1980s, with Holland and Denmark as epicenters. As cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen began to make themselves over as bike-friendly metropoli, the kid-and-grocery-carrying bakfiets (literally, "box bike") caught on with young families. In the 1990s, European frame builders responded to the demand with hybrids such as the Danish Long John, which nestles the load between the rider and the front wheel.


There wasn't much of a response in the United States, at first. In 1997, a Stanford engineer named Ross Evans introduced his uniquely American iteration of the cargo bike, the longtail, which carries cargo on a stretched-out rear end. The bike, which he dubbed the Xtracycle, was ahead of its time when it hit the market. He sold a mere five bikes in his first year of production.


Now, Evans can barely keep up with demand. Meanwhile, independent framesmiths continue to pour into the market, encouraged by the cargo community's affinity for easy-to-fabricate steel. And cycling heavyweights such as Trek and Kona have recently jumped into the fray with mass-produced longtails.


Because different manufacturers categorize cargo bikes differently, getting industry-wide sales figures is difficult—and the boom is, to be sure, regionally uneven. If you live in Portland, Maine, you could ride all year without seeing one. In Portland, Oregon, you can hardly shake a stick without thrusting it into a cargo bike's spokes.


Some of the new bikes, such as Portland's Metrofiets, are colossal, trucklike contraptions that handle miraculously well. Others, like Larry vs. Harry's nimble Bullitt, excel at what their creators call "reasonable" loads—two or three kids and a few bags of groceries. And, in the past couple of years, improvements in battery technology have made electric pedal-assist cargo bikes a feasible alternative, extending their range into rural and rolling terrain. Though it's easy for a Dutch flatlander to scoff at the new, only partly human-powered bikes (which can be fully charged for as little as three to 10 cents a day), electric-assist technology could be the game changer that makes cargo cycling irresistible to the mass of Americans who live among hills or sprawled-out suburbs—or whose jobs don't include the expectation of a sweaty arrival.

Last year, James Osborne and his wife paid about $1,600 for a boxbike from Portland's Joe Bike. Osborne, who lives in suburban Denver, says the rig is big enough to accommodate his five-month-old daughter and a few bags of groceries. "By going to one car and keeping it in the garage when we go places like the park or the hardware store, we're saving handfuls of money," he says. "And we're having a lot more fun. It gets us exercise and gets us closer to the community. What it adds up to is that it's made us more free."


For eco-conscious cyclists like Joseph Ahearne, a Portland bike builder, part of the allure is making a statement. "Every time I'm on my bike with a big load of stuff on it," Ahearne says, "I can only hope that some people in cars see me and are already so frustrated with traffic and the costs of fuel and car payments and the roll of fat falling over their belts that they look at me taking care of business on my bike and feel something like envy. It plants a seed."