Habits

How do you know if you'll actually use a cargobike if you buy one? Will it end up sitting idle in the shed, providing a terrible return-on-investment? I though a lot about this before buying our cargobike.

Back in 2005 my then boyfriend (now husband) and I moved from Adelaide to Melbourne. We were commuter cyclists in Adelaide, and we brought our bikes over with us, but the Melbourne roads seemed so much more hazardous, there were more hills, and to rent a place as close to the CBD as we were used to being in Adelaide was a financially unviable proposition. We chose a flat close to public transport and enjoyed that for a while, though my boyfriend's full-fare monthly PT tickets weren't cheap.

Then cycling started to creep back into our lives. A close friend moved over as well, became a neighbour and bought a new road bike. I resurrected my neglected old roadie, S bought a roadbike as well, and we started to do weekend morning rides, with the BV Around the Bay in a Day ride as our training goal. Soon we were doing weekday morning training rides as part of S's commute. I started riding to the city for rowing training. The Melbourne traffic, though it appeared more hazardous, with trams, tram tracks more cars and more pedestrians, actually turned out to be a little more gentle than Adelaide traffic, where drivers rarely have cause to slow below 60 on most roads. Maybe everybody is driving a little more carefully in amongst all the perceived hazards.

Moving to the north side of the Yarra changed our bike habits a little but not in terms of commuting and errand trips. The problem in the North is being further from the regular haunts of the lycra brigade: Beach Road, Kew Boulevard and the Dandenongs were our favourite training ride locations.

By the time we had a baby, in 2011, we had been using bikes as our go-to transport mode for around six years. It was a firm habit. There was rarely an impulse to travel locally (2-13km) by car... there are only so many times you can sit, stuck in traffic, watching cyclists pass you by, before you start to think that the car possibly isn't the most convenient transport mode for that trip.

I use our cargobike for many of the same sorts of trips that I used to do on my regular bike. Local trips to shops, the library, friends' houses, local parks and my former place for work. As well as now for K's childcare drop-offs and pickups. So, the answer to my worry has turned out to be pretty simple: if you are able to demonstrate the habit of cycling on your own, you will believe in your ability to demonstrate the habit of cycling with your kids on the cargobike. At least, that's what the case has been for me.

It has been a while since my last post -- to be honest I had *almost* forgotten that I'd started a blog in the first place -- and this blog seemed destined for the same fate as every other I've started.

We have been renovating our house and living elsewhere in the same suburb, but it's a really big suburb and our housesitting house is about as far away from our own house as you can get while remaining in the same suburb. The first few days were very hot and I didn't bother bringing the Bullitt over to the new house because I was fairly sure K and I wouldn't have enjoyed being out in it much (the car has AC! Bliss!)

Dad's elderly dog did enjoy a ride in it one day -- S took the baby capsule off and strapped an old recycling crate on the Bullitt platform with some occy straps, and Millie was in doggy heaven! A cargobike would definitely be handy for people with dogs that don't fit into a basket on a regular bike.

The week before Christmas K and I successfully navigated our way all the way to the city and home by Bullitt. Leaving just as K became ready for a nap worked well, as the journey took about as long as one baby sleep-cycle. After lunch and a play in the Carlton Gardens she was ready to sleep again and we left, heading home via Commuter Cycles where I heard one of the staff exclaim 'Faster than a Speeding Bullitt!' as I pulled up outside the shop.

I have been thinking I should use the Strava app to record my cargobiking exploits. I've used it for road riding (I get parental relief every Wednesday night to join in a bunch ride near our house). Will see how that goes.

K is now getting to the age where she could sit in a regular baby bike seat easily, and a few friends with babies the same age have started carrying their babies around this way. I still think that capsule + no helmet is safer than seat + helmet so I'll probably keep her in the capsule a little longer. It also has the advantage that she's nicely supported in it if she falls asleep, which is pretty common. But she will outgrow the capsule fairly soon - watch this space to see how we change our Bullitt setup!

Ride to the Zoo, and a comparison with a kiddy trailer

K and I took the cargobike for a spin through Brunswick to the Zoo at Royal Park. It was our first ride in a few weeks, except for a spin around to the pub for dinner earlier in the week.

We met up with M and his daughter, S, who have a more traditional (in Australia) kiddy trailer set-up. It was interesting to ride with M and compare how the different bikes handled the terrain.

One great advantage of the trailer is that it converts to a pram, so when we got to the zoo, M simply unhitched it and pushed it in. I carried K in her Ergo, though she could have ridden in the trailer-as-pram with S. When K is a bit bigger we will be able to free up some of the capsule space and potentially carry a bigger backpack or umbrella stroller, if that's necessary.

On our departure from the zoo, the babies were both asleep, and I said to M, "that's cool-- you can just hitch the trailer back up and leave S asleep!" but M pointed out that that was not the case, as S still needed to have her helmet put on, which would wake her. (We don't put a helmet on K at this point as she is too small. We figure the capsule really acts as a full-body helmet for her).

The other difference I noticed between the bikes was that the cargobike was far easier to manouvre around bollards, parked cars and up and down kerbs. M was slower picking his way through these obstacles of inner-suburbia, needing to ensure both of the trailer wheels were able to get smoothly onto and off of footpaths, and were clear of obstacles on the shared paths.





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Cargobikes: good for carrying babies and birthday cakes

We asked our friends to come to our local pub with us this afternoon to celebrate my birthday. There was cake! We arrived, with cake and baby K, via cargobike.


I noticed that a 2-wheel cargobike is actually ideal for cake transport as it leans into the corners. I'm sure physics has a more elegant term for this observation!

It was also great that about half of our friends also arrived by bike.


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Longest day of commuting for little K

I'm thrilled. K and I had our biggest ride yet today, in three parts. She coped with a three rides, interspersed with an ABA meeting, three hours of work at the bike shop and a trip to the shops for ingredients for an orange cake. And she didn't complain once about being on the bike!

The last few rides we've done she's had a little hanging toy fish to play with, which I think has made a difference to her happiness on the bike. It used to be that she would generally cry if she wasn't asleep or sleepy, and there was one horrible trip to CERES when K was about 13 weeks old, and she cried the whole way, despite heaps of breastfeeds and being all warmly wrapped up. It was quite demoralising and made me wonder if we'd made a terrible mistake buying a cargobike!

The last two weeks have been far more successful. Funny how babies change so quickly and what is hated one day is loved the next.

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A closer look at the Bullitt

There are a few different types of cargo bike, and for each type, many different manufacturers. We chose the Larry vs Harry Bullitt for a few reasons:

1. 2 wheels, not 3. We liked the fact that it would ride more like a regular bike, and that like a regular bike you can take it around corners at speed. It seemed to us that the 3-wheelers were more stable at low speeds, and 2-wheelers at higher speeds. 2-wheel cargobikes seem to all come with excellent stands, so there was no issue with the bike staying upright while being loaded or unloaded.

2. (Relatively) Lightweight, with no motor. There are hills in every direction from our place. It was important that the bike was as light as possible to help me pedal up them! We considered the alternative of an electric-assist bike but seeing as one of the points of having a cargobike was for getting exercise, we figured that was a bit silly. After all, we do have a car, and it has a motor. The main reason the Bullitt is light is its aluminum frame. Cheaper cargobikes are usually made of hi-ten steel, which is heavy.

3. High quality components. We knew we were going to use the bike a lot. We reckon we could potentially get at least 7 years of child-carrying from it. Lesser componentry might not last the distance. This should hold up well and also have value left if we choose to on-sell the bike after a few years.

4. Sporty geometry. We considered the more upright Dutch-style cargobikes but we're used to riding road bikes and the super-high handlebars just felt weird to us. Also, the Bullitt's more aerodynamic position means we can travel a bit further or a bit faster without extra effort, and since our place is 10km from the city we needed to make that kind of distance commutable.

What did we do to research all this? We attended a Cargo Bike Picnic where distributors of all the cargo bike brands in Melbourne were offering test rides. We hauled each other around the park to see how the bikes performed under load. We also talked to lots of people about their experiences with the bikes. Baudman and Barefoot, two cargobike owners from the BV Forums, have been inspirational in the way they've shared their day-to-day cargobike stories, and helped us envisage high usage being possible. Barefoot was actually one of the first local importers, and he spec'd out a low-cost cargobike from China and imported a whole containerload, back when euros were expensive and almost no-one was importing any kind of cargobike anyway. With the company, Cargocycles.com.au, he was quite the unassuming trailblazer! I test-rode Baudman's CargoCycle back in 2009. Dutch Cargo Bike Australia can thank Baudman for the cargobike marketing efforts he's made over the years, online and in person. I know he's insanely jealous of the Bullitt, and it's really thanks to him that we came to know about cargo bikes and saw that one would work as part of our everyday lives.


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What we blew our 'baby budget' on

As people who love riding bikes, mainly for fun but also for the additional benefits of personal transportation, fitness and cheapness relative to owning a second car, S and I were very concerned about how having a child would impact our (particularly my) ability to get around by bike. It's the main way I keep fit, and it's my main source of fun.

We also wanted to share our love of cycling with K. We'd like it to be something we do regularly as a family, and we'd like to demonstrate to her how personal transportation can be environmentally sustainable. We also wanted her to be as safe as possible while out riding with us.

So, we bit the Bullitt (I'm so punny!) and bought one of these. It wasn't cheap, but it was much cheaper than a second car. As far as we can tell it's by far the safest way to carry a baby on a bike. You need the cargobike, and you need to put a rear-facing capsule in it for the little one. The capsule's effectively a full-body helmet for the baby. It sits, strapped, in a steel bracket with suspension, specifically designed for the purpose.

As K gets bigger we'll modify the bike's setup for her. One day all-too-soon (though we can't imagine it yet) she'll be big enough to sit up in a seat and wear a helmet, and that seat will replace the capsule and bracket on the Bullitt's platform. We might even build a box on the platform, creating a true 'Bakfiets' (Bak=box, Fiets=bike). The platform can hold at least 100kg, so there's no problem carrying a couple of school-aged kids on it. We figure we'll get many years of use out of it and it will definitely be our 'mothership' on family cycling adventures for several years to come. Hopefully I'll have the dedication to bring those stories to you here on Sprogbike!