Freight bicycle - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Freight bicycles, carrier cycles, freight tricycle
Tricycle
A tricycle is a three-wheeled vehicle. While tricycles are often associated with the small three-wheeled vehicles used by pre-school-age children, they are also used by adults for a variety of purposes. In the United States and Canada, adult-sized tricycles are used primarily by older persons for...

s, cargo bikes, or bakfietsen, are human powered vehicles designed and constructed specifically for transporting large loads. Vehicle designs include a cargo area consisting of a steel tube carrier, an open or enclosed box, a flat platform, or a wire basket. These are usually mounted over one or both wheels, low behind the front wheel, or between parallel wheels at either the front or rear of the vehicle. The frame and drivetrain must be constructed to handle loads several times that of an ordinary bicycle. Other specific design considerations include operator visibility and load suspension. Many, but not all, cycles used for the purpose of vending

Hawker (trade)

A hawker is a vendor of merchandise that can be easily transported; the term is roughly synonymous with peddler or costermonger. In most places where the term is used, a hawker sells items or food that are native to the area...

goods are cargo bicycles.

Development

The first freight bicycles were used by tradesmen

Tradesman

This article is about the skilled manual worker meaning of the term; for other uses see Tradesperson .A tradesman is a skilled manual worker in a particular trade or craft. Economically and socially, a tradesman's status is considered between a laborer and a professional, with a high degree of both...

for delivering mail, bread and milk amongst others.

An early example of freight bicycles was heavy-duty standard bicycles, with heavy carriers at front or rear, sometimes with a smaller front wheel to accommodate a large front carrier. During the early part of the 20th Century these were commonly used by tradespeople for local deliveries. In the UK this style is still sometimes known as a butcher's bike or delibike, although the Post Office have by far the largest fleet; a more formal name is Porteur bicycle

Porteur bicycle

A porteur bicycle is a kind of cargo bicycle designed for carrying cargo loads on a platform rack attached to the fork. Porteur bicycles are similar to butcher's bikes, baker's bikes, low gravity bicycles and delibikes, but they include design differences which make them a distinct category...

. Modern freight cycles still vary quite widely, with many old types still in production as well as a certain amount of new invention, and are often being tailored to particular applications.

With the domination of the combustion engine in the industrialized countries after World War II, freight bikes were relegated to factory floor duties and public park novelties such as ice cream bikes. In the rest of the world, they continued to be manufactured and heavily used. In the 1980s in Europe, and the 1990s in the US, ecologically-minded designers and small-scale manufacturers initiated a revival of the freight bike manufacturing sector.

A more recent development is the 'longtail

Longtail (bicycle)

Longtail is a type of bicycle with a longer than usual frame wheelbase at the rear compared to a standard utility bicycle...

' bike. It has a very long wheelbase, with the additional space behind the rider, for more space on the rear luggage rack, and strong frame and wheels to carry more weight on and around the rear wheel. This avoids the complications of a steering linkage found on cargo bikes with front loading cargo area, but does not provide a single large storage area. It is also more stable due to its long wheelbase. As of 2011 Kona

Kona Bicycle Company

Kona Bikes is a bicycle company in Ferndale, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia. It specializes in high-performance mountain bikes, racing and touring bicycles. The company name comes from the owners' love of Kailua-Kona in Hawaii....

(the Ute), Yuba (the Mundo), Madsen (the Madsen), and Sun Bicycles (the Sun Atlas Cargo) manufacture complete bicycles; Surly Bicycles

Surly Bikes

Surly Bikes is a designer and importer of bicycles, frames, parts, and accessories based in Bloomington, Minnesota, established circa 1998. Surly is owned by and shares facilities with Quality Bicycle Products ....

a frameset or complete bike called the Big Dummy; and Xtracycle

Xtracycle

Xtracycle is the name of a company and the name commonly used for the variety of load-carrying bicycle, a longtail or a longbike, that results from use of the company's product: the Free Radical kit and associated accessories. Web forums and blogs often use the shorthand Xtrabike, Xtra, or simply...

offers a kit to convert a regular frame into a longtail, in addition to a single-piece frame complete bicycle (the Radish).

Common uses

Delivery services in dense urban environments
Food vending in high foot traffic areas (including specialist ice cream bikes)
Transporting trade tools, including around large installations such as power stations and CERN
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...
Airport cargo handling
Recycling
Recycling
Recycling is processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse...

collections
Warehouse inventory transportation
Mail (The UK post office operates a fleet of 33,000 bicycles, mainly the Pashley
Pashley Cycles
Pashley Cycles is an English bicycle manufacturer in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England, established in 1926. The company has been making bicycles for more than 80 years.-History:...

MailStar)
Food collection,
Child transport; it is estimated that 90% of the freight bicycles sold in Amsterdam are used primarily to carry children.

In Amsterdam it is common to rent a worktrike to move one's belongings, have a party in a park or promote a new product. Furniture retailer IKEA

IKEA

IKEA is a privately held, international home products company that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture such as beds and desks, appliances and home accessories. The company is the world's largest furniture retailer...

is also testing a freight bike rental program to allow residents of Copenhagen to transport new purchases.

Because of the strong economic advantages realizable by widespread proliferation of freight bicycles, Oxfam

Oxfam

Oxfam is an international confederation of 15 organizations working in 98 countries worldwide to find lasting solutions to poverty and related injustice around the world. In all Oxfam’s actions, the ultimate goal is to enable people to exercise their rights and manage their own lives...

has designed the OxTrike and established local production at community workshops in non-industrialized countries

Third World

The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...

for use in non-industrialized countries worldwide.
Dangdang, China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

’s biggest online bookseller, uses 30 bicycle courier companies in 12 cities to deliver goods and collect payments. Karaba, a free-trade coffee co-op in Rwanda, uses 400 modified bicycles to carry hundreds of pounds of coffee beans to be processed.

Types

In Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Copenhagen, Denmark, freight bikes are extremely popular. In Amsterdam many residents simply fit large front carriers to sturdy city bicycles. There is also a broad variety of specially made freight bikes including low-loading two-wheelers with extended wheelbases, bicycles with small front wheels to fit huge front carriers, tadpole-type

Tricycle

A tricycle is a three-wheeled vehicle. While tricycles are often associated with the small three-wheeled vehicles used by pre-school-age children, they are also used by adults for a variety of purposes. In the United States and Canada, adult-sized tricycles are used primarily by older persons for...

three wheelers

Tricycle

with a box between the two front wheels. Varieties used elsewhere include a platform, basket etc. instead of the box, the loading area between two rear wheels (delta-fashion)

Tricycle

, small-wheel two wheelers loading both back and front. An occasional four wheeler

Quadracycle (Human powered)

A quadracycle is a four-wheeled human-powered vehicle. It is also referred to as a quadricycle, quadcycle pedal car or four-wheeled bicycle, amongst other terms....

can also be seen, especially within a plant, warehouse

Warehouse

A warehouse is a commercial building for storage of goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial areas of cities and towns. They usually have loading docks to load and unload...

or the like, where demands on stability and loading capacity are higher than on range. In the USA Worksman

Worksman Cycles

Worksman Cycles is an American manufacturer of bicycles and tricycles for industrial, commercial and recreational use. The company was founded in 1898 and is located in Ozone Park in the borough of Queens in New York City...

has built strong delivery bicycles since 1898 and they are still popular in factories and NYC street delivery work.
Danish firm larry vs harry produces the iconic Bullitt fast freight bike in a number of variants with high specification features and associated culture.

Pros and cons

Cargo bikes have much to commend them. They have some advantages over motorized vehicles such as:

less likely to be stuck in traffic congestion
Traffic congestion
Traffic congestion is a condition on road networks that occurs as use increases, and is characterized by slower speeds, longer trip times, and increased vehicular queueing. The most common example is the physical use of roads by vehicles. When traffic demand is great enough that the interaction...
don't create air pollution
Air pollution
Air pollution is the introduction of chemicals, particulate matter, or biological materials that cause harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or cause damage to the natural environment or built environment, into the atmosphere....

problems (e.g. enclosed warehouses and industrial plants)
don't create safety problems (e.g. crowded pedestrian areas)
cost less to operate at a profit for businesses
cost less to operate for households
are not limited by fuel availability
are not limited by the availability of on-street parking
Parking
Parking is the act of stopping a vehicle and leaving it unoccupied for more than a brief time. Parking on one or both sides of a road is commonly permitted, though often with restrictions...
are not restricted for environmental reasons (e.g. protected lands)
are more efficient for short order production or distribution schedules or for the last mile
Last mile
The "last mile" or "last kilometer" is the final leg of delivering connectivity from a communications provider to a customer. The phrase is therefore often used by the telecommunications and cable television industries. The actual distance of this leg may be considerably more than a mile,...

phase of delivery
won't generate sparks (due to electrical components) in refineries, chemical, petrochemical and many other industries where there is a fire hazard threat.

A limitation of a human-powered utility vehicle is the relative weakness of human power compared to many motors, leaving a narrow scope for balancing tare weight

Tare weight

Tare , from the Middle French word tare "wastage in goods, deficiency, imperfection" , from Italian tara, from Arabic tarah, lit. "thing deducted or rejected," from taraha "to reject" weight, sometimes called unladen weight, is the weight of an empty vehicle or container...

, payload

Cargo

Cargo is goods or produce transported, generally for commercial gain, by ship, aircraft, train, van or truck. In modern times, containers are used in most intermodal long-haul cargo transport.-Marine:...

, geographical and topographical range against each other. These limitations might in some cases dissuade some people from using cargo bikes, whereas others still find them useful, and have been in increasing numbers.

Some cargo bike makers and users utilize power assist motors

Motorized bicycle

A motorized bicycle, motorbike, cyclemotor, or vélomoteur is a bicycle with an attached motor and transmission used either to power the vehicle unassisted, or to assist with pedaling. Since it always retains both pedals and a discrete connected drive for rider-powered propulsion, the motorized...

(often with electric motors

Electric bicycle

An electric bicycle, also known as an e-bike, is a bicycle with an electric motor used to power the vehicle. Electric bicycles typically cost between and , use rechargeable batteries and can travel up to...

) to complement the power of the cyclist. Power assist can increase the payload and range of cargo bikes, but also increases the cost of the bicycle and requires a fuel or electrical source.

Because of the unavoidable physical demands on a driver who also has to propel the vehicle, and the lack of protection against either the elements or other traffic, there is also a potential for working conditions becoming a problem. Technical efforts to improve conditions are hampered by the need for low weight and sturdy simplicity to achieve low costs in small-scale operations.

Development

Common uses

Types

Pros and cons

See also

Designers and manufacturers