About Cargobikes

most recently edited 4/14

a Bakfiets in Holland

Ok, so this blog isn’t just about cargo bikes but if you are interested in what they are and how they work here is a little information to tuck into. We first saw them in Holland, when we were invited to a friend’s wedding, and it took us two years to save up for one. That's our rental bike in the picture. Once we spotted them we test rode every brand we could get our hands on. The kids were wild about the ride- we only had two kids then… They’re not cheap bikes, but they’re not expensive transportation if you are really trying to get out of a car in the city. They are a great way to get yourself, your kids, their friends, and the groceries all around town without using a car. You can use them to move heavy things or furniture, carry the kids with their bikes to a trail, or ride them empty as a commuter bike if you don't mind the extra weight. They give you versatility missing with a normal bike.

Your Options:
If you are trying to carry kids and cargo (like a carload of groceries) around a city, what are your options? First, I'll list the ones that I don't recommend as much or which take more work to use successfully:

•  A regular bike with a kid seat is tippy with a kid on it, and it's hard to carry stuff AND multiple kids at the same time. But for just one kid and some groceries or school bags, you can probably use pretty much any bike with success. We have used these seats a lot.
There is some concern that a child falling from a height, like sitting in a bicycle child seat in an accident or fall, can be seriously injured, so consider this when making your decision. Some seats may be safer than others (high back, side padding) and of course there are other options below. 
There are a few little seats that work pretty well, including iBert and Bobike, Yepp/GMG (though old Yepp seats were recalled). Hamax are also well regarded. There's a great but overpriced kid seat called the ItChair (or Pere) for the Brompton folding bike but we'll have to win the lottery before we buy one. It may be worth looking for a seat that will float over your regular rack and let you carry panniers too. We have had luck with a Bobike Maxi seat riding over the rear rack on several bikes, which allows us to put 2 panniers underneath.

We use a rear mounted kickstand or a two-legged one (depending on the bike) for stability (though you should NEVER think that the kickstand will hold your kid up - they lurch and the bike goes over! Use it for cargo). We have used other brands of rear rack mounted kid seats with some success but you can't get enough space for the baggage that comes with kids plus whatever errand it is you are trying to complete. Combining a regular bike and kid seat with a cargo trailer is an OK solution but it costs as much as many of the better options and it's unwieldy in traffic and parking. See our posts on carrying kids on folding bikes and carrying kids on old bikes for more info. 

• A ‘longtail’ might carry more than a regular frame, but I don't think it's very good for many cargoes and it won’t carry many kids without a lot of ingenuity. The situation is improving all the time, though - ways to get seats and kids aboard are easier to find now than they were. I think a longtail has a lot of the same issues as a regular bike. There's an odd German/Dutch one here. Well known ones come from Xtracycle, Surly, Kona and Yuba (or Yuba) and you can get them at any good bike shop. We tried the Yuba Mundo recently and it's really stable and comfortable, though it has a smallish capacity compared to a box bike.

• A trailer is an option for kids, and I've taken one with my kids on extended bike trips, but I feel uncomfortable letting my kids sit in one in traffic. You can’t see the kids or encourage them to get along, the trailer is low and hard to see from a car, and there they are waiting to get hit by a bad driver behind you. Some people argue convincingly that they are probably safer than a child seat, but I still think that a trailer is better for carrying stuff. I converted one of ours into a transporter for children's bikes instead. The Pedal People in Massachusetts run a garbage collection business using homemade and Bikes at Work ones -- that's a good use for trailers.

• A kidback or trailabike holds one kid and nothing else useful but it’s better than nothing (and better than a kid trailer), especially with good panniers on the main bike.

• A baker's bike is great for stuff but not for kids and the center of gravity on most of them is rather high. We haven't tried carrying kids this way yet.

• A bike taxi / rickshaw / becak / pedicab like the ones in Asia would work, but they aren’t very practical to store or ride here and you can’t easily get one (except we've seen this one at Uptown Bikes).

• An ice cream style trike won’t hold your kids and doesn’t ride nicely at all but you can deliver food or heavy supplies in it well. We have a Haley, made in Philadelphia, and Worksman is another manufacturer. See our trikes page linked below for more. There are better trikes for kid and stuff transportation below. 

• There's a mostly english language blog from Japan that talks about 'mama bicycles' which carry a toddler in a seat between the ape hanger handlebars. Here's one manufacturer catalog site (Sakai), and here's another (Frackers). Check out the fun designs. They aren't available as far as I know in Chicago but they seem to be thought out well for carrying some amount of cargo and a very little kid or 2 if you live where you can buy them. Some do things like block the brakes and headset when the kickstand goes down. The blogger above may be able to help you get one shipped. I'm not sure how versatile they'd really be when the kid grows bigger. We have a post about one we found.

• Tandems and multiple tandems can carry a bunch of kids well — the Onderwater we have and recommend highly (our blue one, others available at JC Lind or Rolling Orange) is particularly good since the adult steers from the back and the kids love to pedal in front. These bikes have many of the same disadvantages as the regular bikes and longtails, but they have the huge advantage that you can often get a 10 year old or even teenager to ride one with you, especially if they get to be in front! 

The Onderwater lets them do that younger since you remain in control of the bike from behind. There is also optional additional seating for another kid and room for baby seats or luggage. It's made to last forever but not light. When we ride it in Chicago it feels like flying, especially if the front stoker is actually moving his legs. The regular model holds one stoker, one jump seat sitter, one baby in a back seat, and one adult doing most of the work. Around 9 or 10 years old the jump seat gets less appealing, but being in front is always fun.

The Onderwater Tandemtransporter is an excellent way to get around with kids if you don't have tons of cargo to lug. There's also a larger XL model with not one but two kids pedaling in front, plus one in a jump seat, and the adult rider behind, with room for a baby seat on the back. Only available so far as we know at Rolling Orange but maybe other dealers will be able to get it. 

The smaller bike also allows you to take off all the kid pedaling stuff and replace it with a big cargo box when the kids get bigger; that feature seems to have been left off the XL model. The XL still allows each child to pedal or not, as desired, and its ride isn't much squishier than the normal model, which is rock-solid. Here's a comparison photo of the two: the XL is orange and the regular is black.
The Onderwater is one of only a couple similar rear-steer tandems. The Kidztandem, a more inexpensive similar one made for a Colorado company we have seen ourselves, has lighter but maybe less durable construction, uses derailers, and seems cheaper and floppier than the Onderwater. The owners liked it fine. It doesn't convert as well to cargo use though there's a basket, and now they too have a triple. It's made in Taiwan for the US company.
The Hase Pino is a half-recumbent tandem, and a few others do the same thing. Sometimes you see one at Critical Mass in Chicago.
Other more traditional front-steer tandems are useful for carrying kids, too — special order  Bike Friday (triple) tandems which fold up into suitcases, or even an old Schwinn Twinn with a baby seat (The brown one above is a Twinn De-luxe with 5 friction shift speeds - Twinns go for about $250 in good condition these days in Chicago) for example — but tandems aren’t great for, say, tools or groceries. You can get some school supplies into panniers or baskets though if you rig them on. Some tandems can get pretty pricey, too. 

We think a good option for most people is a box bike
I think that the best overall option to carry 100 kg or more of kids and material simply and reliably in a city like those in North America is a box bike. That is, a bike with a box in front or behind to hold things in. They look like a bike and a wheelbarrow stuck together. Trikes hold more, 2-wheelers ride better. There are plenty of them, used for years in Europe. The big boom there started about 10 years ago. 
Before that, cargo bikes were like bike pushcarts or specially adapted bikes for factories. (Workcycles.com still sells the old fashioned ones and some are in use in New York parks. I don't think the old style models are very likely to be good daily kid transporters. They look like those carts they sell coffee and pastries from in hotel lobbies.) 
Of the new, fancier models, there are 2 wheelers and 3 wheelers, listed below.

Two wheeled box bikes

A partial review - send me more information if you see something missing.

Maartin van Andel's Bakfiets.nl design (new version ca. $3200, dealer is JC Lind in Chicago) is based on older industrial bikes but started the whole segment of 2-wheeled box bikes for carrying kids in about the year 2000. A lot of people had the same idea for a cargo bike about the same time.

this Bakfiets Cargobike Long
is our favorite bike

It's in its second version now. Ours is the original long model. They are made in Holland by Azor for Bakfiets.nl and the quality and durability is very high.
We have carried 4 elementary age kids in our original Bakfiets Long easily enough, plus a baby, the adult rider and two panniers full of school bags. You can’t fit that many people safely in most cars. There's also a heavy duty kickstand that holds the bike up well even with kids jumping all over it. These bikes are designed to carry about 300 kg according to the wholesaler's blog. The seat tube angle is a little slacker on the newer ones.

JC Lind is the Chicago dealer now. Others include Clever Cycles in Oregon, which also stocks them with NuVinci hubs, more like a (maybe inefficient) dimmer switch than gear changer, or Adeline Adeline in New York. It remains to be seen whether these Bakfiets.nl products will remain available in North America when the main international distributor introduces the following bike. Rolling Orange sells a 'premium' version and an electrified one (about $4000) and I think they may get theirs through a different distributor. 

One person told me that not all Bakfiets.nl bikes are made in Holland - check if this important to you. There are a few knockoffs made more cheaply but sometimes costing the same, so be sure what you're getting. In our experience, the copies don't ride nearly as well as the original.

This is the Workcycles Kr8, coming 2014.
From their blog. Click to link there.

Workcycles, the large wholesaler, (and I guess their dealers too) will apparently stop selling the Bakfiets.nl Cargobike in 2014 and replace it with their own Workcycles KR8, which will come in a 2 wheel version and eventually a trike. Not sure if the new bike will be made in Holland but it will be easier to ship and more modular. It looks like a sensible design and Workcycles' other bikes are very well made.

Azor, the company that is contracted to build the Bakfiets.nl bikes, builds or imports its own cargo bike as well, called the Milano. It's sold through Rolling Orange in Brooklyn and we haven't seen it but Azor's other bikes including our Bakfiets are excellent. 

De Fietsfabriek also lost its Chicago dealer when the factory went bankrupt but it is now back in business under new management and the bikes may or may not be available these days through Rolling Orange. Though Fietsfabriek bikes are no longer on Rolling Orange's site, Rolling Orange remains as the only US dealer on Fietsfabriek's site. Contact the dealer for the best information and possibly for leftover stock.

from http://chicagokidicalmass.org/

Fietsfabriek sell Kemper-designed 2-wheelers like the 996 (and 995 aka Filibus Plus) in the Kidical Mass pic and a wide variety of trikes for up to 8 kids or a wheelchair. Quality is generally quite good, bikes are made in Turkey and Holland. T'Mannetje and Kemper bikes use the same basic designs, don't think they're imported here. There are some knockoffs. 

photo by Ash L

Bullitt for kids

The Danish company Larry vs Harry has started selling their Taiwanese-made Bullitt— it’s lighter weight aluminum. Sold at West Town Bikes / Ciclo Urbano (?) and Chicago Cargo, and Green Machine Cycles in Chicago. Chicago Cargo staff hosts the Cargo Bike Roll Calls which were formerly independent. The Larry vs Harry may be less practical for frequently carrying kids and better for riding low and fast; you need to buy an expensive attachment to carry a kid. But a lot of people seem to be happy with this bike -- it rides quite well (when it has an optional steering damper) with a more sporty, less upright stance, and it's lightweight enough to lift up a flight of steps if absolutely needed. It has an irritating top tube, not a step through frame and fiddly steering if supplied without a steering damper. Ride this one before buying it.

from http://www.jclindbikes.com/bikes/wallaroo

A similar aluminum framed bike but with an enclosed child carrying pod is the Winther Wallaroo, which JC Lind carries. 

It's very nice, less clunky than some other options, maybe less versatile for cargo but better for year round comfortable child transport. It's like a luxury car that's a bike. I've heard that it's based on the Bullitt but I doubt that, since it's a step through frame, though maybe it's a variant. There's a three wheel version too called the Kangaroo.

from http://www.longjohn.org

Old fashioned steel Danish SCO or Monark Long Johns (the original transporter with this kind of design) are not great kid carriers but you could possibly make them work - they were for carrying boxes of rivets around flat shipyards or similar. They have a slack seat tube angle that would make your commute miserable if it involves a hill, they have a top bar, and they're not cheap.

I'm just mentioning them because they seem so much more practical than I think they really are.

There's also a bike with a kind of tote bag on the front made of truck tarp material and a folding metal frame, the Cabby by Gazelle. 

from http://measured-response.com/bakfiets/?p=14

It wouldn't be my choice since it seems less durable, but there are people who like them and I think Clever Cycles in Portland Oregon sells them (and many other brands). They might solve your problem if you don't have much space to store a cargo bike. 

The Madsen KG271 is a longtail with a rear plastic box option that is becoming more and more popular in Chicago. It's getting common to see one in some parts of town. 

from http://gridchicago.com/2011/
chicagos-first-cargo-bike-roll-call/

The big advantage with this design is the reasonable price, I think - It can be found on line and is cheaper than most. It's not beautifully made but it's not terrible either and it's worth a look. One person we know is not happy with the gearing and plans to change it, others are perfectly satisfied with the stock option. 

JoeBike of Portland used to make a couple of models, one in the US and one with an imported frame designed as a copy of the original short Bakfiets.nl cargobike. They stopped making these, which is understandable to me. The box was not well made (the wood looks like a lauan bathroom door), and the bike felt sluggish even compared to the Madsen. Most information on these bikes that I can find was written by the manufacturer or its representatives. They are offering their premium model's design and tooling for sale to other manufacturers so perhaps the Shuttlebug will return.

Babboe is a company which sells Asian-made box bikes. Though they apparently had early quality control problems, the recent model we have seen in Chicago seems nice and is holding up very well. The owners think it's too heavy and don't ride it much as a result but I'm not convinced it's much heavier than other manufacturers' models. I do wonder a bit where the price goes if this bike is made inexpensively (even with same quality) in Asia - these are only a bit cheaper ($2500) than the European or North American bikes. And Babboe keeps trying to put advertising comments on our blog. Clever Cycles in Portland carries them including a Cristiania-looking trike; there's an older one of these in Chicago, even.

Urban Arrow is a Dutch brand of $6000 cargo bike with electric drive "intended to replace a car." Electric drive has been an option for awhile for other bikes as well. We don't see much reason for electrifying a bike into a quasi motorcycle (if you don't have many hills to climb that is) but you can look at Rolling Orange or Clever Cycles. 

photo by Ash L

The Human Powered Machines Long Haul is made in the US by a small company in Eugene Oregon. They also helped design and build the Swift folder that Xootr bought rights to recently. The Long Haul is a smaller cargo bike similar to the Fietsfabriek 995 or small box Bakfiets.nl, but with an inconvenient double top bar. Steering on the one I tried is erratic with understeer swerving suddenly into oversteer. The box looks like something made at home. Try one before you buy it - individual setup may be able to improve this one. It's used as a delivery bike a lot in San Francisco. The one I rode is at West Town Bikes in Chicago.

Several other small US manufacturers are apparently now building good quality two wheel cargo bikes, though I haven't been able to ride all of them myself yet. Have a look at their sites: CETMA, Organic Engines (seems to be off line - out of business?) and Metrofiets all claim to build their bikes in the US from good quality parts, generally custom, with prices ranging from $1750 to $6000 complete. Some have a high bar to get your leg over. The others each seem to have nice features, and if you ride one I'd love to hear from you below. CETMA now makes a small fronted version called the Margo that might be good for someone with one kid who can make a nice small box. There are some good reviews online but delivery can apparently take a long time according to people who have dealt with the company. This is true in general with these semi custom manufacturers.

There's a company named Tom's Cargo Bikes that makes inexpensive, good looking cargo bikes out of recycled frames in Oregon, site here. We met Tom at the Chicago Bike Swap in March 2013 and talked briefly — he was delivering a bike to Chicago by Amtrak and stopped by the swap. Amtrak had delayed the bike itself, so all I saw were pictures, but it looked at least as nice as mass produced bikes, with a fancy Creamsicle finish. Keep your eyes open around town for it. This one was made from a women's bike with a box in front and a child's 20 inch bike for the front wheel, but you'd have a hard time seeing where one ends and the other begins. You could work with him and have a custom crafted US-made bike that exactly matches your needs for less than an off the shelf competitor.

Manuel Cappel and possibly others in Toronto have made wonderful custom/recycled bikes and trailers- there are photos on our post.

Three wheeled box bikes (Trikes)

This de Fietsfabriek 8 kid preschool transport trike is huge but practical

We have a large post about trikes here.
Three wheeled child and material carrying options abound in Europe but aren’t common here yet. Tricycles come as box types and as covered front pod designs, with various steering options. Available in the US:  Christiania/BoxCycles, de Fietsfabriek, JC Lind, Velorbis, Winther, Sorte Jernhest, possibly Nihola and the Bakfiets.nl trike, Babboe, probably several more. Let us know about others below. These all hold a lot of kids or groceries or even (some of them) industrial equipment, ride well enough at a comfortable speed, and last a long time. You can carry very large loads in some of these, including wheelchairs or entire preschool classes. Many of the trikes don’t corner as well in our experience on bumps as two wheelers but the increased cargo capacity makes up for it. Others are just zippy, practical ways to carry one or two kids and a few bags of stuff. 


Look at the websites for a taste. As for US made options, a guy in California connected to MAKE magazine makes (made?) a tilting and turning version at Onya Cycles (broken link?) that might work for some people. And Haley Trikes in Philadelphia makes a basic one designed for cargo, with no child carrying option.  Organic Engines (if they still exist) just started making a relatively inexpensive kid carrying trike with steering like a recumbent tadpole trike in Florida. 


Strollers pretending to be trikes
There is a subgroup of trikes that are really strollers with a pedaling position added on (Zigo Leader for example). So far, I haven't seen or heard of one that seems like anything but an expensive gimmick, but if one interests you, imagine using it for years in bad weather as a way to get yourself and your kid somewhere before you buy it. I played with one for awhile and I'd never buy it for myself...

Cargo-only Trikes and other US made 2 and 3 wheel cargo options
Other utility bike companies like ANT, Bilenky, Frances and Worksman (all based in North America) may also be worth a glance, though they don't make anything comparable to the box bikes that I'm aware of. These make bakers' bike and small cargo box options like the less expensive Kemper Filibus.


Adaptive Cycling Options
There are several companies specializing in bike transport for disabled riders like Hase, and Rolling Orange and particularly JC Lind can get high quality wheelchair and specially altered bikes as well if you ask, sometimes in stock. The Hase Pino is a great recumbent/upright tandem if you need to move one, kid-to-adult sized extra person with or without disabilities, and you can put panniers on it, but it's not really like a cargo bike. The others are more similar to other cargo bikes. Some allow you to ride the bike despite your own disabilities, some are simply transportation systems for others to move a wheelchair-bound person around without a van. Worksman also has a wheelchair transporter and custom options. It is possible to get something made custom or semicustom by many companies for your particular needs. I'd talk to Jon Lind and search the internet and the links for adaptive cycling on Ding Ding Lets Ride.

If you know of another option, or if you want to fill me in on things I've missed or misunderstood, please send us a comment! Thanks.

Quality is important when you buy a cargo bike.

The following discussion is intended to be practical information to consider before you buy, largely related to quality and the various components you can put on a bike you're buying.  Get a bike you think is good and make sure the company you bought it from will fix or improve it if there's an issue. Ask specifically and take the answers with a grain of salt. Try anything you want to buy first, and look into the reputation of the dealer, especially with internet purchases.

None of the cargo bikes I know about are like a handbuilt custom road bike. They're heavy and utilitarian, and there are compromises in their designs that you should be aware of. For example, the slack seat tube geometry many have often makes it unnecessarily hard to ride uphill. There are a few features to look for, though:

General Weatherproof Durability
Our bike came with stainless steel fenders, dynamo hub lighting front and rear with standlight, a full chaincase and hub gearing, a rear rack integrated into the frame to carry passengers, a computer cut marine plywood box with seats, and a powder coated frame. Nothing on it will ever rust (and hasn't in 4 years of bad and winter weather). The kids can drop sticky muck on it or the groceries can all spill and we can hose it out easily. The chaincase and internal gearing don't need maintenance very often because they keep the moving parts out of the weather and street muck, and they keep the oil and gunk off your clothes too. A fully enclosed chaincase is a lot more practical than a simple chainguard.

Don’t ever think seriously about buying a cargo bike without similar features or ways to add them. A recreational bike can be lightweight and fiddly without inconveniencing you much. To be a practical form of daily transportation, however, a bike like this can and must be able to sit in the weather for years without maintenance and always work well, especially if you keep it outside. Ask yourself, how long will the weakest part of any bike you’re considering last if you treat it like most people treat their cars? A cloth cargo box? A derailleur in snow? A plastic part instead of stainless steel? Will it last? And you definitely need fenders and lights, and probably hub gears and hub brakes, to be mobile in all conditions.

Components
Most of these bikes can be built with a variety of gearing and braking options if you ask, so think about what you want early on.


    Brakes
When evaluating the componentry, make sure the brakes will stop you (and your kids!) fully loaded on a steep hill on a wet day, before you buy it. Many of these types of bikes use components not originally designed for the long cable runs necessary on a long frame, or for the weight of a full load. I have heard several reports of brake and axle failures.  
Our Shimano roller brakes are rightly regarded as awful but here in Chicago we don't have real hills, and we never had a problem with them (until the hub got rebuilt and the brake started disconnecting itself during use). Don't get them, or at least not the front one, if you live in the mountains of Colorado. The latest model roller brake (IM80) is supposed to be stronger and more resistant to failure due to overheating than the old ones that we have. I hear that the large 90 mm Sturmey-Archer drum brakes work well, and you could try hydraulic (maybe not cable - long runs) disk brakes if you don't mind maintaining them (!) and if you need to stop on serious hills a lot. Look into brake systems for tandems if this is an issue for you; wheels can be built with nearly anything.


    Hubs
Shimano, SRAM and Sturmey Archer / Sunrace hubs and brakes are not all necessarily rated for use with a heavy bike like a loaded cargo bike, though some are. Components built for tandems (Phil? :)) are likely strong enough. A Shimano representative told me that all internal gear hubs they make are OK for this use but the premium versions last longer. Workcycles founder Henry Cutler has tried lots of options and favors the Shimano 8 speeds. Many people have told me that there isn't enough difference between the premium and regular versions of this hub to warrant the price difference, though. There is a Shimano 11 speed that is supposed to be very nice too. Rohloff hubs are rated for heavy loads and have 14 speeds and a huge gear range, but they are as expensive as a whole bike on their own. There is a lot of interest lately in the NuVinci 360 hub, which has a dimmer switch to change gear ratios instead of individual speeds, and which has a pretty wide range. Clever Cycles may have the best experience with this hub so far on cargo bikes. I rode one a little bit on a Bakfiets copy and it was by far the nicest part of the bike - very easy to adjust and much simpler than multiple gears. We liked it on the Onderwater XL too, though it takes an hour to get used to not having click stops. The often noted weight of the hub is not relevant on a cargo bike, which weighs and carries so much anyway.

Our bikes have all-Shimano hubs and we did have a front dynamo hub axle break under normal use (it squealed but stayed stable). I don't like the uneven gear spacing on their 8 speed rear hub, and one of ours failed suddenly and needed replacement of the internal components for $150 after 3 1/2  years; it still gives us trouble but it's getting better. We have a post grumbling about it. There is a lot of info online about lubricating these things. Some people pack them with blue marine grease, others put in an oil port and fill them with transmission fluid. Shimano recommends using its own expensive grease every year or two, I think.

     The Frame

Most cargo bike frames are high-tensile "pot" steel instead of thinwall cr-mo, which would be much stronger and lighter. There's a tradeoff with durability if it gets too thin. With other kinds of bikes you can get a custom sized frame made out of this tubing, even brazed or welded right in your town, by an excellent builder to exactly match your needs. There aren’t many box bike options like this, past the prototype stage, that I know of, and a truly high quality lightweight steel frame made anywhere is hard to find. Perhaps the CETMA or Human Powered Machines bikes come closest. I would love to hear from anyone about North American-made quality box bikes that can compete with or exceed the European ones. See the list of manufacturers I found above, and please leave a comment if you know of another one. 

There is certainly a market for lighter frames - despite the theoretical disadvantages of aluminum in terms of repetitive stress failures many people choose aluminum framed race, recreational and cargo bikes since they're often lighter. 

Who made it?

One thing I originally liked about buying a Dutch bike was that it was supposedly built by well paid workers right in Holland instead of by children in a low wage sweatshop somewhere. I imagine well paid workers with benefits merrily working 8 hour days with holidays off. It turns out this is basically true for our bikes, but unfortunately, that isn't true for every expensive cargo bike. Apparently, some companies have frames made in low wage countries, then declare the finished bike “made in Europe” or “made in Holland.” They can do this because if 51% (or some say 60% ?) of the value is added in Europe (powdercoating, assembly of components) it becomes a European product. Or so I’m told. If you know more about this than I do, please send a comment and explain it to me. It isn't so bad I guess if the manufacturer is open about it, but I for one don't relish the thought of spending $3000 on a bike that cost the manufacturer $500 to make and distribute. If you search the web about this you can find plenty of examples. I think we all have a moral obligation to buy things made by workers with good working conditions and a lot of self determination rather than the products of slave or sweatshop labor whenever possible. It's getting harder in today's increasingly international marketplace. Especially if you are spending this much on a bike, why not pay it to the guy building it instead of a middleman? 

According to comments from Henry at Workcycles, the Bakfiets (and Onderwater) brands he distributes are actually made entirely in Europe. I guess Fietsfabriek makes their frames in Turkey and the rest is done in Holland. I think Larry vs. Harry's Bullitt is an Asian frame with Danish finish work. JC Lind's trikes are Dutch. I'm not sure about a lot of others.

Try them out first, then buy them

My advice about the cargo bikes I've seen so far is that it is worth it to get the best made bike you can afford. Try riding it before you buy it, loaded and in a similar landscape to the one you plan to use it in. Check out how it's made. You should never pay for a bike that won’t last. Get something you can pass on when you die, or at least when your kids are big and you find another way to move groceries. Some of these bikes are built well enough to keep for decades. 

Watch out for counterfiets! 

When you are considering these bikes, be careful with inexpensive options since some are badly made and many just aren't that much cheaper (if at all) than the quality ones. There are poor quality bikes being sold, some copies of legitimate brands, and some dealers have sold bikes under false names - if it costs a lot make sure it's really well made and well finished so you don't buy something bad. 

As for honestly made, inexpensive options, compare for yourself before settling on one - in our experience it may be worth the extra to splurge. Have a good look at anything you're considering purchasing.

You'll like having a cargo bike. It makes it easier to get around and it's fun!