Reviving a Modular Cargo Bike Design from the 1930s

It's always exciting to see this idea get revived for the first time in ninety years every ten years!

I've pedaled around on a couple variations of this design. Like everyone who had never ridden one but saw it on the internet, I also confidently imagined it would violently hurl me to the ground at the slightest provocation. I was wrong, which strangely seems to be a pattern for confident opinions I've formed based on things I've only seen on the internet. Having not been for a ride on this particular iteration, I will not post confident opinions about it on the internet.

The best (granted, of two...) version I've tried was semi-recumbent, with a standard geartrain and flevobike-style steering. The steering was a little weird at first, but I quickly figured out how to fully steer it hands free. Fully unloaded it was possible to tip it with hard front braking while turning, if you pitched your body weight into the effort. Loaded, it was absolutely nailed to the ground. You're just a mule winching a load down the road at that point. Sometimes it's fun to be a mule, piloting a weird bike-cart.

It turns out everyone flamewarring about stability on the internet forgot to get mad about drive wheel traction limits when pulling a load uphill. Which for me was a loading consideration rather than a problem. The underseat steering was brilliant for reasons I'd never thought about. But don't take my word for it, ride one and decide for yourself.

https://web.archive.org/web/20130309080557/http://hpm.catore...

Tricycles are inherently unstable in turns, especially when not loaded down, because they cannot lean. And when carrying a load, the same rules of physics apply, resulting in a lot of torsional forces on the frame. There's a reason we see so few of those on the roads, amidst an explosion of various human-powered modes of transport.

Here's the original: http://youtube.com/watch?v=RuPwRQOUhl4

Here's the reimagined modern version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA7qGYNFuY0

In both cases, the rider effectively sits atop of where the handlebars would be on a traditional trike. You can see in the first video the lads have a hard time keeping all wheels on the ground.

One notable difference between the new model and the old is that they seem to have changed the geometry of the frame so that the driver doesn't lean into the turn (the turning wheel stays upright). They don't demonstrate it in motion very well, but that kind of turn action will tend to throw the rider "out" of the turn, making the trike fall over opposite of the direction of the turn. The old version tends to fall "into" the turn.

I can't think of many advantages to this design, other than the driving unit and cargo are modular. Even then, the rider would not be able to travel without the cargo portion.

Trikes are tricky, they don't go very fast, they don't turn well, and they're wider than most other pedal-powered vehicles, making them hard to use on existing cycle infrastructure.

There's probably a good reason nobody has touched this design in 90+ years. As the last photo demonstrates, banging the back of your leg against a trailer hitch every time you turn would get annoying real quick.

Off topic - the the colour scheme choices for the Cookie selection pop-up on that site are awful. I'll admit I'm colour blind, but I assume those are hard for others to see when the switches are on or off? Unless that was their plan?

Three wheeled cars and trikes mostly moved to having the two wheels in front for stability when cornering. Same reason why 3 wheeled all terrain vehicles were taken off the market. Otherwise, cool idea.

While interesting, I feel like this would be difficult or at least feel extremely weird to ride. When you steer on a 2-wheeled bicycle, you countersteer, which is pushing the wheel left in order to go right, or vice-versa. But this has a steering wheel that I assume works like a car, you turn the wheel left to go left. It would feel weird riding a bicycle while having to remember to steer like a car.

It's totally mad and impractical; I love it!

Lol @ what appears to be paddle shifters or paddle brakes [0] under a steering wheel on a bike??

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA7qGYNFuY0&t=77s

That front bike section looks so cool. I guess it's so alien looking because the whole section turns instead of just the wheel which affords it more creative license than a traditional handlebar attached to a fork.

I bet it also feels alien to turn a steering wheel with your feet on bike pedals.

Am I the only one unable to open that website ?

This design is unstable and expensive to produce with a complicated in wheel transmission. It is novel, but almost certainly more expensive and less reliable than existing designs.

Really good looking :)

You should definitely put a repairable Gouach e-bike battery on it haha https://gouach.com

Pedals directly on the front wheel means no shifting the chain, which means you better have not skipped leg day if there is even the slightest hill on your route while you are fully loaded.

Please excuse my hacker-newsyness…

This idea is absurdly underbaked…other commenters mentioned that it’s going to flip, and it is. Not to mention that no bike shop in the world will know how to work on these things.

There’s lots of reasons that this design died in the 1930’s after a short run.

But…so you know I’m a reasonable guy despite my blithering criticism…I love weird alternative vehicles and I hope that version two of this is a massive success because this world needs more tiny vehicles and fewer 8’ tall Ford F-150’s.

Best of luck!

Revive? These things are still in active use all over Europe .. backfiet .. and while they’re fun, they can be exhausting if you overfill them with groceries, kids, roadkill, oilyballs, etc.

There’s a tricked out one in my ‘hood (Vienna) that has electric assist. I guess that’d be practical for a daily ride …