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More Twin Cities families using β€˜cargo bikes’ to haul groceries and children (www.twincities.com)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/utilitycycling@slrpnk.net
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[–] 19 points 4 months ago (1 child)

Grandma is 71 and not in the best of health.

β€œI knew that she probably wasn’t gonna be able to bicycle very far on her own,” Poole said.

She chose a Bunch front-loader, a model with two front wheels and a box large enough for an adult to sit in, so Grandma wouldn’t miss anything.

β€œWe rode her around the parking garage a little, and she was like, β€˜This is the bomb diggety.’”

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    • [–] 16 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    sometimes taking the extreme step of replacing a car with a cargo bike

    This is not extreme.

    Extreme is when you choose to use a fossil fuel car during the climate catastrophe.

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    • [–] 10 points 4 months ago (7 children)

    A second car has an annual upkeep cost of $8,000, while a cargo bike can be purchased for $3,000

    Kinda sad they didn't say the annual upkeep costs of a cargo e-bike

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  • [–] 8 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    It's like maybe $200 if you ride a lot and less if you do any of your own work... Which you can because it's a bike.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (4 children)

    Huh, I would expect a yearly tune up to cost $100-200 in labor only.

    If you don't do your own work, I'd estimate $1,000 per year in average maintenance for a good cargo e-bike that's used daily.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

    The first one is usually like 6 weeks to 3 months and it's free. The next one is usually half price. Here's my receipt for our 3 year after a lot of hard riding:

    a receipt listing several bike parts. It's all Dutch. The total is €311

    This is the most expensive bill we've had. This year we had to replace the drive train. It was €90.

    That bike is only 6k. Why would it cost 1k/yr? It's not a car.

    Edit: I lied. I found a bill for like €407. During that service we added a €200 bike alarm. The other year was €161.

    And technically, the total cost of ownership is a bit higher. Total replacement insurance for us is like €60/mo or something. But again, you could do absolutely no work on your bike, throw it in the canal, and buy a new one every year, and you'd still be able to buy an extra bike on top of replacing your old one every year with the money you save not having a car.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (2 children)

    That insurance cost is CRAZY. That's 1% of the cost of your bike every month. I.e. you'll have paid your bike in insurance premium in 8 years. This policy is only valuable if you expect your bike to need "total replacement" which I assume means it's stolen, more than every 8 years?!

    Just put that money in an account and you can buy a new bike every 8 years for "free" as your insurance policy.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 child)

    Yeah, we live in a high theft area of Amsterdam. They also pay total replacement with no deductible. We've actually already come out ahead when my other bike was stolen.

    The rate is actually variable based on theft data in the area. It's gone up a lot recently, it might go back down. It was ranging between 68 and 71 for an the bakfiets and a regular omafiets.

    Their service is also great. It was like less than a week turn around when my other bike was stolen. It's worth it.

    We haven't owned a car in years, so bikes are our primary transport. We can't really afford to be without them, so it's kind of worth it given the situation.

    Edit: it also covers bike rental, and it covers damage as well as theft.

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    • [–] 11 points 4 months ago (7 children)

    I like the spin here. Headline should be "Most working middle-class citizens pushed out of the market for new vehicles".

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  • [–] 10 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (6 children)

    grumpy cat saying "good"

    You can buy two good cargo bikes a year for the average total cost of ownership of a car. When so many trips are within bike range, why would you not do this?

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    We still need to fill edge cases. Hiking is really big where I live but you can't take public transit to more than one or two trailheads, and certainly not some of the more remote ones.

    I desperately want a nonprofit carshare in my area to fill the gap for this as well as occasional things like moving lots of stuff. Without a cost effective way to get a car when you really need one, people will own a car for edge cases. And when you have a car sitting there... you'll drive it even when you don't need to.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago*

    fwiw there might be platforms that let you just rent out the car when it's not in use, it's a thing here and my landlord company even puts their cars on it!
    (It's GoMore, only available in a couple countries but you can look at it for an example of how it works)

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    I would choose the healthier option (the cargo bikes). I just don't want to be corralled down a cattle chute where there are no other options. I would also use my vehicle to haul the elderly around, if required (not a cargo bike).

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    • [–] 9 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    How much groceries can you fit on a bike? I usually leave with 4 or 5 large bags, and I'm single.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago*

    Our Urban Arrow fits 3, maybe 4 kids (ours are 7 and 4, and their friends). We literally moved our entire apartment with that bike.

    We also have a cube hybrid longtail. I've put maybe 6 bags of groceries in the side saddle, with my front still open and two kids on the back.

    Urban Arrow bakfiets piled high with stuff, in front of a storage unit filled with stuff

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago

    About 2 weeks worth for 1 person, about 1 weeks worth for 2 people. On just a normal bicycle with 4 panniers. A cargo bike can double that.

    Once you hit large families, you can have multiple people biking to the grocery store together.

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  • [–] 10 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Bag size varies a lot so an absolute number doesn't really help much. 4/5 bags sounds like an insane amount of food for 1 person, so I suspect the bags we get are bigger.

    My regular bike has 70L of storage in pannier bags. Cargo bikes will be holding hundreds.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago

    @artyom @silence7 i went to the next town over for groceries because that grocery has stuff the closer ones don't(this is on a cargo trailer I built but a proper cargo bike would have... better capability, actually)mastodon.murkworks.net/@moira/

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    • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    there are DOZENS of us!

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Quite a lot more I think. Not everybody needs a cargo bike, but they're really amazing for moving a couple young kids a couple miles

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago*

    in my fairly generic swedish town there's a whole bunch of people with box bikes, to the point that my dad gets annoyed at them (i think because they tend to be car replacements, so people keep that driver mindset of assuming people will just give way to you and never fucking slowing down).

    So yeah i'd say globally there's a whole lot of cargo bike owners these days.

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    • [–] 3 points 4 months ago

    One of the hardest parts of these articles is that I love hearing about them, hearing how much people are making progress and change, until I see the locations. I love seeing that a metropolitan area has this, and it warms my heart to see people able to make progress.

    My bike is not a cargo bike, just a normal city bike with bags on it, which is satisfactory for the 3 miles of highway I have to bike to the nearest store, and then 3 miles back, ever since the one that was closer had closed down. I do this at night, or first in the morning, as where I live during the daytime it reaches over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, over 39 degrees Celsius.

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    [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    Cargo bikes are awesome. Plus they hold value pretty well so you can resell them when your kids get to big. I’m the third owner of a cargo bike and it’s been great.

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    [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    πŸš—πŸšΆπŸš²
    "Car" "go" "bike"
    lol

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    [–] 1 point 4 months ago (2 children)

    Man, I'd love to take my kids around town on my bike, but drivers here regularly go off the road and hit cyclists. I just don't know if I'd feel comfortable taking my kids out, unless I was in a protected bike lane. It takes about twenty minutes to get to the park and I have to cross several streets, one of which is six lanes across. And I live in the city. Our city is investing in more cycling infrastructure and greenways, but right now, I just can't. Not to mention when it's over 40Β°C and 80% humidity, by the time I get to the park, it's time to go home, unless I'm driving. It's just a super complicated situation, I'm in. I do welcome any and all advice!

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Talk more about your problem. Complain as much as possible to your city government. Organize or join a transit union.

    It also sounds like your city needs more green space. Yeah, my only advice is, "fight like hell for you kid's future."

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago

    Absolutely! I'm a part of a couple different cycling groups, one of which actively lobbies and is the reason our city is actually changing for the better. We're also super behind on our canopy coverage, and topographically I'm surrounded by rivers which increase the humidity. So, when it's hot, it's very hot.

    It's one of those things that my grown children will be able to enjoy, but it's shameful it's taking this long. I just wish progress was quicker.

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    • [+] -8 points 4 months ago (10 children)

    Until October. Then comes the snow.

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  • [–] 13 points 4 months ago*

    Brother, we rarely get snow in October even before climate change started really messing with things. Used to be mid-to-late November for first snow pack, now it's mid December and it's a toss up if we'll even keep the snow pack all winter now.

    Anyways, people still bike in the winter here.

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  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago* (3 children)

    Fins and Swedes bike, you're just cowards. The Dutch bike all year. Freezing rain in the face sucks, but it's better than literally destroying my children's future.

    Edit: I live in the Netherlands and bike year round because we do not own a car (family of 4, for the record). Wear a fucking jacket. You're not made of sugar.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago

    Eh, usually the snow doesn't stick until late November. We'll get some freakish pop-up storms but it will generally melt away until around Thanksgiving.

    And even in the winter, we have very good road crews to keep conditions pretty navigable all told.

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    • [–] -1 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Can't take that on the freeway. Can't take that on cross- country Road trips. Can't sleep in it overnight to save money on a hotel.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago* (2 children)

    You save about $12k/yr by not owning a car. You can afford a hotel with what you save. Who can afford the gas for a cross country road trip? It's not the 90's. The vast majority of normal trips never go on the freeway. For $12k/yr you can just pay for a taxi for that.

    Want a road trip? Try a train. Cross country trains are actually affordable and really interesting adventures. You get to meet interesting folks, actually look at the environment (since you aren't driving), and you aren't risking killing yourself or others in the process. You also aren't destroying that environment. It's just all around a better deal.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

    Okay you stand by your lifestyle, I'll stand by mine. Full disclosure: I live in a huge high roof van which means I haven't had to pay rent or mortgage or utilities or property taxes or HOA fees etc for 6 years. I run on solar, and the government still hasn't found a way to suck money out of me for the solar panels I have on my roof. Although I earn very little money I've got thousands of dollars in the bank because my expenses are so minimal.

    I can live anywhere I want. Currently parked right next to the ocean. Sometimes I live in Oregon, sometimes I live in Colorado. Sometimes I live in Washington DC. I've driven across the USA five times and don't need hotels, trains, buses, or uber.

    I have everything I need in this van, all my clothes, all my electronics, a full kitchen, bathroom.

    Confident that I live more economically & more adventurous & more fun & enjoy more geographical variety than bicyclists who live in apartments or houses ☺️

    Oh and I have three different kinds of bicycles too. One of them has three wheels so technically not a bicycle πŸ€·πŸΌβ€β™€οΈ

    You stand by your lifestyle, I'll stand by mine.

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    • 3 comments in c/usa@midwest.social view that post
    [–] 5 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    This is actually awesome but I wonder if it’s just due to gas prices.

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    • [–] 0 points 3 months ago

    Cargo bike? False! car go brrroom!

    I'll show myself out..πŸšͺπŸƒπŸ»

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