GTizzy

Hey!

I just watched a video from Electric Bike Report featuring the Tern GSD.
Is this a new cargo bike category? Are there any similar models on the market?

CliffordK

I wouldn't say it is a "new" category.

The Haul-a-day is already a compact cargo bike, and I believe has an electric option.

The Tern above looks well made, and quite sturdy. I like the vertical parking, although it looks unstable if left unsecured.

The other thing that one has to be concerned about is too compact of a cockpit, and one loses efficiency. There might be some adjustment putting the bars further forward, but I'm not convinced one can make a cargo bike to be the same size as an ordinary road bike. I suppose the smaller wheels would allow a longer wheelbase without making the bike longer.

Philphine

trying to work around photobucket keeping all my pics hostage


https://www.google.com/search?q=micr...=1509637260964


something I just fooled around with. used a detatchable front basket. I called it micro cargo (donated it to the bike co-op later though). might be somewhat practical if you didn't need to haul kids and maybe could find bigger take off baskets for each side.

mel2012

As stated above, there are other entrants in this category -- the Haul-a-day, Boda Boda, the Kinn Flyer, the Kona MinUte (since discontinued), and the Cycle Trucks Beavertail and Cycle S.U.B. (cargo bike, cycle trucks products). The GSD looks great, but it's almost twice the price of my Haul-a-day+my ebike retrofit kit (I think I spent about $2300 for bike+accessories+motor kit/battery, including foot rails, front rack and basket, whoopie deux bars). Then again, I do live in an area with no hills, so my front-motor kit and basic disc brakes are perfectly adequate whereas the better components on the GSD might be worth the money for someone in a hillier area. Someday I'd be interested in trying a Bosch mid-drive to see how it compares.

Headpost

I actually wouldn't mind spending $4000 on a bicycle like that Tern--if I thought I could keep it. Who would risk locking that up in a city like New York for more than a few minutes?

I assume these bicycles are so expensive because it's a small market, niche product, but it is absolutely insane. Brand new motorcycles with pistons and valves and starter motors and fuel injection and cooling systems and all the rest cost only a little more.

I wish BikesDirect, or some company like that, would make a reasonable-budget version of something like this already.

KD5NRH

Y'know, there's over 3 million square miles of the US that's nothing like NYC.

I'm not even sure where my bike lock is. I think it's under the laundry pile. (I don't know why, but I think that's the last place I saw it.)

Headpost

Well, the presenter does specifically mention NYC, as well as cities in general, in the video.

It has since my original post occurred to me that if you're rich enough--as so many NYC residents are--then I guess getting one of these stolen wouldn't be such a big deal. The same way I feel about Teslas, though, how can these bike companies ever honestly expect have any meaningful impact on society if they're just making luxury products for rich people?

KD5NRH

Meaningful impact on society? They're looking to have a meaningful impact on their own wallets. They've figured out that playing green gets the hipsters to dump a ton of money on them without having to worry about actual issues.

Look at other trends; dust mops where you throw away the entire head after one use. Same thing with a toilet scrubber. Don't even get me started on Keurig. And yet they're all popular with the "green" crowd. Logic doesn't enter into any of it.

Headpost

I guess you see these companies as being even more cynical than I imagine them. I just don't think people start bicycle companies because they want to make a lot of money. The other products you mentioned, sure.

The point I really wanted to make, though--if some manufacturer ever happens to read this--is that, when you have people bolting and welding together pieces of old mountain bike frames to make themselves affordable longtail cargo bikes, sometimes adding electric power, sometimes not, it seems to me that there's a real market for a somewhat lower quality, lower-priced product!

jimmie65

Very true. I do have my bike locked up this morning in downtown New Braunfels. Not sure why, because it's sat out there before with no lock. My intern has a gorgeous vintage road bike that I can't convince her to ever lock up; she leaves it unlocked, sometimes 2 blocks away from our office, and has done so daily for a year now.
And when I get home this afternoon, I'll pass half a dozen homes where the bikes are left sitting out at the side of the house or even in the front yard all the time.

KD5NRH

Exactly; sometimes I take the precaution when it's going to be completely out of my sight for an hour or more in a place where it's easy to spot and pick up, but usually it would require someone pushing or carrying it at least a few yards to toss it in the back of a pickup. With the SPD pedals, I can't see most of them riding it away.

I doubt most of them started that way, but when they saw they could still get custom one-off pricing for stuff they were more or less mass producing by that point, they got greedy. How much would my labor be worth if I was building frames from scratch, rather than restoring them? Plenty, but once they're being contracted out to be CNC cut and welded instead of cut with a hacksaw, clamped up and welded by hand, what's the justification for continuing to charge $2k plus?

Winfried

Bike43 - Cargo, groceries and children transport ebike bicycle - Bike For Three

KD5NRH

Philphine

I don't know why I remember little odd things, but were you in urban velo magazine once years ago with another little bike like that? for whatever reason I remember the name and being from france.

Winfried

I'm not the business owner; I'm just a cargo-bike enthusiast.

Bike43 sails from Brussels, Belgium.

So far, I've only read/heard positive reviews about that e-longtail. I understand they're trying to find an importer in North America.