Madlands

My wife is super intrigued by this bike (well, trike to be accurate). She currently has a pretty nice hybrid bike with a huge rear child seat on it for our toddler - originally bought with the idea that she'd use it to ride our toddler to nursery school in the morning and then to work herself about 6 miles total daily mileage. But she has not used it all that much because frankly it's kind of a pain, mostly getting both rider and passenger on and off. The Taga seems like it'd be a thousand times easier in that department but I'm worried how viable this could be for daily use. They say it will sell for $1000 but currently $650 on kickstarter. The other "cart bikes" I've seen cost three to ten times that, which makes me skeptical of how legit this one is. Seems too good to be true.

There's a nicely produced video on the kickstarter page but little in the way of specs. From what I can tell it's a three speed which should be fine for our relatively flat commute, and has disc brakes and shimano gear. But has anyone here with higher bike IQ than me looked at it? Curious what people who know bikes make of this.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects..._campaign=taga

procon

I'd almost bought the Taga 1 and test rode it. It was sturdy and well designed, though the riding dynamics of a trike aren't as fun as a bicycle.

Based on that product, which this is an iteration of, I pre-ordered.

Madlands

Thanks for the input. Still mulling over whether to pull the trigger. They now have detailed specs up which helps. 49 lb is pretty heavy, although not that much more than our current bike + child seat combo. Lower center of gravity for the child seatprobably makes those approx ten extra pounds easier to manage though.

kmcrawford111

I'm quite surprised that nobody else has posted about this trike recently.

My wife wanted one of these (2.0 model) and we decided to pull the trigger. After some delays, I received it and put it together. Caveat: I had very little experience with (adult) trikes before this, and have never used a child trailer.

My impression is that it's pretty well-made. The printed documentation is excellent. I love being able to sit my son right in front of me, being able to see and talk to him while riding. It seems much safer than a trailer would be. It rides, brakes and shifts fine. Of course it seems heavy to me, though the vast majority of my cycling is on a road bike and an ebike. So I don't have a good frame of reference.

The only "problem" we have had has been that we both thought the gearing was very high. I'm a pretty serious cyclist (though I use lower gearing than most), and even for me it was quite a bit high. So I took the advice of Sheldon Brown that made a lot of sense: you want the top gear (of 3) to be the cruising gear. It's not like I'm going to be bombing downhill on a trike anyway, even without with my son and/or groceries in the front.

First, I swapped out the 16T sprocket for a 22T (23T might also work). This is a pretty cheap endeavor, and doesn't require special tools, except a chain tool to add 4 links. Gearing reduction: 27%. I thought the gearing was OK after this, but it was still high for the wife.

So I changed the crankset and bottom bracket to a smaller, 38T with spider from Origin 8. This costs quite a bit more than step 1, especially if you don't have a crank puller (it is square taper). One upside of this route is possibility for a bit of weight savings. Removed the 4 links I added in step 1 (that worked out nicely!). Gearing reduced another 17%, for a total of 40%. Wife is happy.

The single-sided hubs are interesting. I wonder how/if they can support their load without wearing out quickly. They seem to work OK so far, though.

So overall, I like it real well. It's fun. I wish it were lighter, but realistically I don't know how it could be much more. If you're pulling more than 1 kid or climbing steep hills you might want to get the ebike option.

prq9218

Looks pretty cool, if I didn't already have a trailer, I might consider it.

VegasTriker

I'm always skeptical of anything touted on Kickstarter. They often end up being vastly overpriced when the product finally ends up for sale. This one looks like another one to avoid. The price quoted at the website Choose your Taga is $1,499 + $70 for shipping. That hardly meets their claim for being a "Most Affordable Family Bike". It's also obese at 49 pounds. I ride a trike but not an "Adult trike" many of which are overly heavy and poorly geared. If you want something decent at a semi-reasonable price, look for a USED Sun trike. They are not light but are well built and have decent gearing for a range of conditions.

kmcrawford111

We paid $700, I think, though it was a pre-order while they were trying to get the operation started.

OK, but is a Sun designed to support up to 3 child seats? And even with 1, is your kid going to be looking into open space or staring at your back? And looking at Sun's "Traditional 24" trike specs, it is also 49 lbs. And here are the carrying capacities of the Taga 2.0:

Maximum
Weight
Rider: 110 kg / 240 lbs
Rear Child Seat: 35 kg / 77 lbs. (8 years) – positioned in the rear
part of the Cargo Compartment, closest to the parent
Front Child Seat: 22 kg / 48 lbs. (4-5 years) – positioned in the
front of the Cargo Compartment, further away from the parent
Third Child Seat: 25 kg / 55 lbs (5-6 years) – positioned on a
rear rack
Total load in Cargo Compartment: 70 Kg / 154 lbs., including
load on top

To contrast, the capacity of the aforementioned Sun is 250 lbs., and that seems to be total because it's the only capacity listed.

The Taga is clearly aimed at families. I don't see how a Sun (this one, at least) is comparable, especially if you want to carry more than one kid.

mattthemayor

I have owned the bike from the beginning. Do not purchase it! So many other better bikes then this less than average cargo bike.

DorkDisk

One of these rolled in the shop for assembly around the time this thread was first posted. My brain is old and tired but I remember it was terrible.

We actually refused to finish assembling the whole setup due to the flimsy plastic used for everything. We wanted no part of that.

The owner complained he ordered it before the summer, got it towards the end of summer, then came back trying to sell it. We wanted no part of it.