I've been looking at the cargo bikes, especially the Big Dummy & Kona, but I'd like the option to get really fat tyres in there too – such as Endomorph.

Be a great way to arrive at a 24hr – with your race bike on the back 🙂

Any other alternatives? I don't fancy the bolt on conversions and prefer to buy frame only.

Looks like a suitably niche product for On-One. 🙂

A Yuba? http://yubaride.com/

Or if you relax the frame only restriction how about a Bafkiet http://measured-response.com/bakfiets/?p=191
or an 8 freight http://www.zerocc.co.uk/tag/8-freight/

Practical Cycles has a good selection of stuff.

I'm not aware of anything that you can get an endomorph through the back of. I've run 2.5" tyres in the Big Dummy, although you need to get hold of the 29er spacers for the rack or else the tyre gets a bit mixed up with the bottom of the board. The Big Dummy is supposedly not too sensitive to changes in wheel size, so you could probably go down to a 24" wheel at the back and put the most humongous tyre you could fine in there.

It depends what you're doing, of course, but for anything on a "normal" spectrum I'm not totally convinced that endomorphs would be much fun to be honest. The Dummy is massively heavy already, more so if you load it up, obviously. Moving is pretty hard work a lot of the time, and I can't help thinking that a very soft 4" tyre would be murderous. It's also very definitely already an easy and stable bike to ride on snow. The long wheelbase, very balanced weight distribution (or some other factor) definitely makes it very steady and confidence-inspiring on snow.

A while ago the "Riding the Spine" blog had some stuff about a heavy duty Xtracycle variant, I don't know if that's going anywhere.
Might be worth a trawl. There was also a thing called a "Hammer Truck" which blew the Dummy and everything else out of the water in terms of its load rating.

The reason for very fat tyres is that it would inevitably end up crossing a peat bog as I like to follow trails made by sheep, cattle etc.

I would normally have narrower tyres on it, but the option of fat tyres would be good.

Ive got a Mundo and ive towed a race bike behind it before.
I got mine here and i got a great deal on the version 1, i believe the latest V2/3 have even more room for really fat tyres, im running Fat Frank 2.35 and ive got a good few mm either side of the chainstays.
Just speak to Rob, and he'll sort you out.

Mine is now set up for touring –

More pictures here.

Now that's a touring bike 🙂

How much is the frame?

Edit: found it.

I got their project bike, so got just about everything for less than half the price of the basic model and just needed to add/upgrade the chainset/bars/brakes, so around £300 ready to go!
But, it did need to get a full respray, as this is what it looked like before, and the rack/side bars were a different colour.

I've got the latest Kona Ute and love it. However it doesn't come in a frame only option and has 700c wheels, so fat tyre choice is slim. It is a good bike though and lighter than the Big Dummy and Yuba. Those bikes are built more for carrying heavy loads so are a bit heftier weight-wise whereas the Ute is lighter and designed more for shopping/commuting/lighter loads.

Some pics of mine here

lightman – that is awesome. Love the bar position.

Isn't the centre of gravity of that load a bit high though?

so what do you atually do with these odd but nice looking bikes? Can't you just strap panniers to a normal bike or am I missing the point, they just look so heavy

You do all sorts of things, including just riding around.

My Flickr set is here:

Basically, certainly with the Dummy, the big advantage over a normal bike with panniers is being able to carry a passenger. Next up is the versatility of the load-carrying. The chair in the picture above was no bother at all, I carried it for about 10 miles. Heaviest load in that set is the garden centre run, that would have been absolutely impossible without a car otherwise – couldn't have done it on the bus certainly.

Also, it just works better for shopping. I can go into the supermarket (when I do), wander out with 3 bags for life and a box of beer and just load it up. There's no jamming things into panniers.

It weighs an absolute ton (and obviously much more with a passenger!) but not that much more than a regular town bike. It's genuinley fun to ride, very safe and is a huge step forward in terms of doing regular stuff without a car. I've had cargo bikes a good couple of years now and am still getting a lot out of it.

🙂

BD, that hammer truck def looks like it will carry a fair bit, but the riding position… 😕

Hehehe. That may be the most extreme seatpost angle EVER. Wheelbase must be enormous.

Like your flickr set BD:) They look fun

8Freight:

made by Mike Burrows in Norfolk or somewhere..

Saw a chap with an 8Freight with a wicker basket where rootes1's has the red canvas the other day. That was well cool. Quite a speciliased thing those. 🙂

re the 8Freight.

wish i had one… had a ride on one and they ride really well – you can hire from Bikefix

Oh OK. I was going to complement you on your flame-haired child, but perhaps he's not yours either. 😉

Can it carry an adult in the back do you know?

Can it carry an adult in the back do you know?

Second career as a body-snatcher?

My Yuba is great, and the V3 is lighter and disk ready.

I've had a few different bikes on the back, both my kids, compost, a photographer…

I got the V2 as a complete bike, and the parts used are pretty low quality, though burly and strong. In fairness, it's been my main commuter for just over a year now and nothing's worn out or broken (apart from a tyre when I left changing the brake pads a bit too long). That's what keeps the price down though, and why I could get it on bike to work.

The granny ring on the v3 should make it a lot more versatile – I tried riding mine to Dalby for SSUK and had to give up as uphill with a load suddenly gets very hard without a granny ring.

Get in touch with Zaynan at http://www.practicalcycles.com/ for all your cargo bike needs!

http://london.craigslist.co.uk/spo/1720739010.html

How about this if it hasn't gone already 😆

Wow! That Black Sheep is something else. 🙂

http://www.xtracycle.com/

what about one of these?

OP wasn't keen. In fairness, I used the Xtracycle conversion for a long time while waiting for the Dummy to get here. It's good. There's definitely considerably more flex with the conversion than there is with the Dummy (the Dummy's main cross-ovalised beam is a thing to behold), but I'm not convinced it's a problem, just a very different feel. There are also a few accounts of the conversion crushing the donor bike's chainstay bridge, or of the tongue snapping. There doesn't seem to be a very high rate of failure out there though, purely anecdotally.

Certainly, if you've a spare bike knocking about (many opf us seem to…) then the conversion reduces cost and commitment to the concept a fair bit. 🙂

lightman WTF how long a tour was that?

rootes1 – Member

re the 8Freight.

wish i had one… had a ride on one and they ride really well

Really? That head angle looks ridiculous. I'm sure Burrows knows what he's doing but blimey, it's almost a right angle.

Enter Frankenbike… 🙂

So much has gone wrong with that already, and there is so much that could yet go wrong… 🙂

What sort of load-carrying is it going to have?

Talking to a bike courier from York, he said their 8Freights were forever being welded and repaired, but their Yubas just kept going.

Oh OK. I was going to complement you on your flame-haired child, but perhaps he's not yours either.

Can it carry an adult in the back do you know?

seem to carry a lot from computers, wedding cakes, film crew..

of course for many a trailer is a better solution?

Hmmm. To my taste, I think the passenger position on the others is perhaps better than on the 8Freight. The 8Freight obviously has that fantastic load hopper, which is evidently great for storing children. But I'm not convinced I'd want to try to put a woman I fancied in it. The Xtra/Dummy/Ute configuration is pleasantly intimate, the passenger can put his/her head on your back or arms around you. This is a factor, for me anyway. 🙂

pleasantly intimate

This is pathetic. I hate myself.

for people:

chuck em in here:

pleasantly intimate

This is pathetic. I hate myself.

snigger.
i'd love a 'dummy ( so to speak ), but i'd struggle to justify one. GF does the shopping ( which i keep telling her we should do online ), and most stuff i need to cart from home to work or vice-versa is usually bike bits. i can't even think of a way i can reverse the logic of needing to buy a big dummy so i can cart a new big dummy frame home.
can anyone help?

takiwasa what have you done to my old GT?

takisawa2 – Member
Enter Frankenbike…

That's my style of bike 🙂

I Like the Larry vs Harry cargo bikes.

http://www.larryvsharry.com

i have this pic of a stretched fatbike with extracycle kit but afraid no history, you will need a 100mm BB to allow a chainstay to take a 4" tyre for chain clearance,

being a pugsley owner i can recommend endomorph tyres for soggy wet peat, not much good on sticky mud as the tyres then clog and are awful but on peat there amazing and leave little damage like regular tyres that just cut the soft peat up…

coastkid – Member
…being a pugsley owner i can recommend endomorph tyres for soggy wet peat, not much good on sticky mud as the tyres then clog and are awful but on peat there amazing and leave little damage like regular tyres that just cut the soft peat up…

Thanks. I dislike leaving tyres grooves in soft trails.

That is a good photo of just what I am looking for. I think I'll brew my own.

Woot! Like that one! 🙂