Just wondering if anyone has tried building their own cargo bike, and how hard/expensive a project it will be.

Im primarily motivated by saving money buying an off the shelf bike. It would be nice to build something but since we have a 2 week old baby I don’t have a lot of time.

I have been looking at the Omnium mini-max, Omnium cargo or the bullitt bike.

I found this link: http://www.bakfiets-family.net/category/the-past/

but it is a bit short on information. Has anyone tried a build and would butchering a frame mean that it would be relatively straightforward?

Xtracycle have just re-vamped their venerable longtail conversion, now the Leap.

That’s reasonably cost-effective if you’ve got a “spare” commuter or hardtail. Doesn’t have the same family-carrying advantages as the big Dutch bikes, but pretty decent.

🙂

Sorry I didnt say that I was looking to build something with te cargo out in front. Its mainly going to be for ferrying my little boy around so ideally I want him in front of me.

I’m in the process of building one with a friend who is expecting a baby in a few weeks. Using frames from the scrap pile and a bit of box section for the main tube. All should be pretty straight forward. Steering is the only slightly tricky bit.

what about getting the alignment of the downtube to be centred in the frame? Also if I am brazing or tig welding steel does it then need to be heat treated?

Our plan is to do the alignment by eye.

And we have no plans to heat treat. I can’t fit a cargo frame in the oven for starters.

Check out indestructibles. There is a self built long bike on there. Built by George from G spot if any of you old BMXers rember him and his mechanical colume in Ride uk.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Long-John-Cargo-Bike/

No need to heat treat. Brazing probably easiest depending on your background / skills / equipment.

If using a donor frame / scrap frames for tubes, ideally don’t TIG anything that is Reynolds 531 (the manganese alloying element can act in the same way as welding high carbon steel). Think when I talked to the metallurgist at work it’s carbon equivalent value put it right at the upper end of what the British Standard classed as “weldable”

Don’t get too hung up about alignment – pretty much anything is rideable, and more important to get it finished before baby turns into a teenager 🙂

ERW (seam welded) steel tube is easy to get, cheap and not too thick (1.5mm ish).
1.5m lengths of Columbus cro-moly steel tube in various diameters from here (much cheaper than aircraft spec T45 / 4130 etc).
http://framebuilding.com/Spare%20Tubes.htm

Now get building and don’t forget the photos!

Elephant bike with a rear facing car seat bolted to the front carrier would be my fast choice for a baby.

You need a Frankenbike…

[url=https://flic.kr/p/857NsZ]21032010287[/url] by pten2106, on Flickr

Cool, Ive not done either before only mig welding so either would be new to me. I would like to copy the omnium mini-max as it looks like one of the more straight forward designs.
The local bike shop have put me in touch with a guy that build wrought iron gates, but apparently he has built some fat bike frames before so hopefully he can help me out with this project for a few beers.