Potentially looking at building one of these up over winter for next summer.

Primary purpose will be moving 2 small boys to nursery and school and then onward commute.

I’m planning on buying a frameset using my old 26er as a donor as the full build that is offered seems very poor value.

Lots of questions time:
Any users post up their build spec?

Anything to watch out for that is unusual?

I’ve read xtracycle accessories fit – do they have a uk stockist?

What accessories should I look at – the panniers cost a small fortune! I’d like a secure seating area for the boys, and potentially something like a towing guard thing I’ve seen on a yuba mundo where you can slot a little ones front wheel in to tow the bike

And has anyone used one with a suspension fork? I have a 100mm reba I’m thinking of using.

Don’t know if it’s standard as part of the frameset but Keep Pedalling in Manchester have the snap deck and bags included in the price. If you’re in that area Shona and Rich are worth chatting to about this sort of thing.

Thats interesting thanks, I don’t think framesets normally include the cargo kit as standard.

Has a quick check of the website, doesn’t specify – unfortunately I am on the south coast so a bit of a drive to Manc.

I’ve got a stock one. Running Deore 3×9. The official luggage is very good once you get your head around how it all fits. I’ve got a Yelp seat fitted with the rack adapter. Little’un will soon be big enough for the cushion and rail option I hope. For bike towing I’ve got a bike rack adapter bolted to the deck with an Allen key skewer. Primarily for towing little ‘un’s bike but I have delivered my mates bike back to his house using it too.

I’ve a stock one in green with sram 3×10 running gear. Didn’t think I’d use the range offered but you definitely do with two on board. Bought when that colour was being cleared out last year for a sizeable discount. Second the luggage being very good, you can get so much in those bags. I was looking at building from a frame set but in the end it didn’t make sense as on top of the frame you have to buy the cargo kit. On top of the stock bike I bought a xtracycle deck (so that I could mount a YEPP child seat direct to it through cutouts), xtracycle child cage (forget the real name), xtracycle utubes, an xtraccyle cushion and xtracycle kickback v3 stand. All of these were a lucky second hand local purchase apart from the u-tubes (found languishing in an ex dealers stock room) and kickback which came from an EU dealer.

Suspension forks why? Doesn’t need them.

You (physically) can’t run shimano shadow mechs.

I use the u-tubes to tow a bike.

The xtracycle accessories are really hard to find (read impossible), however surly now make a kid cage which is the most important bit. Cushions I think would be easy to get made. A double kickstand is essential. Its dangerous lifting kids on or off without it. Unfortunately there is no cheap option for the stand.

There is a facebook group which is very useful.

Otherwise the only other bits I’ve changed were ditching the stock cable breaks for Magura hydraulics and swapped the bars/stem out for a carbon flat bar I had already and hope stem with its light mount on the face plate.

We have a gen. 1, formerly belonging to BigDummy of this parish. XtraCycle don’t seem to have a UK distributor at the moment so your choice of accessories is probably Surly or Surly – although I think Yuba’s Go-Getter pannier bags will work, which could be a cheap option if you only need one for shopping trips. Surly’s own bags are incredibly versatile but I’m glad we bought ours a few years back.

A heavy-duty double kickstand makes it a lot easier to load and unload, although you still have to be careful with anything too weighty.

Re towing kids, Cass from Bikepacking.com has a good bodge with an old roofrack mount: https://3mileride.com/review-surly-big-fat-dummy/

Having ridden a mate’s with electric assist at the weekend, I really want to upgrade ours with a mid-drive motor. It’s still surprisingly nippy for a 45 lb behemoth though, and you can get it up most things with an old skool MTB chainset.

Hooptie, that’s the xtracycle cage name.

Facebook page; https://www.facebook.com/groups/ILoveMySurlyBigDumy/

thanks guys – nixie are you Southampton based? I had a brief chat with a guy in LW who had I think a green big dummy – I was towing a 2 man weehoo.

maybe a full build is the way to go then replace drive and brakes – seems like a waste but the costs of the cargo set another £380 on top of the frameset. The kids corral looks great too, but another £325!

I was planning on 3×9 XT (as that is what I have) and thinking about suspension because I plan/hope to use offroad after dropping the minions off, plus the fork is in quite good conditions and would otherwise remain in the shed.

Electric assist would be great but adds more £££ to the build

Yeap I’m in Shirley. There is another guy just around the corner who has a black one as well. Don’t think that would have been me in LW. On the Common maybe but don’t think I’ve had it in the wood. The guy with the black one definitely has though.

The ride with the big tyres is comfortable enough not to need the sus. In my view it would end up making the bike more difficult to ride. You can’t smash through things when loaded anyway as it’ll destroy the rear wheel.

Brake wise remember you need a looooong hose for the back.

Nothing is cheap with these unfortunately unless you get really lucky with some SH parts.

pretty certain you just rode past me on the school run!

May well have done, where abouts? I did ride the dummy in today.

If your seriously looking into one your welcome to have a poke around ours. Its a large (I’m 6′ 2″).

Wilton road, boy#1 has just started at Shirley infants
Would be good to have a closer look if you don’t mind, may see if I can use next years cyclescheme to help fund one, if Halfords can get it in for me

Yeah that was me. Eldest is at the junior. Drop me a PM and sure we can sort something out.

I have a large big dummy, it’s a fairly early one with the curved top tube

very well specced, use it for taking my kids around. The problem is that I commute to work and the weekend was my rest period, now i’m getting a workout taking them to their various clubs and then running errands on it. I’m almost certainly going to electrify it, it’s a fantastic load lugger but it’s a killer lugging a heavy load up hill

Mine has xtracycle stuff on it, plus a couple of custom made bits

Things I’d definitely recommend – double leggged kickstand, panniers, deck, u tubes, mudguards

I’d like the range of a normal 2x or 3x set up but I’m currently running a hub gear. It’s making life a lot easier on stop start stuff, you really need a low gear to get moving again but once you’re rolling it’s OK

I bought it second hand earlier this year, have used it every weekend since then (use a normal bike to commute to work on)

We have a gen. 1, formerly belonging to BigDummy of this parish

There was a time when I was all over any cargo bike thread, being boring about that bike. Now I just need to check that Ant is representing. 🙂

I’ve had one a few years currently running Hooptie with a Rohloff and Bafang BBSHD 1000w hub gear. Use it for taking the children out to the park, etc, shopping and commuting on when the weathers really bad.
Any hill or headwind made it very hard work with the kids on the back – pedal assist transforms it!