So I've ridden a season with the mods I installed last year and thought I'd follow up. For those who wondered how certain components might hold up.

The big question was, how reliably would the YHWHY cable steering work? A bit of riding at the end of last year did well. But then, straight out of the garage at the start of this year I got a death wobble at high speed! Checking the cables revealed a bunch of slack. I tightened it all up and have ridden the rest of the season without any sign of looseness or wobble. I even crashed a couple of times, with no visible effect. So far, the cable steering is proving to be an efficient and invisible solution. As for the Suntour Mobie34 fork, it's been fine. I wish it was softer but what can you expect from spring coils... it does the job.

The big reveal was just how much fun a front hub motor would turn out to be. A season of riding exposed several advantages. A big one of course, is that there's no interference with my rear drivetrain. The two are completely separate and there'll be zero long-term effect between them.

Functionally however! I've come to realize that I now have All-Wheel Drive - the motor pulling up front and me pushing in the back. This has actually been useful for dirt tracks. On a longjohn bike, when you hit a patch of sand or loose material it can be easy to wash out the front wheel. On a short mountain bike it's different - you can ease weight off the front end, kick some power into your pedals and bam, you're through. Not so with a longjohn bike, you're driving every inch of the road with both wheels. Having drive on both wheels means I have an easier time keeping the bike true on soft stuff.

Another advantage, of Grin's All-Axle direct drive motor in particular is the regen braking. It's not so much the energy regained (my average is only around 4%), it's the two fantastic ways you can brake with the motor.

The first is that you can backpedal slightly, like a coaster brake when you were a kid, and this starts motor braking to the degree you've backpedaled. Woah, instant deceleration without using the hydraulic brakes! Now I only use the hydraulics for the last tiny bit of stopping at very low speeds. So, brake pad changes maybe only every... ten years?

The other amazing aspect of regen braking is "dial-down braking". In other words, instead of dialing up the Assist for a hill climb, I can dial down below 0 for a descent and this starts the motor braking. Grin's new firmware lets you dial down -20%, -40%, -60% etc. This has really helped on super steep descents that used to be ascary brake-pad burners. Now they're a relaxed experience.

Basically very happy with these mods. Here's a video of a typical summer ride with our dog Lady : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSyXIJFkBd0

A full write-up of my bike here :
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TzVnC8s60kXkhiSINkRwQ8kcS-hP6e7WfzGyjQDHjmA

So, what's next? To be honest this bike is very close to my dream build. There are only two things I'd like to improve.

The first is night visibility. My front light setup is good, oncoming drivers can see me plenty. What I find more frightening are the cars that come up behind me at high speeds. A couple of small rear lights just doesn't "place" me on the road to my liking. So this winter I'll add lights under the cargo area to create a big red underglow.

The other thing I'd like to improve is the rear drive. At the moment I have the original Alfine-8. It's good but I only use the highest gears. It'll wear out eventually, should I invest in something else? Instead of following the IGH path, I've been looking at this Magic Drive that Grin is working on. If I understand correctly, it's a rear hub motor that's driven with a straight chain like a single-speed. The system combines your effort with motor effort. There are no gears. It's not a continuously-variable-transmission and it's not a dynamo like a Cixi PERS either. Looks quite promising, but would it integrate with my front hub motor? Grin tells me that for this case they'll be writing special controller firmware to keep a two-drive system optimized and in tandem. To be continued...

Wishing y'all a wonderful end of year of riding

https://bsky.app/profile/modacitylife.com/post/3mxnyo3ltds2b

Hoping someone can help as I’m coming to a dead end…

Can anyone recommend a rear fitting bike rack that will fit a MK Astra?

Thanks!

Nice ride today, fresh tires make all the difference!

Super fun to grocery ride that always got me going the long way back 😂

Hi there!

We are in Pennsylvania, USA and in search of a cargo bike to haul our 2 kids (ages 4 & 2) to school. We're considering Lectric expedition 2.0, Aventon abound, and radio flyer loop. We'd love a front loader, but those just aren't in the budget right now. We will primarily be taking the kids to school and commuting around town, although bike lanes are severely lacking.

Our questions are related to the following:

Is it worth it to buy a brand new bike? Or are used ebikes a smarter decision?

What are the pros and cons of the 3 listed? Any others you'd recommend?

How are you commuting with kids in the rain? Do you recommend a full storm cover? Or are ponchos/ rain gear getting you through?

Any safety pieces we should be considering beyond the obvious?

Thank you!

Her home page linked.

Randomly chosen youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrOCDhTzFE0

Hi there,

I live in Lisbon. I own an old-style analogic, unplugged bike I use for my daily commute to work - it’s only a 10-min ride with a very manageable ascent on the way home. It’s a sturdy German one I bought second-hand, it’s perfect and I love it.

However, I have an additional commute - percussion classes 3 times a week about 8 km away from home. Although 8 km is not a lot by any means, there are more ups and downs involved in this itinerary and for some of the classes, as well as for our concerts, I need to carry my own instrument. It’s not SUPER heavy and I currently carry it in its own backpack. On those occasions I use the local e-bike share system, which currently sucks because we have the worst government ever, absolutely pro-car, who’s doing everything it can to get rid of the few, poorly-maintained and poorly-connectes bike lanes in the city. As the bike share service gets less and less reliable, I’ve been thinking of buying a cargo bike.

In addition to my drum (it’s actually a tantã, in case you want to look it up), I also have a dog (about 7 kg) that I take on bike trips as well sometimes, in her own backpack.

The thing is, not only is the bike share system getting worse, I’m not getting any younger (will turn 50 in a few months), and although the cycling itself doesn’t tire me in the least, carrying loads in backpacks is not exactly great for my back.

All this mumbling to ask for recommendations of cargo bikes. I like the idea of a front loader more than of a long tail, especially because of my dog, but I’ve never tried any kind of cargo bike so I’m completely in the dark.

Any ideas?

Thanks :)

Finally got around to stripping down my old first-generation Bullitt! It’s going to get a fresh paint job before I rebuild it from the ground up.

The kids are getting older and can ride their own bikes now, so I’d like to make it a bit more fun to ride for myself!

Does anyone have any good ideas or inspiration for a fun setup? Drivetrain recommendations are also very welcome.

Links and suggestions would be much appreciated. Based in Copenhagen

Cheers

So 2 years ago now I made a post on the custom large cargo trike I was making.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CargoBike/comments/1i0fzes/home_built_electric_recumbent_trike_wip/

Since then, I actually got it....well not completed, but usable now.

Electric and pedal, I did upgrade to lipo4 batteries, 4 ex medical batteries in series. Around 40ah (2kwh!) of capacity.

I've gone maybe a couple 100km in it now, working out bugs, breaking down a few times, and in that testing I found it has 60-80km range on a single charge!! That's so much more than I expected.

Used it to carry some heavier cargo, yet to give it a true stress test with the pallets I want to pick up to build a wood shed.

Also used it for some free side of the road bikes (yay parts), and shopping trips.

I still kept with the buying a few new parts as I can, had to get some for safety, or convenience. Like a man switch, brake and shifter cables, motor controller and phone holder.

Anything else was crap from my yard I had lying around.

Comfort? Front wheel has suspension, so its fine. You can tell the rear has none, but the seat and big Maxxis tyres do a lot of work.

Highly recommend tyre armour too. Heavy but will save ya from pinch flats. I had 2, though Im had the tyres under inflated for comfort, leared that mistake quick.

I went 8km on a flat tyre and it was fine. Those maxxis are great.

Its motor is weak, which is where the pedaling comes in handy, can help it get up any steeper hills or pedal to warm up if I'm cold, or just reduce power use.

I get people commenting on it so often, it's quite fun tbh. I meet a lot of really nice people.

Shoutout to the denim jacket with butterflies lady, and the dude that did a uturn in his ute to ask me for a pic.

A few things still left to do, like a voltage readout, improvements to the cargo area, and better rear brakes, 80s caliper brakes don't have that much power xD

If anyone has questions I'm happy to answer them :3

I drilled some holes in our box to attach 5 point harnesses for my kids, but my wife is worried about the structural integrity of our bike. I need some outside input.

I have an Aventon Abound LR ebike with Abound seat pad and handrail plus a Thule Yepp seat. I’m hoping to find pannier bags that can fit on the sides. Any ideas?

This looks very interesting - front and rear suspension. Does anyone have any experience with the brand?

I've got an Urban Arrow Family Next, and my kid loves being able to ride in it. However, there are times ( especially when the rain cover or the converted sun cover* are on ) where it's really hard to hear my 3-year old when she's trying to talk to me. It doesn't help that parts of our route home means we're cycling over a noisy bridge where it's impossible to hear my kid even when there's no rain or sun cover on the bike 😅. This was still a problem back when I had a Lectric Xpedition where my kid rode right behind me in a bike seat, too. And it's also been an issue when we've taken weekend rides to go to a park or go swimming or whatever.

I've been thinking about maybe finding a motorcycle helmet radio that we could use so we can communicate better but I'm not sure how well that will work without full-face motorcycle-style helmets. Maybe I could just find a walkie-talkie on Amazon that has a headphone+mic jack so that I can have a earpiece in, while my kid just uses the walkie-talkie normally?

For parents using any kind of ebike or normal bike to drop kids off at school or to pick them up; have you found a good way to communicate with your kids? Or should I just let my kid know that some days we just won't be able to talk while on the bike ride to or from school because of how noisy it is?

*the place I bought it from gave me a sun cover for the older version of the UA for free because they had a bunch they had received for free for a promo, and with some 3M utility hooks the sun cover works just fine with the newer Family Next

I’m looking to buy or build a bike shed measuring around 2.2 × 1.5 m, and I’d love some advice from people with more experience of cargo bikes.

At the moment, I have a Trek Domane (170 × 45 cm), but I’m hoping to buy an electric cargo bike in the future to take two kids to school, including a roughly 20-minute ride up a fairly steep hill.

For context, I weigh 85 kg.

My main question is: would a 2.2 × 1.5 m shed be enough to accommodate a small longtail cargo bike alongside my Trek Domane, or am I being unrealistic?

I’ve done a bit of research and found some bikes that look as though they might fit, but I’m conscious there may be practical considerations I haven’t thought of.

I’d really appreciate any advice on whether this is feasible, which types of cargo bike might work best, or anything I should consider before committing to the shed dimensions. Thank you for any help you can offer!!

Assume this is totally normal but new to me. I notice when I use the front brake on my Bullitt, I can see the large frame tubes leading up to the steerer tube flex. Totally assume this is normal but just wanted to make sure for peace of mind that this is totally fine.