Dutch Cargo Bike Review

I convinced myself not long ago that a bicycle for carrying children was a completely unjustified expense.  Luckily, I soon convinced myself that it was indeed worthwhile, and that it wasn't actually that expensive, in fact, it represented value for money.

The sparkling new bakfiets.nl cargo bike, supplied through Dutch Cargo Bike, arrived several weeks ago to my local bike shop.  Since then, I have used the bike daily for the commute to work, to the shops, to day care, to pick up my wife from yoga – you name it. It is now time for an early review. But first, I need to explain how this value conscious economist ended up with a $3000+ bike and even became a promotional family for the Dutch Cargo Bike brand.

For the non-cyclist the prices of these bikes can be a shock.  We see so many bikes for sale for $500 and so many second hand cars for sale for $5000 - we have trouble seeing where all the money goes on a bicycle! Bikes are meant to be cheap, cars are meant to be more expensive. Avid cyclists would know, however, just how much high quality equipment can cost, and this bike is very high quality.

You need to understand that the ongoing costs for cycling are extremely low, and lower with higher quality components.  I can imagine in 5 years when our youngest child is happily riding themselves we might have less use for the bike, but it would be reasonable, given the high quality of all the parts on this bike, to expect the bike to be very good condition.  If the bike sold for $1800 in five years time, you are looking at a total 5 year total cost of around $1500 (including servicing, tyres etc) or about $300 per year, or $5.70 per week –a little more than one bus fare – which is a bargain for a young family given the great health and social benefits from family cycling (the alert reader will note there is an opportunity cost to the forgone $3000 that could have been alternatively invested, say at 6%, which adds another $180 per year).

I believe this bike represents good value for our family, so what are my first impressions?

The Dutch Cargo Bike team arranged delivery and assembly at my local bikes shop, Good Concepts.  What first struck me about the bike was the attention to detail – rubber antislip coating on the floor of the box, with a ledge for kids to use to help them climb in, a magnetic latch for the very stable four-prong kick stand (patented design by Maarten van Andel), and built in elastic straps for securing loads to the heavy duty rear rack, not to mention the very bright generator light as standard equipment.

The bike rides incredibly smoothly.  In fact I can cross manoeuvrability from my cons list and shift it to the pros list. After a bit of practice you can steer this puppy easily through tight gaps, even loaded with four children. And slow, well, it’s actually not as sluggish as I expected either.  After a week of riding this fairly weighty beast my legs seem to have built up the strength to ride at breakneck pace and tackle those hills that seemed so intimidating at first.

The box is extremely strong.  It looks like flimsy plywood in photos, but is almost one centimetre think, does not scratch easily, and does not flex under heavy loads. Even with my wife and son (80+kgs) on board it feels solid and safe.

The most unexpected benefit of the bike is that after a laid back ride and lots of smiles and waves from passersby, you always arrive happy.