The survey was strategically done in late Summer. I concede some people could still do their shopping in Hamburg's raining 2°C, but I'd guess the comparison charts would not be as cheerful.
In hannover we have daily bike counters at certain bike lanes. The numbers go up and down depending on temperature and rain. Guess it depends on the options one has. If you still have a car you will not use the bike in the rain.
Some weather will get your poncho tightly wrapped around your head. "Deadliest catch" style overalls are more fitting, and it's not the best to walk around in.
I've ridden motorbikes for many years in a subtropical city, had all the right rain gear and it still sucked to ride in the rare +5°C rain. Even southern Germany gets snow and icy rain, good luck clothing for that.
That's a gimmick, these were never sold in any quantity.
If it's hot and humid there's just no way to ride in appropriately protective gear.
South East Asia solution is to ride in shorts and flip-flops, with expected results in even minor falls.
I live in southern Germany and have no problems clothing.
For rain and wet or very cold conditions I use rain trousers (insulate as well) and often my rain jacket.
5° rain is one of the best rain weather's, because you don't sweat easily just wearing rain cloths above your indoor cloths.
A much bigger problem here is cycling paths not being maintained in the winter and salt on the roads.
I found it bizarre that "weather-independence" was one of the least important metrics. I commuted by bike for years and it's miserable in wind and rain. The numbers of fellow cyclists varied massively depending on the weather.
Bike ≠ e-bike. My e-bike makes commuting in teeming rain kind of fun - with appropriate rain gear only my hands and face get wet, and there's very little physical effort. Trying to do the same ride on a pushbike is indeed miserable.
I'm about as enthusiastic a bike user as you'll find but I've never found 'rain kind of fun', especially not on longer distances (>40 km, my 'regular' road trip is 64K there and back for 128 in total). The road gets slippery, other people (in cars) pay less attention and have less visibility, you get soaked and if you're not careful you can get undercooled even on relatively warm days. Cold weather: no problem, wet weather: if I can avoid it I will.
I'm talking about a 10 minute 4km commute, not a multi-hour trek (which doesn't sound fun to me in any weather). I really do find it fun, and I really do only get my hands and face wet. Gumboots, rain pants, rain jacket, backpack cover, helmet cover: no way to get soaked or even damp.
> As Ars' John Timmer noted in a cargo bike review from the fall, cargo bikes are somewhat specialized for what they do—but because of their build, they're definitely second bikes.
Doesn't have to be. What about one bicycle and one bicycle cart (that's also a bicycle caravan) instead of a bicycle and another cargobike!? Like the cart/caravan from https://www.theredpanther.org (shameless plug)
Riding a long john cargo bike is much nicer than riding a bike with a trailer. Cargo bikes ride almost like a normal bike, it's easier to navigate narrow passages, and parking your cargo bike is easier than parking a bike with trailer. I can walk my cargo bike through doors on my own, it is almost impossible when riding a bike with a trailer.
It takes me 3x as long to get the trailer outside, attach it to my bike, seat the kids etc. than it does with my cargo bike.
Trailer does have bigger capacity, so it is nicer for extended trips. But for everyday riding, a cargo bike is 100x better.
True, but the article is explicitly talking about having one bicycle and another cargobike as extra. Not everybody has the money for that, or needs a cargobike everyday of the week. I for one wouldn't move kids in a bicycle trailer, so a cargobike for kids is better.
I might have like a cargo bike if I didn't like on top of a hill.
And if I didn't have 6 months of cold dark weather with snow / ice covering the roads.
They might be for major roads in major cities eventually, but most of the streets are pretty terrible for anything smaller than a car whenever it’s snows periodically.
Just search "Netherlands bicycle snowing" on Google Images to see how normal it is. The top results show both children and the elderly cycling on ice and slush and snow.
Yes it is normal here, but it is also hilariously fraught with low-stakes peril. Dumpert always has vids of people busting their ass trying to make a turn or they hit an icy patch every year. I've had a couple of falls on ice here and I am not confident of my resilience long term doing that as I get older. So I avoid biking when it is frozen. But since that is only like a week or two out of the year, it is no big deal
I mean yeah some switch to transit, but there are still lots of people on bikes. I guess I shouldn’t have said nobody changes their behavior, but rather that it’s common and totally fine to ride in those conditions, as evidenced by many people doing it in my daily commute.
I'd think that many people still commuting, doesn't erase the fact that cargo bikes (the thread topic) don't do well in those conditions.
And a critical factor is, hills. I live in a countryside that alternates between flatlands and all-hills. The towns are all around rivers (the pioneers needed water) and built close to them, and it's very hilly around rivers.
So here our experience is different from, say, the flattest country on earth.
I've ridden my bike in pretty much any condition. When it's icy, I ride with lower pressure in the tires, snow and slush is usually doable, the only thing that really sucks is when it gets cold again after a warmer day and the roads or covered with frozen slush, that's where I get off and push my bike.
It really depends on how well the roads are maintained, this winter they were quite good at clearing the snow in my city, so it wasn't much of an issue.
Yup, I do it every Scandinavian winter on a beater mountain bike that I have an extra set of wheels with studded tyres for the sketchiest days of ice-y conditions. When it's just snow/packed snow the usual deep grooved MTB tyres handle it quite well.
It only snows when it's warm (say, -10 C). Plows smear the snow into a thin layer. Then a high moves in so the temperature drops and you get asphalt covered in sheer ice that just gets polished by the sun and subsequent plowing.
In some places there's Winter, not just the pause between autumn and spring.
I live on the top of a hill and have 6 months of dark cold weather with snow and I use a cargo bike for around 12kms every day. The roads are covered with salt to prevent the ice though. Works fine overall.
I don't need scaling, why do we need to "scale" everything?
Scaling (and the efficiency that comes with it) is part of the problem, as a matter of fact, it's what normal people actually hate when they see articles about stuff like these bike gizmos, they know that they target scaling- and efficiency-obsessed tech guys, guys that have created much of the problems that most of the normal people are now in. It's the "Google bus guys in San Francisco" situation extended slowly and surely to the whole planet.
Normal people hate that simple and enjoyable stuff like bikes were until not that long ago have become a topic of interest for tech-oriented media entities like Ars Technica.
> I have no idea where those claims come from, or what you mean with normal people. Source?
See the reaction to all those speed limits zones in the UK.
Or, more generally, see the reaction to all this ecologist non-sense imposed on us here in the EU from top to down (and being forced to using bikes instead of our cars is part of that process). As a matter of fact just now there are some very angry people throwing stuff at the bureaucrats in Brussels on account of their environment-related nonsense directives.
I use my cargo bicycle everyday because I never bothered to buy a car after Uni and cars where I live would be a major pain because of traffic and parking near my flat. I do have car sharing though. I would not consider me a bike enthusiast, but I like to get my metabolism going in the morning compared to car travel. Weather is no problem, you just need to dress accordingly. Many people in my city do cycle everyday. I play basketball twice a week and 80% of the players arrive by bicycle.
Many people live in places where weather is not favorable. Also in your example these are people who actively prefer physically active lifestyle - it's called selection bias, and I bet that they don't have long commute.
Nothing against bicycles here, just pointing out that it is not a solution for everyone.
Well, basically it all comes down to density and infrastructure if people will use other means of transportation. Bicycle accounts for 1/3 of all trips city wide.
Forcing people to active by either (partly) walking or cycling has great benefits for the public.
What is their accident rate during winter? Cycling on ice is something I definitely will avoid even when the wheels are spiked.
I have seen this passive/aggressive policing in my city against the car commuters (I'm using public transport mainly) while the main cause of the problem is not the commuters but the city that doesn't encourage enough residential real estate development near the large office hubs.
Careful. Because it works in a very cold place doesn't mean it works in a place that is not as cold.
Here (Pacific Northwest coastal areas) winters don't get cold enough for long enough to freeze the ground. We don't get a lot of snow but when we do it often starts as snow that is barely frozen. It melts and we get a layer of water on top of roads. Then if the air temperature drops to near freezing as the storm progresses that layer of water freezes, and gets covered with snow, We end up with snow on top of big patches of ice.
Compare to places where they get frozen ground and the air too spends a lot of time below freezing. They get snow on top of frozen ground instead of snow on top of an ice layer.
Fortunately we only get days where the air is cold enough to keep the ground heat from keeping the ground clear a few days a year and with plenty of warning so most people can just avoid traveling then.
While this might be true, you'd have to study that as well to be sure. So essentially the question is what would happen if you for instance in a city take people from across the population and force them to use a cargo bike.
Joking apart (for I am joking, I'd never sponsor something that forces people to do things they don't want) My only point is that whenever I read something like this... well it stinks, because it goes against what I perceive as common sense.
Someone took my first comment too seriously, my point being that after so many studies read, weighted, measured and found wanting... I don't want to waste my time reading something that doesn't pass the smell test.
Who did they interview? People who have cargo bikes
Do they like them? Yes they bought them and either liked them to begin with, or are rationalizing, then there is a minority who's objective.
Ask people with Mercedes what's the car brand they like the most.
For example: I drive an Alfa Romeo and once I was stopped by a guy (in Germany) that asked me if I wanted to join a Italian Car Club... and he was the proud driver of a FIAT Tipo, not a car I'd buy for it's beauty or one I'd show in a car club, yet he liked it, and we are discussing a study that hinges on what people like?
EDIT: just to say... I agree with you, there's a bit of selection bias at work here
True and to further nit pick, a study‘s conclusion is not always a fact.
By now we know that Studies confuse correlation with causation, fail to isolate correctly, are paid for by vested interests, are not reproducible or fabricated
Not to be too tin foil but that’s how it is, so it’s ok to call BS but I get your view that calling anything we don’t like BS leads no where
Electric cargo bikes could replace a lot of 'city' traffic for many people. Definitely in countries like Belgium / The Netherlands where there is a bigger cycling culture.
It mostly handles the use-case of "larger grocery shopping".
The long distance travelling is still the one that will require most people to own a car.
TLDR: From my observation. I use my car for 2 things:
- Larger shopping for cheaper goods ( supermarket). Electric Cargo bikes could fix this.
- Further distances > 20 km.
Edit: After my comment, I started reading the article and it's similar to what the article claims:
> It's not likely to totally replace your car, nor will it probably be your only bike. But access to a cargo bike can reduce car trips, and even car ownership, a study from Germany suggests.
One thing I did not appreciate until I got an electric cargo bike is how they are faster than cars for typical city journeys if there’s any level of traffic.
I live in a city of 5 million people and if I needed to get across town in a hurry I’d take my cargo bike, not my car.
My cargo bike usually beats the google maps car estimate by about 20%.
I've seen this study before that claims that air pollution is worse for car drivers[1][2] than cyclists and pedestrians. If that's true a cargo bike is going to be a win over driving if air quality is an issue for you.
Take with a pinch of salt though, I can also see counter studies[3].
In older cars without cabin filters, it makes sense that air pollution is at least as bad inside the car as it is outside, it is, after all, the same air.
But modern cars usually have cabin filters, which, if good enough, well maintained, and leak-free, should result in a significant improvement. I know Tesla made it a marketing point for the Model X, but I believe all cars built in the last decade or two have at least some kind of filtration.
On top of this you can close the circulation in cars. Something I often do and something that is not possible when cycling. I can choose routes that don't pass major city intersections but if that is not the case then it is clear disadvantage for cyclists. Electric cars will tremendously improve the situation and make more routes viable for cyclists.
Melbourne has a lot of cars but the air quality is nonetheless good by world standards.
The roads are car-dominated and not very friendly to bike on. There are a few bike trails which are great, but they aren't well-connected to each other, so aren't useful unless there happens to be one exactly where you want to go.
I use my cargo bicycle every day for everything even if I would not need it. The cargo use case is for carrying children around (e.g. kindergarden) or shopping. I do not have a car, but I have another bicycle but I use that on very few occasions like train travel.
Recently moved into the city (Vienna) from the country, finding myself in the delightful situation that I can walk everywhere I need to go - groceries, entertainment, shopping, etc. I simply don't need a car. I find myself actively yearning to ride my bicycle everywhere.
So I think also just changing your environment to a more walking-friendly one is another great way to ditch the car. What a pity so few in the Western world can experience the delights of their own self-locomotion being sufficient to their daily needs ..
> What a pity so few in the Western world can experience the delights of their own self-locomotion being sufficient to their daily needs ..
Most countries do indeed have cities and high-population areas that support this, and many folks do experience it.
I lived that life for ~15 years, and it was truly great at the time. Turns out I started disliking the sheer density, and prefer to be slightly more self sufficient.
I found living in London for a short while feels like a prison of sorts.( It is amazing of course. Not knocking the place over all!) But it is a subtle effect but the lack of walking through a field every now and then (not a over populated park!) and seeing a horizon is something I missed deeply in the subconscious.
Some cities especially near the ocean or just less dense etc. are not as encaging.
Also walking everywhere is good and bad. Getting a lot of shopping home a car is much better at. Maybe one of those cargo bikes had I know of its existence would have done the trick! But walking for everything can be tiring. Depends on your health level.
I don’t think that says anything useful about the topology of the places relative to cycling. What’s the average ascent on a 10km cycle around San Francisco? My guess is that it’s something like 20 meters in Amsterdam.
89 comments
[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 151 ms ] threadAnd my kid/dog sit nice and dry under the hood of the cargo area.
I've ridden motorbikes for many years in a subtropical city, had all the right rain gear and it still sucked to ride in the rare +5°C rain. Even southern Germany gets snow and icy rain, good luck clothing for that.
Edit: of course it already exists: https://newatlas.com/entrosys-motorcycle-airconditioner-revi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_cooling_and_ventilation...
A much bigger problem here is cycling paths not being maintained in the winter and salt on the roads.
today it was 25 deg C at 6am and over 32 deg C at 5pm when I would have to ride home.
I'll ride it every now and again, but honestly its too much to do on a regular basis.
Doesn't have to be. What about one bicycle and one bicycle cart (that's also a bicycle caravan) instead of a bicycle and another cargobike!? Like the cart/caravan from https://www.theredpanther.org (shameless plug)
It takes me 3x as long to get the trailer outside, attach it to my bike, seat the kids etc. than it does with my cargo bike.
Trailer does have bigger capacity, so it is nicer for extended trips. But for everyday riding, a cargo bike is 100x better.
Ice is not problem with studded tires. And isn't snow is usually plowed from the roads so cars or bikes could pass?
The bike paths are a bit less busy but basically nobody changes their behavior except to go slower around the icy corners.
This is in Netherlands
Better comment:
I'd think that many people still commuting, doesn't erase the fact that cargo bikes (the thread topic) don't do well in those conditions.
And a critical factor is, hills. I live in a countryside that alternates between flatlands and all-hills. The towns are all around rivers (the pioneers needed water) and built close to them, and it's very hilly around rivers.
So here our experience is different from, say, the flattest country on earth.
It really depends on how well the roads are maintained, this winter they were quite good at clearing the snow in my city, so it wasn't much of an issue.
I took the bus when it got to -30, though. Or, as they reported it then, a wind chill of 2400 watts per square meter.
In some places there's Winter, not just the pause between autumn and spring.
Scaling (and the efficiency that comes with it) is part of the problem, as a matter of fact, it's what normal people actually hate when they see articles about stuff like these bike gizmos, they know that they target scaling- and efficiency-obsessed tech guys, guys that have created much of the problems that most of the normal people are now in. It's the "Google bus guys in San Francisco" situation extended slowly and surely to the whole planet.
Normal people hate that simple and enjoyable stuff like bikes were until not that long ago have become a topic of interest for tech-oriented media entities like Ars Technica.
Well, ok, then I simply misunderstood the intent of your comment.
Normal people hate
I have no idea where those claims come from, or what you mean with normal people. Source?
E.g. wouldn't normal people rather just ignore articles about stuff they do not care about instead of hating it?
See the reaction to all those speed limits zones in the UK.
Or, more generally, see the reaction to all this ecologist non-sense imposed on us here in the EU from top to down (and being forced to using bikes instead of our cars is part of that process). As a matter of fact just now there are some very angry people throwing stuff at the bureaucrats in Brussels on account of their environment-related nonsense directives.
People who ride bicycles are happier and healthier .. prove me wrong.
That just comes from a position of able-ism, of a person who still thinks her/his/their knees will last for ever.
Actually that makes a lot of sense.
Case in point I am not, I was convinced to buy a cargo bike, and I still like my car very much, particularly when it's rainy and/or cold
Still like the bike in warm summer days, but in winter... only car
Nothing against bicycles here, just pointing out that it is not a solution for everyone.
Well, basically it all comes down to density and infrastructure if people will use other means of transportation. Bicycle accounts for 1/3 of all trips city wide.
Forcing people to active by either (partly) walking or cycling has great benefits for the public.
I have seen this passive/aggressive policing in my city against the car commuters (I'm using public transport mainly) while the main cause of the problem is not the commuters but the city that doesn't encourage enough residential real estate development near the large office hubs.
Here (Pacific Northwest coastal areas) winters don't get cold enough for long enough to freeze the ground. We don't get a lot of snow but when we do it often starts as snow that is barely frozen. It melts and we get a layer of water on top of roads. Then if the air temperature drops to near freezing as the storm progresses that layer of water freezes, and gets covered with snow, We end up with snow on top of big patches of ice.
Compare to places where they get frozen ground and the air too spends a lot of time below freezing. They get snow on top of frozen ground instead of snow on top of an ice layer.
Fortunately we only get days where the air is cold enough to keep the ground heat from keeping the ground clear a few days a year and with plenty of warning so most people can just avoid traveling then.
Joking apart (for I am joking, I'd never sponsor something that forces people to do things they don't want) My only point is that whenever I read something like this... well it stinks, because it goes against what I perceive as common sense.
Someone took my first comment too seriously, my point being that after so many studies read, weighted, measured and found wanting... I don't want to waste my time reading something that doesn't pass the smell test.
Who did they interview? People who have cargo bikes Do they like them? Yes they bought them and either liked them to begin with, or are rationalizing, then there is a minority who's objective.
Ask people with Mercedes what's the car brand they like the most.
For example: I drive an Alfa Romeo and once I was stopped by a guy (in Germany) that asked me if I wanted to join a Italian Car Club... and he was the proud driver of a FIAT Tipo, not a car I'd buy for it's beauty or one I'd show in a car club, yet he liked it, and we are discussing a study that hinges on what people like?
EDIT: just to say... I agree with you, there's a bit of selection bias at work here
"That's bollocks, I still like my car very much"
A completely valid study can find something to be true, one person's anecdote doesn't change the result.
Doesn't mean this isn't a valid study, but "it's bollocks because I don't think so" is not really a scientific reaction
By now we know that Studies confuse correlation with causation, fail to isolate correctly, are paid for by vested interests, are not reproducible or fabricated
Not to be too tin foil but that’s how it is, so it’s ok to call BS but I get your view that calling anything we don’t like BS leads no where
Electric cargo bikes could replace a lot of 'city' traffic for many people. Definitely in countries like Belgium / The Netherlands where there is a bigger cycling culture.
It mostly handles the use-case of "larger grocery shopping".
The long distance travelling is still the one that will require most people to own a car.
TLDR: From my observation. I use my car for 2 things:
- Larger shopping for cheaper goods ( supermarket). Electric Cargo bikes could fix this.
- Further distances > 20 km.
Edit: After my comment, I started reading the article and it's similar to what the article claims:
> It's not likely to totally replace your car, nor will it probably be your only bike. But access to a cargo bike can reduce car trips, and even car ownership, a study from Germany suggests.
I live in a city of 5 million people and if I needed to get across town in a hurry I’d take my cargo bike, not my car.
My cargo bike usually beats the google maps car estimate by about 20%.
Take with a pinch of salt though, I can also see counter studies[3].
1. https://www.slideshare.net/JamesTate22/exposure-to-the-traff...
2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489...
3. https://www.eauc.org.uk/cyclists_on_busy_roads_
But modern cars usually have cabin filters, which, if good enough, well maintained, and leak-free, should result in a significant improvement. I know Tesla made it a marketing point for the Model X, but I believe all cars built in the last decade or two have at least some kind of filtration.
The roads are car-dominated and not very friendly to bike on. There are a few bike trails which are great, but they aren't well-connected to each other, so aren't useful unless there happens to be one exactly where you want to go.
So I think also just changing your environment to a more walking-friendly one is another great way to ditch the car. What a pity so few in the Western world can experience the delights of their own self-locomotion being sufficient to their daily needs ..
Most countries do indeed have cities and high-population areas that support this, and many folks do experience it.
I lived that life for ~15 years, and it was truly great at the time. Turns out I started disliking the sheer density, and prefer to be slightly more self sufficient.
Some cities especially near the ocean or just less dense etc. are not as encaging.
Also walking everywhere is good and bad. Getting a lot of shopping home a car is much better at. Maybe one of those cargo bikes had I know of its existence would have done the trick! But walking for everything can be tiring. Depends on your health level.