Cargo Bikes

Do you need to slow the steering down a bit on that? It’s difficult to tell from the pic but it looks a bit like the steerer arm at the bar end is longer than the arm at the wheel end. You want them both the same length and ideally both headtubes at the same angle so that both ends follow the same locus.

Or you’ll ride it around for ages and get used to it then steering will feel mad when you get back on a regular bike 😂

Steering felt unnatural so probably the lengths are not correct, but I assumed the different lengths are to compensate for the different headtube angles. I need to dampen and restrict the movement. I tried quickly in the bad weather on friday and the front wheel was like a fishtail, shook and wobbled, and when correcting it was easy to oversteer and lock out the wheel.

For sure there is an element of inexperience, but I want to restrict the potential to oversteer and lock out, reduce the wobbling of the front wheel - I would hope that aids steering and control, when I can trust the front wheel not to make its own decisions.

I think that maybe the steerer rod needed tightening down too, as it had a chance to swing about a bit which didn’t help at all.

Will report back once I get home and can test it this week sometime.

I think that maybe the steerer rod needed tightening down too, as it had a chance to swing about a bit which didn’t help at all.

This happens on the Urban Arrows too. They provide a bungee (basically a hench elastic band) that prevents the arm from swinging around and dampens the steering a little. I’ll take a picture for you

Really had to mess around with the arms to make the steering feel o. k
Started with long arms and straight rod and messed from there, it was a tricky part of the process I'd say, my head angles are definitely different so made it a challenge

Hey mccamb how much you after for the gt? Pm me

https://imgur.com/a/naCaXJb

I want a tall bike now.

I saw this the other day in Maastricht (photo not mine). Nice!

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Yea those look pretty good!
Do you know who makes them?

Flevobike/Velove developed them (quick websearch: https://www.velove.se/#more-armadillo)

Thanks!

So one way or another I’ll:

1. Attach a bungee/elastic to the rod+frame to limit lateral swing
   
2. Attach a spring/damper to the forks+frame to reduce steering and fork wobble
   
3. Maybe attach a limiter to the steer assembly to avoid oversteer wheel lockout
   
4. New bike
   

Oh my god, yes.

Riding/steering that must be a bit of a challenge.

Thanks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LoVumtR1M4

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Beautiful and relaxing.

I was out on the cargo bike this morning doing the nursery drop off. we’ve done about 300 miles together now on the bike and everything is running smoothly. I’ve re rigged the cargo straps so they don’t go under the frame of the bike, they just go round the cargo deck and the steel sub frame of the baby seat. it makes them less obvious and keeps all of the load on the steel Frames.

Jobs still to do, I need a bigger chain ring, I’m only using the first 3 or 4 gears and it spins out very easily on the flat. Side note, xt 1x11 is fucking brilliant. The last thing I fitted gears to had thumb shifters. 1x11 was so easy.

Also would like some more cargo space out front, but that needs to not get in the way of me storing it on the front end.

Anyway a photo with the baby seat folded up after the drop off.

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Some kinda update...

Tried yesterday to attach the shoe tree spring with hose clips, failed. Ordered a proper steerer dampener thing from scamazon. Should arrive tomorrow.

In the mean time today I attached a hollow aluminium tube to the front centre as a steer limiter, with the hose clips. It worked as expected as a proof of concept - all I had was the alum from a desk lamp, but for sure a rubber-coated steel would’ve worked best. I managed to get a half mile down the path to the shops with only one or two minor wobbles.

Then, going under the underpass the bike accelerated, the rod swung wildly speed wobble ensued and bam! I jumped off as it slammed to a halt.

The rod was jammed on the other side of the frame, the forks were 180’ the wrong way, and the alum tube was folded in half. Did not enjoy carrying the bike on my shoulder the whole way back - didn’t carry tools with me, stupidly, and the rod is impossible to pull back under the frame. Won’t make that mistake again.

Cycled the Giant Acid to run errands and thanks to the scrapyard I have a solid brass rod as a limiter. It will still bend if the force exerted on it is too great, but as a ‘guide’ it should limit accidental oversteer as proved by the sacrificial lamp.

Finally I removed the wooden bed and used some scrap elastic lace to act as bungee and hold the steering rod in place.

Of the three makeshift solutions I’m adopting, probably the elastic bungee is the key to a smooth ride.

Daren’t actually try it again until the dampener arrives tomorrow. I really hope it works.

Nightmarish! Glad you weren't injured.

Sounds like wheel flop

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_and_motorcycle_geometry#Wheel_flop

doesn't look like you've got many options for fixing the geometry aside from a new fork...

Also the single tube heading to the front of the bike (and the dropped top tube, also) is going to make it really torsionally flexy which will definitely contribute to your steering problems. When you compare to something like this with the three tubes you can see how yours is going to have a way less rigid front end, which is going to feed back into the steering... maybe you could have someone add some tubes around the sides to give a more bucket-like shape at the front? And a really short stem and 800mm-wide bars might give you more leverage to control the front wheel also.

Did some riding in the snow today. Handled surprisingly well.

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...groan.

Yep had I known earlier then definitely woulda got the guy to make something different, especially the addition of the extra support bars.

Will report back tomorrow once all three ‘solutions’ are in place.

Certainly not cheap, a couple hundred quid and days and days of my life invested so far, but this was the cheapest route to finding out if cargo would work. I just need it to actually work so I can see, and then i can look to saving for a solid real cargo bike.

Not planning on carrying heavy loads, only light loads but I didn’t enjoy over 15kg in a single wheel trailer. Or else would have stuck with that.

What size front wheel/tyre have you got - looks about 2"? You could try a smaller tyre to drop the front end and thus reduce the trail and increase head angle a little bit. And yeah, fit the widest bars and shortest stem you can find (that bike place you work at?)

Also, can you use a piece of metal with holes (like big mechano) to extend the pole on the forks so it matches or is longer than the one at the steerer end?

You can then try different holes to see if there is a sweet spot.

Does that make any sense?

All good advice, thanks. It's less than 2" but not by much. Bars are pretty wide but stem is long as was the only one I had to hand. Will source a stubby stem asap. The steering is pretty responsive, it's not sluggish to turn.

It's the loss of control at that exponential point of no return when the rod swings and changes the steering dynamics. As it swings it is applying extra sharp turning hence the wobble, flop, and slam, and I can't correct it since the effective steering angles change. I'll see how things go tomorrow with the damper + bungee. Even static, on the stand, the rod was noticeably more stable so I hope that if it is free to move fore/aft but not lateral that could be the ticket.

That bike shop went bad, after a new mechanic started the atmosphere changed so I stopped helping out in there. In fact, it's so bad now that I stopped spending my coin in there whenever possible.