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2k is gonna be tight to get a Bullitt or similar. Would recommend you get a 2nd hand one as seats, lights, locks, canopy, cover etc. all will drive the cost up. If you want to use it all year round these elements will be essential for the comfort of the passenger!

Definitely test ride one, they are very capable but a lot harder work than a traditional bike to ride. You'll soon realise that single speed is not a good option! Alfine is a good option to avoid maintenance, but derailleur is the most efficient.

20 miles is a long way on a cargo bike. I've done over that on quite a few trips and you certainly feel it in your legs! I'm not mega-fit because I only commute these days. I've done a lot of racing over the years so still have a reasonable level of fitness (not by my standards!). I mostly ride our Douze (like a Bullitt) and every now and then I ride my fixed and boy, that bike feels so fast compared to the cargo bike!

@pascalo mentioned electric assist which wouldn't be a bad idea for longer distances, especially when loaded/up hills/headwinds.

Good luck!!!

The gearing probably is a little on the low-side. I guess it depends on how many hills you have around you/how much you end up carrying load-wise. A long-gaunt on a cargo bike certainly can tire the legs, but that's probably more my issue wanting to ride it like at 'normal' bike speeds! :)

I upgraded our brakes with 180mm discs (which i think you have) as I wanted more power, just watch out in the wet when bike is unloaded as front locks-up very easily, something worth testing without precious loads onboard! I ride our bike all year round including rain/ice/snow and have just about stayed upright 100% of the time so far despite some seriously dodgy conditions.

Liking the new sleek headset on the Bullitt, not sure what they have done, but keep wondering if I could do a similar thing on the Douze?

Proper nice bits on that! :) Have a love-hate relationship with our Alfine 8, but seeing the XT groupo on that makes me crave the performance of proper derailleur gears! Brakes must be awesome too...

Good luck getting your daughter onboard, I'm sure she'll come around and soon you will all be bombing around the place with big grins, dog included.

Awesome Bullitt. Great setup! My boy would love that bike solely based on the colour.

Ha! That is normally the case, but I have x2 deadlines in work I need manage before the weekend, so suspect a late night tonight... :(

Yep, a tad wet & windy in London today. I'm very happy in the rain, must be my Welsh upbringing! :) Canopy is also great in the sun to keep the heat/UV rays off the little man. roll all the windows up and there's plenty of airflow, plus a built-in fly screen on the front.

Our boy is 4 so he's on a small Isla Cnoc (14" from memory).

We lay down a thin sheet of neoprene over the rack (or anything to stop metal-on-metal) and put bike on it's side and then bungee the hell out of it to pull it down against the rack. His bike sticks out the back a bit but works well. We leave the canopy on the bike virtually all the time so this limits the amount of stuff we can have hanging out the front of the bike...

Another day our boy is glad his parents bought a bike with a full canopy...
https://photos.app.goo.gl/4PEQkHt5ydTyGPWz7

Another day our boy is glad his parents bought a bike with full canopy...

We fitted a rear rack on our Douze that enables us to bungee our boys bike on the back because once you chuck a kid in the front with a bag, there's not a lot of room left! Use rear rack for pannier too as it means I can use the same bag for my work stuff whether I'm on the cargo or fixed.

Nice conversion! No doubt the Jack Russell loves going in/on the bike. 15 miles each way on that machine will certainly keep you fit. Good to see the bike being put to good use now kids are too big. Can't ever see us getting rid of our cargo bike unless space becomes a huge issue. Big fan of BIG L O N G bikes! :)

Good to know the Douze can handle such a crazy weight. Think my legs would certainly struggle especially on an incline. Seen the pictures of your Douze you've posted previously, hope the updated electric assist is behaving itself and reliable these days.

I think the issue I have is that I keep trying to ride our cargo bike like an ordinary bike and being a long time racing cyclist I can't help but want to go fast, hence the need to slow down at pretty rapidly at times.

Those Metallics boxes look great, think once our boy has outgrown the cargo bike I'd be keen to put a hard box like them on. Good luck with the project!

@Vince
Won't you be going way over the maximum recommended load for the Douze? I think it's 120kg... I've had up to about 80kg in the front of mine and you certainly feel the bike flex around a lot with a heavy load. Makes sense to make best use of the available space you have. I'd upgrade the rotor size on the discs to help braking with such big loads... I had 160mm DIA rotors and they weren't good enough so now have 180mm DIA, although I know the Tektro levers & calipers aren't great but I just can't keep spending more and more money on bikes... :)

Went back to the land of my fathers over Easter and went here on Good Friday:
http://www.anna-loka.com/

Great food, hipster/hippy decor, super relaxed atmosphere, take your own booze, open kitchen with a bank of fridge/freezers between two seating areas...

Saw a chef walking to one of the freezers with a ton of tupperware, one of them labeled GF SHIT, assume this was Gluten Free SHIT... :)

Will be definitely be going back!

Know a guy who has one in Chiswick to cart his x2 kids around. He loves it. It's L O N G but rides well, especially with the e-assist. Agree with @Rubbish&Mattresses as they look do look ugly/engineered rather than designed. An example of this are the rigid side panels being held together by a ratchet strap, looks like a bit of bodge but actually works well...

@Jon.
I guess so, but still stand by my comment. Both offer similar performance and load area etc. The handling on the Douze is far more neutral and makes tight manoeuvres possible vs. track road steering which is great for filtering when the traffic is really built up. For a family bike the Douze has superior canopy, seat & harnesses vs. the Bullitt.

The Bullitt's have been around 10 years+ (from memory) so are very well established and you get lots of options regarding configurations, plus they are slightly cheaper than the Douze which are a lot newer. They have a more aggressive position than the Douze and are stiffer, but that position is soon compromised if you have a kids canopy fitted to prevent the handlebars hitting it.

If it wasn't for my wife hating the handling on the Bullitt I would have bought one in an instant, but I have fallen for the Douze in terms of handling & manoeuvrability.

Good luck test riding the Bullitt. Have a look at my previous posts regarding Bullitt vs. Douze. Worth adding a Douze to the mix, but they don't look as sexy as a Bullitt and colours are limited to black or white! :( personally having ridden both the Douze is functionally superior and is a bike my wife is more than happy to ride which was a critical requirement.

@mdle We have a Douze and at almost 4K fully loaded I just don't want to risk losing it, especially as we are highly reliant on it for our daily routine of dropping off nipper/commuting.

Lock wise we have an Abus Bordo X Granite that goes through the front sub-frame and front wheel (expensive to replace due to dyno hub) and then a motorcycle chain for the rear wheel/frame enabling us to secure the bike to something immovable. The chain sits behind the seat base when in use and we use a bungee cord to help hold the seat in it's folded position when not in use as the lock is slightly in the way. I put old mtb inner tubes over the chain links and also store it inside a cut-off leg from a wet suit, this seems to keep the noise down, otherwise it'll rattle like a bastard...

Locking to stands is fine, although if bike stands are rammed, it's hard to fit a cargo bike in at times, plus I get concerned over other cyclist gouging the windows on the canopy with their handlebars etc. The motorcycle chain is a Thatcham rated English Chains lock which was my wife's motorbike lock from a few years ago. It's pretty light for a motorcycle chain, but the extra length allows us to use lamposts to secure the bike to and lets us put helmet straps through it if we're at a park and don't want to carry stuff around with us.

The bike was locked up outside for a whole year in the Chiswick area where I worked until they finally finished the secure bike parking in my work. Nothing happened to the bike during this time, but was never happy with it being outside like that in all weathers and I worked quite a few late nights so bike was left from 08:30 to about 03:00 at times.

Be aware that those Abus Bordo locks are not as big/user friendly as they look and you'll struggle to get it around both wheel, frame and immovable object.

Finally, it's really worth test riding cargo bikes. They are all very different in style/the way the ride and none of them cheap... but they will always leave you with a big grin on your face :)

Heading off the the land of my fathers tonight so won't be able to make it...

Cool! Glad it all made sense in the end.

Wish I could change the saddle. I hate the stock one, but my wife likes it. In the interest of not changing loads of components after spending a small fortune on a bike my bum has to suffer...

Cool! Glad it all made sense in the end.

Wish I could change the saddle. I hate the stock one, but my wife likes it. In the interest of not changing loads of components after spending a small fortune on a bike my bum has to suffer...

@pascalo Have created a PDF for you. Hope it helps?! It's 20MB so you will need to download via WeTransfer:
https://we.tl/AlhTOhchIZ
Ta!
Tim

@pascalo in work at the moment, but the Douze is parked up downstairs in our underground bike park so will take some pictures tonight and give you some details & measurements etc. I never fitted them because we got the bike ready-to-ride from London Green Cycles. Will either post on here or give you a WeTransfer link.

I think you're down under, so you'll have something for you to look at Saturday morning! :)

I must say the Douze we have is rock solid and wobble free no matter what the speed/load thanks to the cable steering... However it doesn't look as sexy/aggressive as a Bullitt.

On dog & kid duty again as wife is working. Might be able to head back out if she's not home too late...