How to transport standard sized pallets on a Bakfiets.
This is a lot less wobbly than it looks: once the bike was moving it showed no tendency to tip. Keeping it moving up hills proved hard work though. Rolling downhill was fine except that the pallets tried to move forwards. Next time I’ll have to loop the rope around the steering coloumn to hold them back.
This is probably not reccomended by Workcycles of course: Bakfietsen are meant to shuttle children and the occasional plasma screen TV down nice clean cycle paths, not haul heavy lumps of wood along dirt roads.
I think I need one of these.
15 comments
Comments feed for this article
September 28, 2011 at 2:12 pm
the_big_smile
Hey, this load looks really dangerous.
With my Mundo I wouldn’t have had a chance to try, because pallets are definitly too large for a Mundo.
Congratulation for the courage, to take that load!
September 30, 2011 at 5:05 pm
Andy in Germany
I was suprised how stable the bike felt. At first I was going to just push it, but I thought I’d roll along our driveway and see what happened, and I just kept going.
The rope is rated up to 200kg so even assuming the strength was compromised by 50% by the knots, that’s still a 100kg design strength which is way more that the pallets weigh.
September 30, 2011 at 5:57 pm
Randall
Is the wood cargo box integral to the bike or is it removable? If so it would lower the center of gravity and make the load more stable. Great article on Wikipedia on bakfiets bikes, featuring this photo of one from Denmark: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Long_John.JPG
Entire article at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freight_bicycle
October 1, 2011 at 9:23 am
Andy in Germany
The box is removable, although it’s a fairly big job to swap it. Probably when I don’t need the bike for transporting small people I’ll swap the box for a flatbed similar to the one in your picture for carrying stuff like this. It would reduce the centre of gravity dramatically, and probably make it a bit lighter as well. Thanks for the ideas…
September 28, 2011 at 2:59 pm
Oldfool
Here is what you need
http://organicengines.com/the-sensible-utility-vehicle-aka-the-suv/
September 30, 2011 at 5:07 pm
Andy in Germany
Actually, I like that. I still think the Maximus has the edge for ease of use though.
September 29, 2011 at 9:52 pm
Randall
very nice. you need a trailer!
September 30, 2011 at 5:07 pm
Andy in Germany
A trailer? As if that wasn’t heavy enough already…
September 30, 2011 at 5:50 pm
Randall
I replied to this in a different part of the thread, my apologies. Just to clarify: not a trailer behind the bakfiets….but behind a conventional bike. Lots of manufacturers out there, and also plans for homemade ones, using recycled bike parts such as forks, frames and stems, and other common materials like electric conduit and aluminum ladders.
October 1, 2011 at 9:28 am
Andy in Germany
I have wondered about this actually, a long, low trailer would be handy for carrying some of the wood I’ll be shifting about. I even wondered about a spine trailer, just a frame and uprights for carrying wooden planks and similar. That’d be an interesting excercise in towing, but local people are already used to my nutty experiments in transportation.
September 30, 2011 at 4:43 pm
Frits B
“I need one of these”: you mean “Opportunity for large income from advertising”?
There’s a man in a nice raincoat in my neighbourhood who regularly rides past on his bakfiets loaded tot he brim with fire logs.
September 30, 2011 at 5:08 pm
Andy in Germany
Ha.
You could argue that the Bakfiets technically has that already, being a very distinctive vehicle.
Unfortunately I think that the person writing that expected the bikes to be used in a city like London not out here in a small German village.
September 30, 2011 at 5:46 pm
Randall
Well, yeah, if you’re towing it behind a bakfiets…but if you’re towing behind a regular bike, there are lots of commercially made trailers and plans for homemade ones.
October 1, 2011 at 9:19 am
War on Brambles « People Powered
[...] now I had a load of pallets in the garden, it was time to build the compost [...]
October 5, 2011 at 6:09 am
Mike
I’ve definitely found that a heavily-loaded bakfiets (e.g. 50-pound boy, box of vegetables, and ten dozen ears of corn) is far easier to keep balanced by riding than by pushing. The faster you go, the easier it is to steer for balance, and it’s more intuitive to push and pull for balance when walking, so I use a significant amount of energy just keeping it upright if I’m not in the saddle.