Cargo bike comparison

[jrenaut]

Just got back from Bicycle Space. We did some cargo bike test riding. I think we’re deciding between a Yuba Mundo and an Xtracycle Edgerunner. The Yuba is cheaper, but the Xtracycle has the small rear wheel that lowers the center of gravity for the cargo, which in my case will generally be my children and sometimes groceries. The Xtracycle also comes with disc brakes.

Anyone have specific preferences? I rode both, and I LOVED the Yuba, but the Xtracycle was too small for me, so that certainly affected the ride. They’re supposed to get a large in and I’m going back to try it out.

Mechanical vs hydraulic discs – worth the extra money for hydraulics? The Yuba doesn’t come with either, but it has the frame/fork mounts so I could upgrade.

I also didn’t like the plastic wheel guard on the Yuba – there’s no way to get at the brakes or really remove the rear wheel without taking it off, which is not trivial. The Xtracycle uses bags as a guard so it’s not such a big deal.

I’m really excited. I took the kids for a ride around the block and they loved it. I took them to soccer this morning in the trailer, and having them on the back of the cargo bike was so much nicer. I didn’t do any hills on the cargo bike, though.

Topic

[americancyclo]

Just wanted to put this here in case folks were looking at the cargo bike comparison thread

@Steve 93806 wrote:

I’ve noticed a lot of folks on here look at xtracycle as the longtail solution. Is there any reason that people like this over the Surly Big Dummy, other than the fact that perhaps you have told your children not to call each other dummies, and this would undermine your efforts?

@jrenaut 93811 wrote:

Frame geometry. The Xtracycle is much more relaxed. Since my wife is (eventually) going to take over some of the kid-hauling duties, and she’s not interested in the more aggressive frame, I didn’t really look at the Big Dummy. If I were buying a bike just to haul things on my own, I definitely would have tried one out.

Something I just noticed in browsing, is the size availability

Big Dummy, four sizes
[TABLE=”class: details-content-panel”]
[TR]
[TH]Small (16)
[/TH]
[TH]Medium (18)
[/TH]
[TH]Large (20)[/TH]
[TH]xLarge (22)[/TH]
[TH][/TH]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

Xtracycle Edgerunner, two sizes
S/M 16.5
M/L 19.0

Yuba Mundo, one size
16.5 (420mm seat tube)

[Author]

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