Pulled the Trigger! I joined the cargo cyclists.

I finally did it, after months of contemplation, research and living vicariously through others on the 'net, I've bought my first cargo bike. I got a Yuba Mondo from my friends at Cycle9 in Carrboro, NC...a stone's throw from UNC - Chapel Hill.

My reasons for choosing the Yuba are as follows:

Wanted a bike that could easily handle the load of two kids - nearly 100 pounds total presently.

Wanted solid frame, rather than a two-piece item.

Wanted least expensive that met the above needs.

I had rented a yuba last fall that came equipped with a front hub-motor. It was a nice setup but a little heavy and seemed like it had a noticeable amount of drag when not using the motor for assist. A motorized Yuba with a good long-life battery would have cost too much money for me to spend right now, so I went with the out-of-the-box basic 6spd model, from 2008. That saved me a little money, and some wait time for the 2009. So now I'm hooked! This thing rocks.

My son and I have already taken our maiden voyage, a short trip of about 2 miles to our nearby Greenway, then another mile or two on the Greenway and back to the house. It was great. He loved it, and wants to do it every night now. He's 50 pounds, so the uphills are a little slow with my old engine and pistons, but I can do it without getting off and walking, so it can only get better from here.

Here's a pic (on my poor phone-cam) that shows the cool gazebo and lake where we stopped to throw / skip some rocks in the water.

You aficionado's of the Yuba will note the Xtracycle FreeRadical bags on there. Right, they don't fit exactly the same way on the Yuba's rack as on the xtra V-racks. I bought a used set of these for about $60, and I took a hint from someone on the RootsRadical forum, and found an old 2 ft. wooden dowel lying in the garage, put the FreeRad loops up through the Yuba's frame and slid the rod/dowel through the loops on top of the Yuba's top rack. It holds just fine, and the buckle straps at the bottom corners of the FreeRad wrap around the bottom bars of the Yuba's lower racks. My son can put his feet in the FreeRad bags which helps assuage the fear of him getting his feet caught in the spokes - which he did last year with the rented one, due to a father-son error in judgement on the fitness of our home-made seating contraption. Live, hurt, learn. It's part of being a boy/man. As my colleague at work likes to say, "you gotta be tough when you're dumb."

So, at about 1/3 the cost of a Big Dummy, I have a steel 440-pound capacity cargo bike that I can easily fit a toddler and a 7 yr-old on, and still have room to load stuff and use my bike instead of my motor-vehicle to go places. I don't have to think about fancy components to satisfy my "build" and I think there are some fine plans for Do-It-Yourself seating arrangements that will pass the new safety inspector (mom.) I've sent one of the FreeRads to our friendly neighborhood seamstress to see if she could open the loops and create some type of closure for them, so I can maybe ditch the dowel. I'll use them both for awhile and determine which method of attachment works the best.

I won't win any speed records, but I never did before on any other bike, so I can live with that. Getting the family involved in some Pedal-powered activities is what I'm after.

I'll try to post a little more regularly now that I've got something to talk about. :) And I'll get some better pics up of the two attachment methods.