Utility Cycling - Thought... a tandem can easily be an Xtracycle
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My little girl really wants me to get this tandem cruiser, so we can ride. But I just realized, you could rig up a way to carry a whole bunch of stuff behind the captain in the stoker's position, if captain is riding solo. You'd just have to keep the cargo high out of the way of the pedals. Hmmm...
That idea had occurred to me. Part of the popularity of the xtracycle as opposed to a regular bike is that there's room for a lot of cargo down low. Putting stuff higher up means that it takes a bit more skill and effort to balance.
If you put your mind to it, you could definitely get a tandem bike set up to switch easily between single-person cargo bike and tandem. One possibility would be removing the pedals or buying folding pedals and keeping the cargo far enough left and right to avoid the cranks. But a stock tandem bike doesn't have attachment points in convenient places for cargo, you'd need to solve that somehow.