With the economy the way it is, I would think that bikes like these would be showing up more often.

http://www.huskybicycles.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=hb&Product_Code=160-120&Category_Code=ti&Product_Count=7

That is a really interesting cargo trike. There was another thread awhile back
about trikes in one of the South American countries (Chile or Peru? foggy memory)
that carried the load on the front. The poster thought it might be to cut down on
theft of goods. The cargo part seems to be welded, so that would be a large
package to ship. It's hard to understand a shipping weight of 250 lbs though, even
if the wheels are solid and the tubes are heavy.

The trike I'd get is a Haley: http://haleytrikes.com/

I prefer AMERICAN MADE Worksman trikes by a wide margin. I used them at the
factory where I retired from for 40 yrs finding them to be bulletproof for hard work.

http://www.worksman.com/frontload.html

Read my thread on "The Thing" down below.

There was a new one of these (but branded Mercurio, not Husky) that sold on Ebay a while back in Las Vegas. That guy talked like he would have some more, but I haven't seen any others out for bid.

With the economy the way it is, I would think that bikes like these would be showing up more often.

http://www.huskybicycles.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=hb&Product_Code=160-120&Category_Code=ti&Product_Count=7

I hate to burst your bubble, but trikes like the one in question are a little unwieldy in the street. You might start seeing more of them on industrial campuses and protected areas like at festivals where their slow speed and traffic wouldn't be as much an issue.


I'd put more money down on seeing more conventional trikes in the wild like the Worksman Executive series. Or the Sun Trike. http://www.sunbicycles.com/sun/atlasIndustrialTrike.htm

Or even Schwinn Town and Country Trikes.
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q219/Sirrus-Rider/07%20Bikes/TrikeSideView.jpg



Even all these I wouldn't hold my breath on seeing them on open roads in an open commute mode as they are not that fast either. The fastest I can hold the T&C is around 11mph for any length of time unladen. The average is around 8.5 either under load or empty which
is not a comfortable speed for riding up and down Gessner (http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl) with it's 35 to 40mph traffic. You might see the conventional trikes in and around neighborhoods and grocery stores Very Very close by to them.

Yes, those bikes are for slow riding. . My bubble hasn't bursted. You see them all over Mexico, & are branded the name " Mercurio." I had a pix, somewhere , of one half full of large Barracuda. They are of very heavy steel construction. There is a dealer locater link, so maybe someone could pick it up.

I agree that they can be unwieldy on the street. You pretty much will take up a lane whether you mean to or not. I found this out on the Richardson Wild Ride. So you would want to be very selective about where you use these. In my case, I've got MUP's and alleys that take me to the Walmarts. On normal side-streets, they'd be okay. On a busy street, I'd think twice before heading down it with one of these.

The dealer locator is fairly useless. It only shows W. W. Grainger in my area, which is a wholesale supplier. But in Grainger's catalogs, they don't show the reverse trikes, so I'm not sure if they even carry them. Also, not sure if they sell to John Q. Public or not. So I'm not sure where you'd buy one. Husky's out of Houston, maybe check directly with them. Buying them new, you'd have some major freight costs to deal with (either Husky or Worksman), so be prepared for that. Somebody has stated that the Mercurio's are cheaper in Mexico, so that might be an option. (Mercurio is the manufacturer for Husky products).

Worksman also makes a cabinet-type model similar to the Haley trike.

Oh, about the weight. On a regular bicycle, there is no advantage whatever to making it heavier, and lots of advantage to making it lighter. On these trikes, nobody's racing them over hills, and they're made for toting stuff anyway, so there's not much advantage to making them light. But, because they're tippy, there actually is an advantage to making them heavier. I don't know how much the Husky weighs. It's probabaly not 250 lbs; that may include a pallet. My Worksman is probably 75 lbs, give or take a few pound. I haven't weighed it to see.

Here's a man I saw on one of these at the St. Patrick's Day Parade. I'm not sure if he was vending off of it, or just toting supplies back up the way. He wasnn't in the parade, though.
http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z172/stephenhazelton/StPattricksDayParade/Bike7.jpg

One other thing. I don't know what the gearing is on the Huskies. I saw one on Craigslist a while back and it was geared 1:1. I don't know if that's typical, or that was a special deal. My Worksman is geared 32:22, I think.

If you want to see more of these, go to Google, select the image search, then look up "triciclo", and you'll find quite a few with different modifications and arrangements.

(Edit)
Ooh! Another thing. On them showing up more. I've seen a number of the Worksman models on Craigslist and Ebay and a couple of the Huskies. In fact, they sell real slow. You'll see something that costs $800+ freight when new, and in first class conditon, it'll get one bid at $100 or maybe no bids. I think if more people were aware of them, it might increase the market. But when I rode mine at the Richardson Wild Ride, I had two different people ask me if I had made it. People just don't think to look for stuff like this.

I could see a great advantage in using these to transport material from location to location in factories, city blocks, malls, etc. If you had to mail order, the shipping costs would be a killer. I go to Mexico a lot, but fly in. Maybe I could buy one & ride it the 500 miles to the border !!! NOT !

I could see a great advantage in using these to transport material from location to location in factories, city blocks, malls, etc. If you had to mail order, the shipping costs would be a killer. I go to Mexico a lot, but fly in. Maybe I could buy one & ride it the 500 miles to the border !!! NOT !


Worksman will not only build a trike to your order, they will also ship it to your door!!:thumb:

250lbs is the shipping weight. For many shipping purposes, they use what's called "volumetric weight". That is to say that for parcels over a certain size, they measure the parcel, then assign a weight based on a chart they have, regardless of the actual weight. This is what makes, for instance, shipping a 753 bike frame by air very expensive. That's your explanation.

We have quite a few of those trikes that carry cargo in the front. Most are carrying ice cream and such in the more Hispanic areas. I've never heard of any accidents with them either.

We saw one Worksman ice cream trike while we were riding in the parade this morning. I've seen one other Worksman vending hot dogs or something, and seen the one above.

The Hispanic ice cream venders I've seen around here use push carts rather than trikes.

I'm not sure about Worksman shipping to your door. On bicycles, they use UPS. But I think some of the bigger items like the trikes are shipped fully assembled and shipped by freight. As I understand, this is very expensive if shipped to your house, but much cheaper if shipped to business that normally takes freight shipments.

On those Husky trikes, it doesn't look like that front box disassembles or folds in any way, and if not, that makes for a large package. They should make a collapsible one that bolts together after you get it, and collapses flat for shipping.

I'm not sure about Worksman shipping to your door. On bicycles, they use UPS. But I think some of the bigger items like the trikes are shipped fully assembled and shipped by freight. As I understand, this is very expensive if shipped to your house, but much cheaper if shipped to business that normally takes freight shipments.

Yes, Worksman does ship to your door frieght or UPS it matters not. My Worksman PAV trike
was dropped shipped to a local car dealer to save me money 'cause freight to your front door can
get VERY expensive so the folk's at Worksman suggested a drop ship to a business to save big
bucks. In my case the freight to the car dealer (3 blks away) was $600 less than to my door!

The car dealer called me to let me know the trike had arrived and helped me load it in my PU
to take home. I offered the dealer a $$$ but he declined as I was a regular customer of that
shop.

With the economy the way it is, I would think that bikes like these would be showing up more often.

http://www.huskybicycles.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=hb&Product_Code=160-120&Category_Code=ti&Product_Count=7
So I am curious,,,, considering how heavy and unwieldy that thing is, what do you think people would carry on it, and how far would you expect them to ride it? It's a food vending cart, and nothing more. The reason you don't see people riding them for fun is probably because they're not fun to ride.

For traveling much of any distance, a far better choice would be to get a totally-regular-normal bike, and build a big trailer to pull behind it. If you don't want to need to balance, then get a Sun X-3 trike and pull the trailer with that.

----

I don't know why it is, but it seems like a lot of people around here imagine that a "specially constructed cargo bicycle" is going to work drastically better than just using a normal bike to pull a trailer. I think this is mainly just a case of "grass being greener on the other side of the fence", of people thinking that a cargo bike is something novel and fun, just because they don't have one to find out that it's not. A lot of the people who get stiffies over Xtracycles seem to people who have never even tried using a cargo trailer to haul the same kinds of stuff.
~

Actually, the Worksman front loader IS fun to ride, mainly because it's different.

I think you could make a good argument along very nearly the same lines that nobody ought to own a pickup, that everything they do can be done simpler and cheaper using a car and a trailer. But personal preference rears it's head, and so you see little pickups and big pickups and flatbed pickups and pickups with campers, and still see cars with trailers, and pickups with trailers and on and on.

Whatever I can carry on my Worksman front loading trike, I could carry on a trailer. Only I'd have to buy or make the trailer, and then get another bicycle to pull it (current bike is not really geared low enough to pull too much).

Here's a Worksman trike for sale in the Houston area:
http://houston.craigslist.org/bik/750797623.html
Note that the photo is off the Worksman website, not the actual thing.

I negotiated the shipping cost with the web seller. I have bought two Worksman PAV3 from him. The trikes were shipped to a business but i picked them up at the freight terminal. PM me if you want the web site.

http://dallas.craigslist.org/ftw/bik/796376882.html
http://dallas.craigslist.org/mdf/bik/794692962.html