I'm looking to go car-light or no car within the next few months.

I have a predicament trying to figure out what bike to buy that would best suit my needs. I need a commuter/family/errands/everything bike.

I'm a huge fan of Surley bikes in general and I was going to buy the LHT and put on the xtracycle, but now with the Big Dummy (supposedly) coming out in a few months I cant decide.

Can anyone give me possible advantages/disadvantages of going with the Big Dummy?

I don't plan on tearing the xtracycle off the LHT all the time, but having the option might be nice. Any reason I wouldn't want to go this route and instead go with the Big Dummy?

Big Dummy is all 1 piece which I believe would be more stable. I think welds would be more solid than nuts and bolts. An advantage of the Xtracycle is you have a choice for a frame. I notice on mine that when my wife gets on the back I can feel it pivot at the kickstand mount. I have mine on an aluminum hybrid bike so it could be frame flex as well. If you plan on being able to take it apart, one thing you should do is have 2 sets of rear cables. The ones for the Xtracycle are alot longer than on the regular bike, plus you need 2 chain lengths for the Xtracycle. I have never taken mine apart and I think the only way I would is if I was going to put it on another bike.

The only reason I can think of not to get the BigDummy is if you think it's likely you'll want to take the Freeradical off at some future date. It's not something you can drop on and off when you feel like it though. The BigDummy is bound to be stiffer, but also, it has geometry specifically designed for the long wheelbase, and it looks from the blog as though Surly has put considerable time into getting that right, trying different forks and wheelsizes. That alone would be enough to swing it for me.

I'm surprised we haven't seen a big dummy build thread yet (at least I haven't seen one). I'm interested in getting one, but the $900 price tag for the frame/fork before I even put any components on it is making me think of going the freeradical route instead. The cheapest build kit I've seen is in the neighborhood of $600 (which will probably spec out higher with a change of some parts) plus the price of the xtracycle parts ($200 for the freeloaders and snap deck). When it's all said and done, a big dummy build out would probably run me close to $2000. I haven't checked, but can you stick disc brakes on a big dummy (I would think so).

I was thinking of going the novara safari with the free radical setup instead. It would get me an xtracycle with a decent bike for under $1200. I wouldn't really have any plans to swap out the freeradical, but the price difference is dramatic (for me at least). Add to that, I expect the big dummy frames to be very scarce for at least a year (if they finally get around to releasing them when they say).

$2000 for a stiffer big dummy in march/april vs. a $1200 safari/freeradical now.

If you plan to haul family around, the flex on a Free Rad is pretty pronounced. For occasional use it's fine, but it's probably not something you'd want to do long term, day in/out. This is not to say a Surly or Yuba would be any better in this regard, however. The latter two platforms have yet to see wide use.

I am a month or two ahead of you; I'd been looking at Big Dummy, Xtracycle, etc. and thinking about what exactly I want; and I found, even if the bike I want exists in a far off country somewhere (https://www.velovision.com/mag/issue9/8freight.pdf), I can't get one. What I can get is an Xtracycle.

So I did. I got a used one off Craigslist almost two weeks ago. I mentioned to my wife, over dinner, that I was going to pick it up after dinner, and she (not one to mince her words) said "we don't need that." I built it up onto a Diamondback MTB I'd taken out of someone's trash a couple days earlier, and started using it a little to see how I like it. I found I liked it. So did my wife. And on Halloween she says, out of the blue, "can I ride that?" She wanted to take our daughter trick-or-treating on it. But the bike I had put it on was too big for her to ride safely. So I took my daughter myself, and we had a blast (see my post in Living Car Free).

And then on Saturday I unbuilt the Xtracycle from the Diamondback and put it on a smaller MTB I'd taken out of a dumpster several years ago. It has a curving top tube, and I put a front fender and open road bars on it so it has a classic cruiser look, and it's about the most comfortable bicycle I've ever ridden. I'm pretty happy with it now, and my wife rode it home from work yesterday with no complaints. No buyer's regret here.

Anyway, the reason I mention this is... strange looking as the Xtracycle is, people who see mine say "I want that." If you get one, you will be sharing it; so I recommend putting it on a bike that smaller people can ride. Also, having installed it twice in the last two weeks, and uninstalled it once, I think taking this thing off a bike and putting it on again is a pain in the neck. You have to change the derailleur cable and its housing, the rear brake cable and its housing, the chain, and maybe other stuff (lights, kickstand, fenders, depending on what you use). So though it's something you CAN do, it's something you WON"T do very often, i.e. ever.

As for the Big Dummy, or the Kona Mundo... they look nice enough, but (1) except for the fact that the Xtracycle is a retrofit, I don't see how they differ from the Xtracycle, and (2) for all practical purposes they don't exist at this point in time. If you want a longtail frame, and can't build it yourself, the Xtracycle is an option now.

You might want to have a look for a Kona Ute. Similar concept to the others mentioned, but if I remember right the fully-built cost is supposed to be about $900 - apparently a similar cost to the just the frame for a Big Dummy.


Ron Richings
Vancouver, BC
Canada

while I applaud Kona for coming out with a utility bike, I think they completely missed the mark, unless they do a few things. First and foremost, they need to make some bigger panniers similar to the xtracycle ones.

Every picture I've seen of the kona has a regular sized pannier on the back and it just looks friggin' stupid. Plus, I could just throw on a jandd expedition rack on my regular bike and throw on the same size panniers plus close to the same amount on the rack. Plus no wide loaders, no footsies, etc. I think they made a big mistake not making it compatible with xtracycle accessories. I would have paid $150-200 extra if they had done that.

Maybe the ute will be a smash hit and third party vendors will step up with compatible accessories. I just don't want to wait around for a year or so until that happens (if it ever does).

Good point. I don't plan on building the bike till after March though so I can wait for the frame. The costs are a concern, but by ditching my car and everything that goes along with it (insurance, impulse buying, gas) I'll more than make up for it. If its a safer, better ride I'll gladly spend the extra money.

Only problem I have with the Safari is the same I have with most other bikes...Aluminum. As others have mentioned here, flex is going to be an issue. Steel will give me much more rigidity.

I applaud you for doing what I'm working towards. Your post about Halloween was classic.

The big reason for possibly going with the BD is that it was built to be a utility bike. Seems like they have refined the crap out of it too.

I guess that's the question. Anyone ever break an aluminum bike with an xtracycle? How much flex are we talking about? Is the bottom bracket going to be dragging on the ground and spraying sparks if I throw and adult on the back?

I have an old steel giant iguana that I could strip down and build up for about the same price as a safari, but it would just be a huge PITA to make it compatible for disc brakes etc.

I'm either looking at the Big Dummy or getting a new frame + freeloader, personally. I find that i'm really not using my Fuji 2 (which is a full suspension, not terribly practical), and my other bike isn't suitable. The parts from the Fuji 2 are still in pretty good repair, but the frame is old aluminum now, and after having seen what happens to the average aluminum mtb once it gets that old, its time to retire + recycle.

Does anyone know how the Freeradical handles loaded expedition touring though? The guys on ridingthespine seem to do pretty well on them, but I also read that theirs were reinforced.

As for the UTE, it misses the mark for me. The pannier idea is interesting, probably better for everyday use if you got a nice big backpack pannier, but the 700c tires and aluminum frame just don't seem to really fit the bill of a pure hauling rig. I don't think you would do much better on the UTE weight wise than you would a steel bike with a quality rack, it'd be more space than anything?

My Xtracycle is now on a no-name aluminum MTB frame that I salvaged out of a dumpster a few years ago. I'll try to take a better photo this weekend. I've ridden it maybe 30 miles now, under loads varying from ca. 40 lbs up to maybe 120 lbs. I have ridden my wife around on it a bit, less than a mile.

Anyway, flex IS noticeable if you look for it; if you do a quick slalom with the handlebar, you can feel the thing getting wobbly. But if you hold steady, the bike feels fine. But I'm talking about side-to-side flex here. I have not detected any vertical flex, and I wouldn't expect to. Virtually all of the extra weight is on the back wheel; there is hardly any additional weight in the center of the bike. So I'm not worried about the frame. I'm much more concerned with the back wheel, which is why I built up a new one with 48 spokes.

Mine has early 1990's era Shimano cantilever brakes on it. They work okay, but I'll probably upgrade to V-brakes when Nashbar has good deal on them. Since the Freeradical is set up for them, that seems the way to go.