noglider 

Well, perhaps things are different with niche market things. Though the Cross Check is not that "niche." Well, it does have some unusual features, but it's not radical.

I have a Cross Check, and I think it's a wonderful bike. I've been riding it with lightweight racing wheels and fenders, making it a Frankenbike, but it suits me well.

skijor

The HT badge begs to be replaced with this

crackerdog

If big company marketing were that important, no new bike companies would ever start up. People have different needs and ideas which allows a wide range of builders and designers to exist. Once a company like Trek gets so big, they aren't making bikes anymore, they are making money. If something doesn't sell as much as they want, they drop the line instead of improving it.

morganw

Trek has a huge line-up of bikes, but they aren't actually in stores. Even the Trek-only "Trek Bicycle Store" in San Jose, CA didn't have a 520 or Portland or any cyclocross bikes. They had more of the 7.*FX line than another local Trek dealer that only carries the 7.2, but they didn't have every little step & variety of FX which is probably their largest seller. A Madone for show, one high-end MTB & a bunch to actually sell & that's it.

If I'm going to have to order a Transport, I might as well order a Big Dummy or Xtracycle.

just4tehhalibut

The best thing to come out of this is a few variants of design and more availability of parts because the bigger bike names are now into supplying cargo bits. The Trek's folding wideloaders looked interesting, perhaps Surly or Xtracycle might take notice. What looked like a bolt on pannier rail, suggesting that your bike wasn't locked into whatever bags came with your vertical rails. And a front tray rack without the need to scour the bike shop or 'net for one.
Change can be good, if other bike badges get in on it. Unlikely the MTB suspension scene we already have established bike frame designs and industry standards working for us.

vik 

Has anyone actually got one of these Trek cargo bikes or are we still just chatting about what they would be like based on product shots?

SlimAgainSoon

Nice bike.

Amazing that Trek is coming out with this.

Like Chevy selling a camper van.

It does says a lot about where the big gun sees the trend. Go figure!

Abneycat

I inquired with the local Trek dealers that i'm aware of - none of which were planning on bringing in the Transport.

I know a handful of people in the city who have longtails - all of which that i'm aware of are Xtracycle or Surly. Most of which were custom ordered, the few that weren't were purchased at local stores that specialize in cargo / city.

Even if a manufacturer builds the line, the shops have to be enticed to carry it. From what i've seen of most Trek dealers, they tend to deal more with the sporty side of things, bread and butter bikes that sell. I've only noted the largest shops to carry one or two of the alternative options, and only in small supply and with halfhearted enthusiasm. Perhaps the shops in the U.S. are a bit different, but i'm not expecting to see a lot of Trek Transports around here any time soon.

The Transport does have a bigger "bro" factor over the other cargo bikes out there though, with its army jeep looks

Sixty Fiver

Head angles appear to be too steep and the load is too far back and too high... bet it is a twitchy beast and gets worse under load.

Abneycat

The head angles and offset are very close to the big dummy really, and may even be a tiny bit more relaxed. Especially with the transport featuring a front load platform, I don't think that's an area they messed up on. You don't want a lot of trail with a front loading bike. Trek messed that one up on the Belleville well enough.

Too high, perhaps. The top of the deck might be a bit higher than that of an xtracycle by a bit. The bottom of the bags is just about as low as that on an xtracycle though.

Too far back? Hell yes, I think it is too.

Sixty Fiver

A side by side seems to indicate that Surly seems to understand that when you extend the wheel base of a bicycle in a radical manner you also have to make some serious adjustments to the head angle to increase stability.

Maybe the Trek's offset fork increases the trail adequately but my gut feeling says no.





The Bd also has excellent load placement compared to the Kona Ute and Trek Transport and the Surly has one more big thing going for it... it's 4130 and not aluminium which I would not use on a serious cargo bicycle.

Abneycat

If you look at the geometry specs on these bikes, the head angle on the BD is 72, offset is 1.7in.

The Trek is 71 degrees, offset 1.6in.

The Trek is actually the more relaxed of the two unless someone has their listed geometry spec wrong. Photos don't always make a great precise comparison.

Those are also the current BD specs. Apparently the old ones are the same.

Absolutely though, the load placement on the BD is better. Puzzling about the Transport is that they decided to shorten the wheelbase and keep the rear wheel closer to the cranks, making the load placement relative to the axle wonky, but again, why? Doesn't make the bike any better from what I can perceive.

4130 all the way on a cargo bike. I'm either making a cycle truck or an integrated semi longtail in march, but one thing is for certain, it will be steel

vik 

Come on guys...what's the point of even talking about this bike? It's this late in the year and nobody has one? That makes it vapourware. Either they didn't make 'em [in any numbers] or nobody wanted one. Either way it amounts to the same thing - they are irrelevant to the cargo bike market.

I kept waiting to see what a bunch of owners would say, but it doesn't seem like that is going to happen.

noglider 

Give it time. It's a growing niche market, but it's a niche, and it's still a small one for now.

Eileen

Won't be me. After the total ****e-pile that was the Belleville, Trek is unlikely ever to see a dime from me again.

vik 

Come on...between Bike Forums and MTBR.com not one owner talking about their Trek cargo bike by Dec of the year it was released? CETMA is a niche bike. The Trek doesn't seem to exist in the wild.

Abneycat

Well, who's to say that's a bad thing? I'm not much of a fan of the thing. But people talk about stuff that isn't out yet or doesn't exist all the time!

As someone who is getting into frame building, it gets fun to analyze products and look at design, real product or not.

vik 

There is no problem talking about vapourware as long as the fact the discussion is purely hypothetical is understood by everyone involved.

OTOH talking about how the Trek cargo bike performs in the same light as you would the Big Dummy, Ute, CETMA, Xtracycle, etc... is silly since it seems nobody has actually seen one.

Abneycat

Well, discussions on how it actually performs don't have a lot of merit, but analyzing choices about trail, load placement and such do. I couldn't tell you if it was flexy, light or well made without seeing one and trying it, but you can still make other relative comparisons.

I think it performs like crap since its imaginary. People imagine they can move things with their mind all the time, but an actual cargo bike is probably better than an imaginary one when it comes to getting the job done

Trek could just be slow on it all. I know that with a lot of their new 2011 line they're not distributed yet, but I wouldn't shed a single tear if it never made it to a show floor. Long live the Xtracycles!

AdamDZ

Anyone knows when the new BD frames will see the light of day? It's been few months since you can't get a BD frame anywhere I regret not buying the last model when it was on its way out for around $650

vik 

This was a 2010 Trek bike. That season is over and no owner reports.

Abneycat

Hm, I don't know about that one. The announcement for the Transport was sometime in mid June (this year of 2010), half way through the season, with a projected release date of November (so they're a little late as of now), The website says "available late fall".. That gives them one week to make it before the official start of winter

Even if it was released right then on the spot in June, it wouldn't have been much of a 2010. The "Gary Fisher collection" is noted to be a lineup starting in 2011. Even though some of those bikes are available now, not all the 2011s are.

Someone called Cold Iron has one on Flickr. Apparently affiliated with a shop called cycle city usa.

So I have to disagree that it is a 2010 bike. As for whether you'll see a lot of them around or not, I don't know.

Sixty Fiver

Ditto.

I work with a builder who specializes in making long wheelbase bicycle and tandems and figure I will build my own cargo bike in the next year... my home built extra bike has been a good platform on which to work on ideas, has allowed for many testers, and now I can transmogrify that into a new design.

vik 

I did find this owner review:

https://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=671096

Abneycat you are correct about the June announcement - my apologies. I had recalled talking about this during the 2009 Interbike.

Abneycat

No troubles! I'm pretty sure the Transport is just a re-envisioning of the Gary Fisher "El Ranchero" - that was a pretty cool bike.

I'm starting to not be as weary of it. After looking at some real photos, its still not something i'd personally buy, but it seems alright. I'm most intrigued by the vertical / horizontal converting dropouts, and want to see how well they work. I'm not sold on that idea 100%, but if it works well and holds up over time, it'd be a neat feature.