I am currently building up a Surly Big Dummy frameset for around town light hauling in anticipation of giving up our second car. Not intending on huge loads and the area I'll be riding is definitely flat. After giving it some thought, I'm considering going single speed with the build. I would probably gear it to a little more spin than my current single speed.

Anyone with experience riding a single speed cargo bike that you would be willing to share thoughts or anyone just wanting to comment would be greatly appreciated.

jed

gears for cargo bike; mountain triple with at least 32 in the back

i couldn't imagine not having gears and hauling 80lbs

No experience with cargo bikes, but I regularly pull my kid on a trailer on my MTB. Total weight is probably 60lbs? for the trailer. Not a problem, even with some good hills in the area. If you're going to be riding flats, I'd say no problem. Just have a few cogs on hand to change according to the load weight.

Yes, gears will be easier and will most likely get you there faster. But if that's your main concern, why would you be in this forum to begin with?

Since the BD has vertical dropouts, my plan (if I choose to go the single speed route) is to use a Paul Melvin tensioner with a White Industry DOS ENO 16/18t combination freewheel. This would give me some flexibility. I currently run a Melvin on my single speed and it runs very smooth.

I use a SS as my errand bike, and its max capacity is two rear racks + a full backpack on my back.

One gear is fine for me because I live in a pretty flat place, but if I were to go with "real" cargo loads (e.g. Big Dummy style), I would definitely want some gears.

My ideal cargo bike would need only three speeds though (especially in a flat city): empty, heavy load, super heavy load.

Gears can be nice, especially on an awkwardly loaded bike at low speeds. Getting a cargo bike up to the 5mph or so you need to have good control can be a bit of a pain when you only have one gear.

Gears give you options, and options are always nice. What if you want to take your cargo bike...

By the way, I am very jealous; A cargo has been on my letter to Santa for some time now.

Thanks BFSSFG, the responses were very helpful and just what I was looking for. I'm going to go ahead and plan to do the build with multiple gears, sounds like the way to go. As such, I'll take any further questions specific to the bike to other forum areas.

For the price of a melvin you could get a geared drivetrain off of CL. 7 speed stuff would be all you really need.

I don't see a problem with a singlespeed cargo bike, and as for the vertical dropout issue, I'd go for the white industries eccentric hub, it looks a lot better then having a tensioner.

That doesn't really matter on a cargo bike.