Bike Friday Haul a Day and rough roads
 

I've read Velouria's review, but still looking for more info.

At least visually, the Haul-a-Day looks really flimsy next to every other cargo bike out there, and those 20" wheels seem like they would be hell to ride over any rough roads/tracks/etc.

So.

How much does it jounce the kids around...or the rider...if there are lots of ruts/potholes/track crossings/you-name-it on the ride?

Are those thin cargo stays secure with kids on them?

You might search for some Bike Friday Owner's forums.. Yes?

BF does have long , owner's life , backing for what they sell .

Concern is that a BF owners forum might be too much cheerleading. Those owners have already committed to the wheel size and format.

In addition, why even have this forum, then?

BF has an unconditional 30 day return policy. You'd be out shipping, I think, but that's all. sometimes the only way to know is to try it.

There is a Google forum on those. to Join, too, and one on Face Book ,

Opinions of people, who dont own Your choice , but extrapolate from the Bike or Bike Friday Bike they Do Own ? I can do that.

Will It answer your question? IDK ...


Get an Extracycle, or other long tail cargo Bike , instead ? Maybe.. :innocent: They have a Large front, 20" rear Wheel version
http://www.xtracycle.com/
http://2s4oaa1ftdmv1w8m4b3zhbsadcu.w...er-620x350.jpg




:foo:

I'll know a little more later today when I pick up my HAD (it "should be" completed today) from my LBS. I can compare it to my Big Dummy and Xtracycle once I get some miles on it. I also own a New World Tourist, so the smaller wheel feel is there too. Just a quick note on the NWT is that it rides smoother than you'd expect, but my guess is will be significantly different from the longer wheel-based HAD.

Also, I got the oversized frame and beefed headset, so that should help with stiffness. I will start with 1.5 inch wide Schwalbes, but plan on switching to 2 inch Big Apples (I already have the Schwalbes so just want to use those to get the bike home).

I will be VERY interested to get your impression. I thought about the heavy duty frame, but decided that it would just be overkill. If I wanted to go really heavy duty, I should probably just lean towards a Yuba. Plus, I only weigh 140lbs, so with two little ones and some light baggage, I don't think I'll be maxing out the standard frame. I hope.

Of course, I did read one comment on Velouria's blog written by a guy whose frame just snapped in two one day.

Hi, I just bought my wife a Haul-a-day from Bike Friday. Had it shipped to Wales at an extra £539+ cost. I ride a Surely Big Dummy myself so when I say I like the haul-a-day, I am speaking with a little bit of experience with cargo bikes. I can't say the Haul-a-day will carry the exact same load weight as my Big Dummy without a degree of flexing or even [if your not concentrating] a wobble possibility. What I can say is my wife is 64 and she rides it like the devil. It's fast, safe and not twitchy. [The last part a Darren Alf comment]. Children would be well safe riding on the back of this bike. From Wales have a great and safe New Year....
P.S...Forgot to mention Vanessa rides her new Haul-a-day along the "Lloetrach" name of a road not far from us. [Lloetrach -Welsh for rough path]. Some of the holes are fairly deep and Vanessa avoids them with ease, due to the great balance of the Haul-a-day. Vanessa is as I said above, 64 and can drop the speed of the bike to almost a crawl. For such a longish small cargo bike it turns on a sixpence. The only problem that I can see is with the single [I don't know how to say this in English] a single "locking pin" that holds the two parts of the main frame together. Prolonged rough road riding may be a problem later in the bike's life. That's would be the area where a problem could develop. Vanessa just avoids the holes by slowing down and riding in between them. The great gearing helps. I hope this is helpful. Bye...

Thanks for the inputs. For you guys who have one, what gearing are you running?

It just occurred to me that the 20" wheels will work with different gearing than a 26" wheel will.

Long day getting it put together, so just got home. I will put some miles on it tomorrow and the next to give you some first impressions.

Gearing 11-32 8spd Sram
53/39 cranks

I simply swapped all the parts over from my new New World Tourist.

I had a test ride to get the brakes dialed in before the bars were taped and it rode very well, nimble, but quite stable and responsive to peddling. I weigh 165 pounds and of course rode with no load.

I went with bar end shifters, a double front crank, Avid BB7 brakes, drop bars, 1.5 inch Schwalbe Marathons.

I'll give more detail tomorrow, as I need to finish dinner tonight - spent the day at the LBS helping put it together (between their other sales, etc.). The bike is well thought out.

I should probably complete a more thorough review for you all, and will consider it. Quickly though, the Big Dummy rides well, but is not as stable with a load as the Xtracycle. The Xtracycle has a nice low top tube for step over, and the smaller rear wheel is great for loads, but it rides much more upright. Also, the rear rack is bolted on the Xtracycle, where the BD isn't, so when you want to move the bike around by pulling on the rack it comes apart a bit - and also contributes to the less solid ride with a load. So far, it feels like the BF will ride the best though.

Again, I'll give a detailed follow up after tomorrow's ride (and possibly after Wednesday's).

PS, on the one frame cracking you'll see BF's response as well. Very unusual and if I remember correctly it has never happened before. I think they replaced the frame too.

Banzai - is there anything specific you want me to look at and report on?

For starters, I'm very interested in the drop bar setup. That is something I've been thinking strongly about doing, but wondered if the drop bars would give me the steering authority that I need with a load on the back, especially if that load is two small children. But one of the advantages of the Haul-a-day with its scalable boom construction is the ability to achieve drop-bar appropriate geometry.

If you're daring enough to eat a minor pothole or two, with a load on, and give your impressions compared to the dummy, that would be above-and-beyond.

I'm going to do some calculations on the gearing, but I'm interested in how that 53/39 works for you. Though I realize that 20" wheels can get away with a larger crank...and I will do some calculating...that seems a bit on the tall end. I could be quite wrong though.

I test-rode a Dummy, and it felt like a normal bike. I test rode an Edgerunner, and when I was starting up/pushing off from a standstill, something about it felt very unsteady, and twitchy/unstable. I never felt particularly in control during those first moments. I couldn't tell if it was the front end geometry, the particular handlebar setup, or the rear wheel. I wonder where the BF falls between those.

I think the gearing is about 90 inches on down to 22 with the 1.5 inch tires. I got the 90 for touring with a little down hill or tail winds. I got the 22 because I planned a cross-country trip with the Sierra-Nevada and Cascade Mountains involved (this was all on the NWT remember - and I swapped it over to the HAD). Its not unreasonable gearing, but if you are looking for around town only gearing you could go smaller. Its not much problem to swap out a chainring. You might want to get a tighter rear cluster if you are hauling the kids, as there won't be as big a jump from gear to gear in the rear.

It may be rare that I'm in the big chainring, but I wanted that good range with only a double chainring crank. I don't care for triples. If I didn't already have the double I would have gone with one of the new 1x setups from Sram or Shimano. With that gearing on a cross Florida tour last year I was only in the big ring and smaller cogs a few times (the taller gears are sort of in reserve). If I go to an electric assist system on this HAD (much later) I'll likely push that front to a 54 or 55 due to the speeds hovering around 20 mph, but that's for a separate discussion I suppose.

I'll throw a bag of top soil on the rack later today and ride it around. I think that weighs 40 or 50 lbs (I'll conform the weight when it gets light out). Static, or dead weight, is harder to ride with as it just moves completely with the bike movement. Human passengers compensate pretty quickly for side to side motion (dogs do too, but it takes them a few rides first :). I have about 30 miles to ride on errands today, so I'll get a good feel.

As far as drop bars I feel like I have better control with hands on the hoods than I do with flat bars, especially when standing. When you add bar ends to the flat bars, or go with their H-bars you get more control too. I have a set of H-bars on the NWT and they were fine, but I think I'll prefer the drop bars (I'll know more later). The stem was too long so I compensated by shrinking the frame length by one hole. A nice feature! I have a shorter stem (by 1/2 inch) to swap. Longer wheelbase is a bit more stable of course.

Remember that the hand positions coupled with where the bar riser (steers tube?) is important. That is, if your hands are close to or behind the bar riser the bike will be twitchy in its steering. I would not want that on a cargo bike. The farther forward your hand position (away from the center of the bar riser), the more stable the ride. Have I explained that right? For example, my Velo Orange has a swept back bar similar to the Albatross or Metropolis and the bike is very twitchy (my hands are about even with the steerer tube). With the drop bars on it is way more stable. That may be why the Edgerunner felt unstable at first, plus the fact that the handbars are closer to you when standing over the bike/feet on the ground before starting off (just below chest high on me).

That makes sense. On the Edgerunner, the front end was set up very high, and the stem seemed short given not only the length, but the rise on it, and the handlebars had some backsweep. Overall, very wobbly when starting. And I'm a pretty experienced cyclist, with good handling abilities.

I pretty much universally prefer drop bars. Perhaps the nimble nature of the 20" wheel will mean that the drop bars have more than enough steering authority even with a load on the bike.

If I could have made the geometry work to put drops on my Pugsley, I would have.

Okay, 30 miles under our belt. No load, but lots of strong and gusty winds. I'll add the load tomorrow and let you know how that goes.

Overall this is the best riding of the three cargo bikes (and I might say better than my Velo Orange Campeur). It felt like it responded very well to my peddle effort, and I think the drop bars helped a lot into the strong headwind. It was easy to maintain speed. I am pleased with the bike. Absolutely no wobble or flex that would be indicative of a longer wheel base bike. I might even stay with the 1.5 inch wide Schwalbes as the ride was smooth where I thought it would be harsh. If I were to carry a load regularly though I'd go with the Big Apples (2.0) as they are a 35 - 70 psi tire, as opposed to the high pressure Marathon I have on there.

Thanks for the first look!

I'm thinking I might go for a compact double (34-50), to help with hauling two children. I'll be curious to know how that 39-53 works for you with some luggage on the back.

I had to fight the urge to go with smaller rings in the front and kept recalculating. Those 20 inch wheels really dictate larger than you would expect, but the numbers don't lie. Yesterday I was in the big ring all day, even against the wind. I'm not speedy and ride with floppy shorts and shirt (don't want to leave the impression that I'm a powerhouse). The 39 is really low.

Test complete. My new best cargo bike = Bike Friday Haul A Day!

I am impressed! I placed a bag of top soil (~40 pounds) on the top of the rack, a bin of heavy steel on the left floor board (~30 pounds), and a 2.5 gallon container almost full of waste oil on the right side floor board (~20 pounds). So 90 pounds of unmoving weight.

Very easy to get the load started from a step over position. No wobble or needing to swerve to save the load at that very low start off speed. The bars didn't twist or feel like they twisted. By the way, I stayed in the 53 chainring even up some slight inclines (Florida "hills"). I don't think you'll need to go so low with the compact double as you suggested. You might want to do some calculations on the Sheldon Brown website, but the 39/53 is very similar to the compact double on a 700c or 26 inch wheel set. I can only see using the 39 in some serious hills and with a load.

The most impressive thing was that when hitting bumps the load did not shimmy! In other words, the bike did not twist (i.e., move side to side and with an upward or downward action too). I could feel it compress down a little and then slightly straight up, but not springy or off center. The Big Dummy has a weird action when loaded and hitting bumps and that is it seems to compress towards the lower left and then spring up and to the right. Of course you need to compensate with steering and it is not optimal. The Xtracycle doesn't do that, but has more flex than this HAD.

I do not think the kids will feel any harshness. I might recommend going with the Big Apples over my 1.5 Marathons though, as they will be a nice shock absorber and they can handle more weight (about 190 pounds each according to the Schwalbe website). The 2 inch wides are probable fine, but if you really want just a little more cush you can go with the 2.15s.

I don't know what the standard frame will do with that load, but I would say you should be fine with it. If you have the $$ and opportunity to go with the heavier frame though I do not see any drawbacks. I read someone say something about a heavier frame feeling "dead", but comon this is a cargo bike - and one that actually rides very nice (with the heavier frame). I think that talk belongs to another forum (and I would hazard to guess that most people wouldn't know the difference, especially given that the tire selection has a huge impact on how these cargo bikes ride).

Let me know if you or anyone else has any questions. I had fun doing this!

Sorry about the pictures not being upright. They look fine on my computer, but I don't know how to fix them.

Very nice! Alright, I'm sold.

So you went with the HD frame? Maybe I should. I only weight 140lbs, and the kiddos are just over 30lbs each, but like you say, it doesn't hurt anything. And it only adds about a pound to the bike. A cargo bike.

So for the gearing, I took the stock gearing for the Surly Big Dummy, plugged it into a calculator, then tried to achieve the same gearing for 20" wheels. That got me a 34-50, with an 11-32 cassette. It doesn't capture the high end, but gets the Dummy's low end.

However, the Dummy's low end is REALLY low, I think a 26t chainring with a 36t large cog. I might not need anything that low, but with zero experience on cargo bikes, I used that as a computational baseline. That said, I'm a slightly above average cyclist, regarding speed/strength.

I might go with the compact anyway, and then shrink the cassette as necessary in order to achieve smaller steps.

I put 90 lbs on thinking that was less than your two kiddos! At 60 pounds you won't even know they are there (until they start arguing:).

Good idea on shrinking the cassette.

You may want to call Bike Friday and talk with Peter. He is very familiar with the heavy duty frame vs. the standard. He is also very friendly and helpful. My thoughts were that I would rather have too much then too little. And weight was definitely not a consideration, as once you get it moving a pound or three don't make any difference. In fact more weight actually helps keep your momentum up.

They probably can Ship it built with an NuVinci Continuously variable rear hub (IGH)
then you have No 'steps' at all .

Patterson Metro Cranks Do a Lightning quick Internal Shift too ,
so its easy to downshift at a stop to have a get the load moving gear ,
then pop it into the Higher range, once you get Rolling..




...

After my extremely disappointing foray into Alfine, I'm sticking with cassettes.

Yeah the idea of them sounds cool and they look all neat and compact, but I just go back to the tried and true derailleur system. I have well over 100,000 miles on my various bikes (total) and don't ever remember an issue with any of them.

By the way, I was looking at the rear portion of the HAD and noticed that the beefed up frame has a double triangle formed by the extra frame piece (in front of the rear wheel) and completes the second triangle towards the rear. I think that is why the bike is so stable with a load. the load doesn't compress downward due to this structure.

http://www.urkai.com/wp-content/uplo...ed-650x400.jpg

So you never got that resolved, huh?