Talk:Cargo bike

Merge with workbike
Could it be an idea to fuse and redirect this article with "workbike"? /83.253.54.251 14:02, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Same user, second thought: better than fusing tidying up demarcations: workbike = general term for both passenger and freight transport bikes?

Additions to the article: more specificity when dealing with bakfiets, to the point of including some. Also some information on current uses in countries/the increase in use for things perhaps not thought such as carrying your kids to school. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.59.140.47 (talk) 06:38, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Merge proposal Workbike / Freight bicycle
I find the term workbike to be vary ambiguous, but as the articles now stand the material should be merged to Freight bicycle, as that is a far more clear and logical term. If Workbike (as it seems to me) is a more general category than Freight bicycle, (including anybicycles that are not used for sports or recreation) it could be expanded as such later, but as it is defined now on the respective articles they are identical, and the most expedient thing to do is merge.--Keithonearth (talk) 23:01, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Personally I'd make the merge in the other direction. Keeping the work bicycle heading and making freight bicycle a subsection. When I think of work bike, I'm think of the bikes found in Asia used as mobile stores, with a cold box for ice creams, soft drinks and other goods (at this very moment I'm categorising an image of a mobile shoe shop on Commons) although such bicycles are no longer common in the West, if we are to have only one article then it must encompass all uses, and freight bicycle cannot do this.KTo288 (talk) 20:48, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I also support a merge, but as KTo288 says, I agree the resulting article should be named workbike. =Axlq 20:55, 6 January 2009 (UTC)


 * You are quite right KTo288, that if we have one article it should encompass all the uses we are talking about here.  And I'd not thought of example of "Vendor Bicycles", (If I can use that term), my first thought was that you had a point, but after re-reading the articles I still think that it makes sense to use the term Freight bicycle as the primary term.
 * Pros of merging to Freight bicycle:
 * At the moment we only have one mention of Vendor bikes, and it is on the Freight bicycle page.
 * A bicycle that sells stuff needs to carry stuff. A Vendor bicycle needs to be a Freight bicycle by definition. (I don't know what Asian contries you are thinking of, but the ones I'm familiar  with are in India, and they are just a "flatbed" cargo tricycle with a display stand on it.)
 * Freight bicycle is a more clear term.
 * Way more articles link to Freight bicycle than to Workbike (there isn't even a redirect from "Work bike" to Workbike)
 * Freight bicycle is a more mature, well rounded article, and it is the older of the two.
 * Cons of merging to Freight bicycle:
 * It's may not be immediately clear that vendor bicycle is a type of Freight bicycle to some people.
 * We may eventually build up a lot of content on Vendor bicycles that is not about the bicycle itself, e.g. the role in the urban economy, licencing, etc... that might be out of place on the Freight bicycle article. However if it was a small amount of info it would be fine, if it was a lot it could be made it's own article.
 * Cons of merging to Workbike:
 * Workbike is a very broad term with no real limitations. It's not clear is and what isn't a workbike  Utility bikes can be included in this term, despite not making any special allowances for cargo.  An argument could be made for including courier bicycles (and these can be pretty much any bike)  This ambiguity of term is emphasized by the opening paragraph "A workbike is a bicycle built for some purpose other than strictly human transportation."  This definition is non-conventional, and not what follows in the main body of the article.  The main body only covers freight bicycles.  By that definition any sports bicycle, or recreational bicycle fits in the definition, not true in my mind.
 * more work, ie more links to fix, more text to move.
 * Pros of merging to Workbike:
 * Vendor bicycles are clearly a subset. (but we have almost no info on vendor bikes at this point.)
 * Excuse the redundancy. Have I covered all the points?  I think that Freight bicycle covers vendor bicycles better than Workbike.  What do others think?  --Keithonearth (talk) 19:34, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Pros and cons
True a cycle that is used to sell something has to be able to carry it, but the carrying is not the main intention, whilst a freight bicycle the main intention is to move goods. An analogy would be to categorise Ice cream vans and Food trucks as freight trucks because in order to sell their goods the vendors will first have to move them.

Reading your outline I can see where we might be at cross purposes, if I am correct then your main concern is of how such bicycles are constructed and what special features such bikes possess either by design or modification, the physical characteristics of the bikes. While for me,my primary line of thinking is of how such bicycles are used. So yes, for me a utilty bike with the addition of containers or whatever to help it move things is a work bike. As to vendor bikes for what I'm thinking of have a look at Commons:Category:Retail bicycles (though vendor bicycle may be a good alternative name for this category.) And I would love to see an article on their use and their place in society and commerce.

Going back to my previous analogy a freight truck and a food truck are, if there had to be only one article to encompass them both then really neither deserves to have the main title space, but that since both are trucks, they should both be subsections of truck. Similarly although you see workbike/work bike as being too broad and generic as being a disadvantage, I see this as an advantage.KTo288 (talk) 23:25, 7 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I guess my concern is that categorizing by use and not by design is more subjective, and more ambiguous. What about selling things from unmodified diamond safety bicycles, are they workbikes too?  (as the case with the utility bikes carrying the plants)  In fact of the bicycles on Commons:Category:Retail bicycles we have 2 diamond framed utility bicycles, 9 cargo tricycles, one cargo side car, and one that's a rolling platform built on a tricycle frame.  Classifying most of them as freight bicycles is accurate, and putting the utility bicycles in the same catigory as the freight bicycles just because something is being sold from it at the moment is unhelpful and unnecessary.  Maybe the problem is that most vendor bicycles are Freight Bicycles, but not all are.  If that's the case it makes sense to have a section on Freight bicycle until there's enough content to spin it off to be it's own article.  Also choosing the page to merge to based on non-existant content seems unwise.  If someone gets enough info together for an article that would be great, but at the moment we only have one sentence "food vending in high foot traffic areas (including specialist ice cream bikes)", should we merge to Workbike to accommodate that sentence?  (disspite that sentence being on Freight bicycle, and no one bringing with it being there).  I think that a more accurate analogy would be categorise Ice cream vans as vans and Food trucks as trucks, as we do.  Both articles mention transporting goods in the opening sentence, freight truck sounds a bit redundant to me, nor is there an article.  What would you propose we change the opening sentence of workbike if we were to merge there?  How could we make it make sense?  It should be something that defines workbike, and makes clear what is and what isn't a workbike.  --Keithonearth (talk) 08:59, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Is this going anywhere? While it seems to me that there's a potential argument for merging to workbike (one that I don't agree with), I can't see any argument at all for merging the content that now exists to workbike.  Can we merge to Freight bicycle as all the material, as it now stands, in the workbike article is about Freight bicycles, and revisit it once content about vendor bikes develops? (if it does).  --Keithonearth (talk) 23:20, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I think this should be merged to Freight bicycle, as workbike seems too vague. DeMoN  2009  10:36, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Are we totally stuck? KTo288, are you still interested in this? I'm going to be bold (if I can still use the term after waiting for consensus this long) and do the merge if I don't hear from anyone.--Keithonearth (talk) 05:25, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Done

 * OK, I've done it. I hope I didn't annoy anyone, but I do think it's a move forward, and I think that we all want that the pages be merged.  I hope we can all agree that to this page is acceptable, at least until we get some vendor bicycle content.  I've erred on the side of caution in terms of making sure no information got left out of the merge, and have included a number of things that I feel are inaccurate, or unnecessary.  eg, "The evolution of cargo/workbikes parallels that of normal bicycles" is untrue, early bicycles were toys of young upperclass men, and a few spammy external links.  I'll try to clean up the article in the next couple days, but I want to do that in a transparent way. --Keithonearth (talk) 23:22, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Merge Longtail (bicycle) into this article
I propose that the Longtail (bicycle) article be merged into this article, into the section called "Types" which could be expanded to include descriptions of the Xtracycle as well as others. The Longtail article is a stub, just 1 paragraph, and it's about a generic class of cargo bicycles, therefore it makes sense to include it here. ~Amatulić (talk) 23:22, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Support. While I would like it if the Longtail article had enough content at present to justify its own article, I don't think it does at present, and think it should be merged.  Thanks for bringing this up. --Keithonearth (talk) 06:49, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Longtails carry passengers and can be used for floats in parades - not just freight. This is what makes longtails so different. Cycle rickshaws have their own article so why not longtails?--Darrelljon (talk) 15:59, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Because cycle rickshaw is a big enough article to exist in its own right. Longtail (bicycle) is not. If the information on longtails grows, it can always be split out into its own article again. But at the moment there is no need for a separate article. ~Amatulić (talk) 05:11, 7 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Support. Per Amatulić and Keithonearth plus principle of balanced treatment. Three offhand examples of far more important constructional types as yet also with no articles of their own: Long John, Tadpole tricycle, Delta tricycle. --Keinstein (talk) 15:25, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * With respect, I suggest that simply stating that other subjects are "even more deserving" of a separate article is not, in and of itself, a valid reason to merge an article that meets Wikipedia criteria for notability and/or other criteria. If a subject meets Wikipedia requirements, it merits its own article, whether or not other meritorious subjects are covered.  Also, I would contend that the Longtail is a more notable construction type in the contemporary North American bicycle scene, than are the three types you list above.  This statement may not be true for other parts of the world.  Ebikeguy (talk) 15:32, 24 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose Longtail bikes can be used for instance to carry two children, or lots of shopping, or so on. Sumbuddi (talk) 01:26, 8 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose the merge, as the proposal stands. I'd like to revisit the notion, discussed in prior sections of this talk page, of merging different articles into one article titled "Work bikes" or "Working bikes" rather than "Freight bikes."  As others have pointed out, longtails have many uses beyond hauling freight.  I agree that the Longtail bicycle article is a good merge candidate, as is the Porteur bicycle article, but I do not believe that Freight bicycles is the correct final destination.  Finally, if we do merge, I would like to see each sub-type have its own distinct, searchable section so that Wikipedia users can find each type through a simple search.  Ebikeguy (talk) 14:56, 24 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Support I think we need a catchall page for freight and cargo bicycles. Personally I would prefer the term "cargo" to "freight." As a builder of long john bikes I like to say that we move cargo and precious cargo - because the bikes handle carrying anything from people and pets to inanimate freight. "Cargo" is a more common term, here in Vancouver, BC. I agree that longtails should have their own page if the article is sufficient for it but they should also be linked from a catchall page either like this, and until the page is long enough it should be a sub section. Reading the other opinions it seems we are in general agreement that there ought to be a catchall page. However, I don't think "work" or "freight" is a broad enough term because we should be including long johns and long tails... bikes that can carry a variety of loads not just for "work."Rusl (talk) 21:30, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Support the merge. The longtail definitely belongs under this article but can receive a separate entry when written section gets very long. I agree with Rusl that the name cargo bicycle is common and better covers the subject. It may take away some of the doubts expressed by those opposing the merge. gidonb (talk) 18:36, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Conditional support. I could get behind a merger if we can come up with the right name for the catchall page. "Freight", "cargo", and "working" all seem to imply excluding hauling people. At least those descriptions do not conjure images of passengers for me when they are used to describe motorized vehicles. Do any reliable sources offer a solution? -AndrewDressel (talk) 14:29, 9 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Strong Support I would support a merge of most types of cargo bikes. They are mostly, when all is said and done, the same, that is the wheelbase has been modified to accompany a rack. There are so many regional and company specific variations, that each page to cover each modification would either be very short or duplicate a huge amount of content, like the uses. I think the gallery on Freight bicycle does well to convey a sense of variety. Jamesx12345 (talk) 19:17, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Primarily Used by Yuppies?
The citation currently used to support the claim that most of the freight bicycles used in Amsterdam are used by "Yuppies" is not linked to an English-language media source, and is therefore not suitable for inclusion in the English language Wikipedia. Also, the cited article appears to be about New York, not Amsterdam. I've already reverted the insertion of this claim once, and I don't want to get into an edit war, so I will hold off on reverting again in order to give the editor posting this claim a chance to find an appropriate reference to support it. Ebikeguy (talk) 22:52, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I've removed the statement about being used by yuppies now too. I'm dubious of the reference actually saying that, and even if it does doesn't make it an accurate statement or one worthy of inclusion in a encyclopedia.  If the reference does say that Amsterdam freight bicycles are mostly used by yuppies I'd like to see some explanation on the talk page why including it in the article makes is worth while, and why this reference is a valuable one.  I suspect that it's just a joke.  --Keithonearth (talk) 00:16, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Noob contribution
I just updated the list of longtail manufacturers to 2011 (to the best of my knowledge). I added references, but those were to vendor product pages; I don't know if that is appropriate or not, but it seemed like proof of existence to me. There are more of them now. I don't know if it is relevant, but the Sun Atlas Cargo is notably cheaper than the others, and also built to the Xtracycle longtail standard (no, I am not shilling for Sun, I find it interesting that they perceive a market at the lower price-point).

On the discussion above, I do not think I have much to contribute, other than a preference for the term "cargo bike" (it seems to be gaining some traction in the US) and some appreciation for the difficulty of drawing lines between categories here.

In a separate publication, I am attempting to compare the pros/cons (for middle-class American consumers) of a bakfiets vs. longtail for groceries, kids, etc. I don't have references, but it appears that the bakfiets is more convenient (no surprise) but that a longtail gives a more conventional-bicycle-like ride when unloaded or lightly loaded. The bakfiets also has the advantage that you can see your cargo and more easily avoid snagging it in tight spaces. All of this is personal communication with bike owners or personal experience - is it interesting, and WTF would I do with that information here, assuming it even qualifies as information? Dr2chase (talk) 03:23, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Heavy Pedals
Perhaps we can mention heavy pedals or put in a link ? I think they don't manufacture any bikes though, only sell them. Still, would be a useful site to many. See http://heavypedals.at/verkauf/ KVDP (talk) 07:57, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Rename to Cargo bike

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: MOVE (rename) article to Cargo bike. Mindfrieze (talk) 22:28, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Curious why the topic title is freight bicycle or workbike? I understand these bikes to mostly be referred to as "cargo bikes" these days.Lbliek (talk) 19:38, 15 December 2019 (UTC)Lbliek


 * I support renaming the article to Cargo bike or Cargo bicycle. I see very few references to freight bicycle/bike in a general search. --Mindfrieze (talk) 17:21, 16 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Support. 'Cargo bike' is the term generally used. Obscurasky (talk) 01:33, 17 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Support. "Cargo bike" has 105,000,000 hits on google, "cargo bicycle" has 80,700,000 hits (77%), "freight bicycle" has 54,800,000 hits (52%), and "freight bike" has 44,700,000 hits(42.6%). - AndrewDressel (talk) 02:27, 17 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Support. I run a cycle logistics operator in Sweden since 6 years and "Cargo bike" is the term used both for family-use and professional use. Then there are sub-categories like "family cargo bike" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Semivaken (talk • contribs) 11:29, 30 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Support. Have done a lot of research into this type of bike over the course of 2021 and "cargo bike" is much more commonly used.Jamcad57 (talk) 21:11, 27 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Support. I also support the change to cargo bike. Since I'm new to editing this page I'm not going to make the change but I this conversation started in 2019, I think someone should just go for it. MollyK 16 November 2021

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Post-move cleanup
Following closure of the above discussion to move freight bicycle to cargo bike, there is cleanup that needs to occur. I've started updating all links that currently point to the old Freight bicycle page; but as of this writing, there are still 115 pages to go. Your help to complete this cleanup is welcomed. --Mindfrieze (talk) 15:51, 4 February 2022 (UTC)