Almost one year ago I sold my car, in favor of cheaper, less stressful modes of travel. I’ve mostly walked and taken transit since then, but neither of those options are great for carrying the materials I use for my projects. A front-load cargo bike seemed like the ideal vehicle for this, but they can be expensive, especially in North America. So I made my own. For now this is just a prototype, built cheaply and intended to be a testing platform to develop a better design that I’ll build some future day.

Design highlights

The front portion of the frame — where the cargo goes — is made from rectangular tubing with M8 threaded holes in all sides. (I made a video about how I created these threaded holes) This allows me to experiment with different cargo boxes or platforms, since they’re all just bolted on and can be swapped out and modified without cutting up the frame. The kickstand also mounts to these holes.

To keep things simple and keep costs down, I bought an old mountain bike for $90 and reused the rear triangle, top tube, and most of the bike components like the drivetrain and brakes.

I cut off the donor bike’s top tube and re-welded it on an angle downward, to give me a lower step-over height. The steering post (that holds the handlebars) is straight up & down, 90° to the base of the cargo area. This gives me a little bigger box than if it was angled forward toward the bottom. I plan to make all of my cargo boxes / flatbeds with straight edges and 90° corners, as that’s what’s most useful for hauling cargo. (Most front-load cargo bikes are designed for hauling kids, so they’re not as useful of shape for hauling plywood or boxes)

My bike weighs in at 44lb (20kg), without the cargo box attached. Pretty light for a steel-frame bike of this size. For comparison, a Riess & Müller Load weighs ~80lbs, ~20 of which is the electric assist system that mine lacks. However, mine is quite weak, and I can feel the frame flexing any time I load up more than about 100lbs (45kg) in the box. For comparison, that same Riess & Müller bike has a rated payload of 440lb (200kg) including the rider. Mine rides comfortably and handles just fine with 200lbs (90kg) in the box, but the underbuilt frame feels like it will break. I’ll make version 2 much stronger.