Cycle Truck-style design. Thoughts?

[cblandford]

My never-ending quest for a favorite errand bicycle continues. I’ve ridden long-tails, built a sorta “mid-tail” thing, owned a couple front-loading cargo bikes, and ridden regular bikes with all kinds of racks. Pros and cons and all of that. One type of bicycle that I haven’t ridden, however, is the Cycle Truck-style. As such, I’m going to build myself one.

After reading what I can about their design, I’ve come up with the following (pertinent dimensions displayed):



I’m fairly well versed on front-end geometry (or, at least I understand how each dimension is figured and how they relate to one another). With this design, I attempted to balance the bike’s head angle and fork rake with the resulting trail/flop values and center-of-gravity for the load.

My eyes tell me that this looks like a bicycle that’ll handle… bicycle-like. That usually translates, I’m finding! If anyone with experience, however, has observations about front-loaders like this, I’d love to read them. If not, no worries. I shall report back down the road regardless, when/if this machine doesn’t kill me.

Happy Monday.

-Chris

[cblandford]

I'm alive! Phew!

Finally got this one built up enough for a test ride. Don't mind the unfinished fillets and parts-bin-let's-just-see-how-this-thing-rolls-around build.














I realize there wasn't any interest in this thread, but I promised to report back. So here you go. I built this exactly as designed, above. (Less--of course--the Steps mid drive. I decided to build up a "regular" version first, so that I could tweak geometry if needed. The "e" version is next...)

In short: I'm in love!

At speed with a load, the bike is really stable. Hands free, arms out, saddle between the knees, grinning fun. Unloaded, however, the steering is a touch light for my taste. I may shorten up the rake or steepen the head angle just a bit on V2. I could live with it as is, but I think I can improve the unloaded handling some. Other than that, this monster handles really well. I'm especially surprised at how well it handles ultra-low-speed maneuvering. I'm not able to track stand on my regular porteur-style commuter (with a front load jostling about), but this bike is a different thing. Sweet!

Anyway, there you go. Cycle-truck. We'll see how it holds up while I build the e-version.

-Chris

[cblandford]

EDIT: I meant *slacken* up the head angle just a bit... Can't find the Edit button.

-Chris

[darkmother]

That is really cool. I'd love to have something like that for hauling stuff around.

How much weight do you think you could put in that front basket before it became 'too much'?

Jeremy Maclennan

[cblandford]

It's beautiful. Great work. Thanks for sharing and thanks for the followup.

Thanks!

How much weight do you think you could put in that front basket before it became 'too much'?

I threw the pictured basket on there just so I could test the frame with a decent load. Call it 25 pounds. My plan, though, is to build a detachable platform that would mount directly to the two cantilevered tubes. I may mount an even larger Wald basket on top of that--for groceries and such. Really though, I wanted a bike like this more to carry bulk than weight. Large boxes to UPS, etc. That said, if my jump-up-and-down-on-it-to-see-how-strong-it-turned-out-test says anything, I imagine those tubes would (will?) hold more weight than I'd ever want to pedal around. They're stout. I likely won't test their limits anytime soon!

-Chris

[Blacklabbikes]

That looks great - what did you use as seat-tube?

[cargonaut]

That’s a nice looking cycle truck! 20” front end geometry seems more like a mystery compared to full size wheels. I made a couple dozen 20”wheel bikes over the years for myself (a hobbyist) and have gravitated towards less fork offset/lots of trail. I think the last one worked out to about 70mm trail, 15mm offset, about 71 degree head. Good slow speed hands-off, good at speed, and with some weight up front. It doesn’t seem to have any of the nervous or wandering handling characteristics typical of some small wheelers. I suppose the best way to find out what you like is to make a fork with a number of slots for the front wheel and try em out��

Drew Devereux

[cblandford]

That’s a nice looking cycle truck! 20” front end geometry seems more like a mystery compared to full size wheels. I made a couple dozen 20”wheel bikes over the years for myself (a hobbyist) and have gravitated towards less fork offset/lots of trail. I think the last one worked out to about 70mm trail, 15mm offset, about 71 degree head. Good slow speed hands-off, good at speed, and with some weight up front. It doesn’t seem to have any of the nervous or wandering handling characteristics typical of some small wheelers. I suppose the best way to find out what you like is to make a fork with a number of slots for the front wheel and try em out��

Drew Devereux

Thanks for the feedback, Drew. The more I ride this one, the more I'm leaning toward increasing the trail as well. There's something about the load being attached to the frame (and the front wheel being small and naturally skittish, obviously), that is telling me to reduce the rake quite a bit. Time to start on v2, for sure. I appreciate the thoughts!

-Chris