May 07, 2025
Jennifer's E-Cargo Bike; Making good on empty promises...
Words: Thomas Scott Photographs: James Wainscott
Back in 2021, I finally noticed all the gloves I was passing on the side of the road, and I decided to do something about it.
I needed to pick them up, to collect them. This did not make my wife happy, but that wasn’t the point. Before long, I realized that the thing my amazingly capable Endpoint Coffee Grinder needed was a rack. I won’t bore you with the details of that project, but it set me on a path that led to every bike in my collection having a rack. I’d discovered something I suspect a lot of other cyclists had learned before me: The highest purpose of a bicycle is to carry not just its rider, but also stuff. All kinds of stuff.
When Outpost built up my Surly Bridge Club, it was a single-speed, drop-bar tourer that was comfortable as all heck to ride, but it didn’t have the spark it needed. It didn’t take me long to add front and rear racks to it, and now I use it to schlep mail for the silly side hustle I run and to go to the grocery store. Sometimes, if I’m feeling saucy, I use it to pick up donuts. Later, I added a Velo Orange Neutrino to my collection. It’s got a basket and a front rack, all in the service of the idea that I might want to carry something. A buddy who built one before me said he used his to schlep laundry from his house to the laundromat. Talk about a silly bike that earns its keep.
Now I’m at a point in my life that I look longingly at the cargo bikes in every single bike shop I wander into. I think of all the stuff I could take with me. I could pretty easily render my car obsolete for a lot of the year. And now so many cargo bikes come with electric assistance that I don’t even have to worry about being sweaty when I get wherever I’m going.
Every car commercial you watch is designed to make you pine for the freedom a car represents.
I studied advertising and I work in marketing, and one of the things that’s true of both disciplines is that we want to show consumers exactly how much better their lives could be with our products. Nowhere is this more obvious than in car ads. Every car commercial you watch is designed to make you pine for the freedom a car represents. You can go where you want to. You can go as fast or slow as you want. You can take your friends along. You can bring your stuff. It’ll all fit.
And the moment you add cargo bikes to your equation, what you realize is that what those car ads are really selling is just bike life.
Sure, a bike is a little slower, but it lets you actually take in what’s around you. You can smell those bakeries and burger joints as you go by. You can notice paths and offshoots and other oddities that you’d likely just miss in a car. You can ride right up to the picnic table in the park that you wanna sit at and have lunch. You can even pick up stuff from the side of the road, just make sure to leave some for me. I follow no fewer than five instagram accounts that document people finding things on the side of the road. Seriously. There’s so much stuff on the side of the road. A lot of it’s perfectly useable still.
I have a different friend who,... delights in the freedom that her bike affords her,... You could say she’s dreamed about it since she was a kid.
A bike-nerd friend who lives inside the city limits regularly uses his (non-electric assisted) cargo bike for trips to the hardware store and to pick up pet food. He has a separate bike to commute to work. I have a different friend who, upon getting a new job that was within 10 miles of home, bought a cargo bike so she could leave her car parked most of the time. She delights in the freedom that her bike affords her on her daily commute to enjoy the world and her surroundings. You could say she’s dreamed about it since she was a kid. And one of the biggest perks she never stops talking about is that she’s never trapped in traffic.
I have loads of bike friends who ride to work. Lots of bike rides end – or at least feature a waypoint – at a coffee shop. We meet up for lunch. We ride as a pack and pick up trash. I’ve even been on rides to look at Christmas lights, and let me tell you: They’re so much more fun to see when you’re moving at a bike pace and you don’t have a car window separating you from them. It turns out that real freedom is pretty easily found on a bike.
And I’m certain that I don’t need to wax poetic about how our modern American society could be better off with fewer cars and safer places to ride bikes and walk.
If you’re reading this, you probably don’t need me to tell you about how too much of the world is parking lots and spaces that are unused for large parts of the day. You probably don’t need me to remind you about how many people cars kill on a regular basis. You definitely don’t need me to hold court on how much more accessible your world became when you learned how to ride a bike. And I’m certain that I don’t need to wax poetic about how our modern American society could be better off with fewer cars and safer places to ride bikes and walk. A quick scroll through almost any social media app will give you better insight on all that than I could here.
No, what I want to do is remind you that you’re not alone. I want you to remember that you could be riding your bike right now. Or maybe tomorrow. And, with the right equipment – a rack isn’t an expensive accessory – you could be carrying stuff with you on that ride. I want to remind you that we can and should advocate for safer places to ride. I really think that if enough people see that light,...
