Q: What do you do if you get a mid-life crisis, but have three small kids?
A: You buy a cargo-bike instead of a time-trial bike..
I don’t have a mid-life crisis (at least I think so?), but I do have three small kids. My wife and I had been toying with the idea of not using a car to commute for a while. We wanted to reduce our footprint in the city (less noise, less space, less fumes).. and to be less sedentary ourselves.
A year ago, in October 2021, we bought a brand new Urban Arrow Family cargo bike to replace the car for the school-run and commuting as well as for short local trips.
By now, October 2022, we’ve done about 1200 kilometres with the Urban Arrow through three seasons — autumn, spring and summer.
Here’s what we think about it..
Does it work?
Yes. It’s great. We really like it.
The basket is vast — it fits all our three kids (8, 6 and 2 years old) easily, plus our small Jack Russell terrier, plus some light shopping.
Kids love riding on the bike. Since the rain cover protects them from the elements, they beg to go to school or kindergarten with the “rickshaw” as we call it, even if it’s 10C outside and raining.
I love riding the bike. It’s big and heavy, but the electric motor makes the exertion I get about the same as riding my normal gravel bike. I can easily keep a steady 25km/h pace, even in headwind. I am partially shielded from the wind and rain by the rain cover. I love the low intensity exercise and fresh air.
My wife is a novice cyclist and unfortunately she is scared of riding the cargo bike. The “Family” is a 2.5 metre long and 50kg heavy bike and although the centre of gravity is low and the electric assist is strong, it is intimidating for a beginner.
The bike itself
It manoeuvres well, has good acceleration and strong brakes. Riding up a 12% ascent for a kilometre with 2 kids in the basket is no big deal. Riding down the same hill alone and braking from 45km/h to a stop is also fine.
The bike comes as a complete package out of the box — bike, motor and head unit, basket, lights, fenders, stand, etc. Everything works, everything is of good quality.
During the first 1200 kilometres of riding, nothing has broken. I’ve lubed the chain twice and adjusted the chain tension once. The tires hold air remarkably well, I need to pump the tires on all our other bicycles at least 2–3 times more frequently.
The components are well selected. The Bosch Cargoline motor has 5 different power levels and is coupled to an Enviolo stepless rear hub, so you can always find a good pedalling cadence. The drivetrain uses a chain, not a belt, but since the chain is encased into a plastic housing, you only have to lube it once every 500km of riding and I expect the chain to last several thousand more kilometres.
The brakes are strong —4 piston calipers and 230mm rotor at the back, plus chunky tires means that you can stop aggressively with a gentle pull on the levers.
The 0.6kWh battery lasts for ca 60km of riding for our family. This is more than enough, since it’s unlikely you will take more than 10–15km trip in one go. My school-run and commute is 2x13km — so I can do two long commutes on a single charge easily and charge the battery every other day. Charging takes several hours, so it’s best to do that overnight.
The basket
The kickstand is very sturdy, so the bike stands on it’s own very well on any strong flat surface. There is no door to the basket (unlike a Carqon Classic for example), so kids need to climb into it over the edge. It’s fine for kids from ca 5 years old, but our 2 year old can’t get in or out of the basket himself.
The wide rear bench has two pairs of three-point seatbelts, which attach with a nifty magnetic click. The upper edge of the basket is approximately at shoulder level of 5–6 year old kids, and there is no neck bracing behind the seats, so in case of a rear-end collision, Urban Arrow Family feels less secure than something like the Ca Go FS 200, which has headrests behind the seats.
The basket is deep, so kids can sit in a natural position on the bench, this seems much better for long journeys than Larry vs Harry Bullitt or Hagen Nighthawk, where kids have to sit on the flat floor of the shallow basket.
The basket is surrounded by strong aluminium beams and is constructed of “bicycle helmet material” — EPS, so it feels sturdy and secure as well as potentially softening the impact of an accident.
Riding
The riding position is very “Dutch” and very comfortable— you sit upright, leaning gently backwards. At my normal saddle height, my feet reach the pedals slightly in the front as well as reach the ground straight down when I stop. This makes stopping and starting safe.
The step-through frame makes it easy to climb onboard, although I find myself flinging my leg over the saddle.
On a reasonably good surface, it’s great fun to ride. It accelerates to 25km/h without too much effort and you can easily cruise at that speed, even into headwind, up hills and with the basket full of kids. It’s a quiet and smooth ride and you have a nice commanding view of the road ahead over the rain cover. Since the centre of gravity of the bike is low, it’s easy to manoeuvre at both slow and high speeds. At slows speeds, it feels more stable than my gravel bike.
It does not like very bad surfaces, it does not go up kerbs well, and it does not fit into tight spaces. Since there is no suspension, it can be jarring to ride on broken pavement and up and down sharp pavement edges. Kids can find it fun to bounce up and down in the basket, but my back hates it.
At 2.5m long, it also struggles to fit on the pedestrian “islands” in the middle of multi-lane roads and to cram through the pedestrian “maze” on railway crossings.
Overall — unless the bicycle infrastructure in your town is absolutely terrible, the Urban Arrow Family will probably be OK.
Parking
This is the elephant in the room. Not being able to park your cargo bike in a convenient and safe way is probably one of the main reasons why you won’t be getting one, even if you want to.
In my city, the cargo bike is an anomaly. At 2.5m long and 50kg heavy, there is no way you will carry it up to your apartment or down into your cellar box. Even if your apartment building has a “bike-shed”, chances are it won’t fit in it.
When you go shopping or running errands, you’re probably going to be able to fit this bike in the public bike parking facilities just fine.
But — if you want to use it to commute to work, do you need a car parking spot? Or will you leave your 6000EUR bike locked to the flimsy aluminium ring on the street at the front of the office that your employer calls bicycle parking?
I am lucky to have a garage and to work in hipsterville of my town where cargo bikes are welcome and can be parked.
Cost
We paid 6300EUR for our bike. This is about the maximum amount one could have paid for an Urban Arrow Family in late 2021, as we got the version with the most powerful motor and most of the optional extras.
It’s expensive! The price per kilometre on our old car is 0.26EUR (this figure includes fuel, all running costs and depreciation throughout 15 years). I would need to ride my rikshaw for nearly 25,000 kilometres to get to 0.26EUR/km.
But it’s also cheap .. once you have the bike, the marginal cost of a trip is almost zero. There is no insurance, no fuel (electricity cost is a negligible 0.3EUR/100km), you can do most of the maintenance yourself with common hand-tools and the depreciation per year is in hundreds, not in thousands of EUR per year compared to a car.
In a nutshell
Urban Arrow Family is like the Mercedes Benz E-class of cargo bikes. It’s a big, high quality, smooth vehicle, which is also expensive, feels a little like a taxi and rides best on wide roads with smooth asphalt.
Whether you should get one or not is likely going to be defined not by what you want, but rather your life situation and the bicycle infrastructure around you.
If you have small kids and live in an area with good bike paths and bike parking facilities — Urban Arrow Family is a great replacement for the second car. I really do arrive to work happy and relaxed if I’ve taken my rikshaw for the commute.
If you don’t have a good bike infrastructure around, it will be jarring to ride up and down the kerbs and anxiety-inducing to share the road with cars. It will be difficult to park and store. And as a result, the price per kilometre will probably remain higher than what you have with your car.
Top tips
Get the rain cover plus
Definitely get the “rain cover plus”! If the kids are sitting in the basket without any wind protection and you’re doing 25km/h, they will get cold fast on even a moderate temperature day. The rain cover keeps the kids away from direct sunlight in the summer, keeps them away from the wind and rain on all seasons. There’s a cheaper “essential” rain cover as well, but with that one, you can’t fit a third kid in the front of the basket, which to me is not worth the small saving.
Get the extra bench
I recommend to get the extra bench to the front of the basket. It’s a hugely practical bike and with the additional bench fitted, will take 3 kids (and a small dog) instead of 2 kids (and that same small dog). Even if you don’t have 3 kids yourself, someone will want to hitch a ride. The third bench folds away when nobody is sitting on it, so it doesn’t come with much of a penalty in space.
Buy a strong lock
It’s a very expensive bike and leaving it parked in front of a shopping centre will induce anxiety. I recommend spending ca 150EUR and getting a beefy chain lock, a la Kryptonite New York Fahgettaboutit.
Carrier rack — maybe?
I got the rear carrier rack, but I haven’t used it much. The basket is so large, that chances are, all your passengers and stuff will fit there. The rack only costs only an extra 1.5% to the price of the bike, and does potentially allow you to carry panniers or a basket for more stuff — doesn’t hurt to get it.
You don’t need the most powerful motor
I got the most powerful motor — Bosch Cargoline. But honestly — I am nowhere near the maximum capacity of the motor vast majorirt of time in my town. So — unless you live in a very hilly place, I recommend saving some money and going with the weaker motor.
One battery is enough
I also haven’t felt a need for a second battery. One battery lasts me ca 60 kilometers, which is more than enough for a number of trips. It’s highly unlikely that you will want to make a 60km journey or more than a 30km round-trip in one-go. So, I’ve almost never had range anxiety or had to re-plan a trip because of charging.
