Who is he. Nobody knows. He's a Manc mystery on wheels wrapped in an 3/4 length enigma. He pops up in more places than Droopy the Master Detective and even has his own 8 Freight fan page. Well here he is now on tape. Well ok his backside on tape. ....Never noticed the cargobay on 8 Freight was uncentred til now. Interesting that.
p.s I'm not wheelhugging. It's just a cheapo camera that's not very wide angle.
p.p.s @ 0.55 it sound like a tram honks at me!.....it was actually warning an ipod zombie about to cross the tracks.
I was interested in the 8freight, until I heard about the frame breakages. Then I lost all interest. IIRC, the frame is Aluminium and it appears it's overstressed. In general, I think Aluminium is not terribly suitable for cargo bikes, however if I do get one, it might be a Bullitt, Aluminium-framed, but IMHO much better designed and very light. AFAICT, there have been no incidents of Bullitt frame failure, so far. But it's a new design and time will tell. The other candidate is the Bakfiets.nl or something very similar (steel-framed).
ReplyDeleteAnother reason I'm less keen on the 8Freight, is the trailing load, which means difficulties with the rear wheel cutting corners and the wide rear-projecting load causing problems while filtering.
I think it's extremely significant that every cargo bike I can think of has the load up-front. Can they all the others be wrong? I think it's nice to have the cargo where I can see it and avoid the trailing load.
It's an interesting bike, but I don't think I'd want one. There's just too many quirky features that appear to be there just for the sake of it. I'd want a hub gear for starters and not a derailuer that is a couple of inches from the ground. & monoblades on a bike that is supposed to be a heavyweight carrying workhorse just doesn't compute in my head. But it obviously works for this guy, day in day out, so fair doos.
ReplyDeleteThe Bullitts look excellent & I can't imagine them suffering from frame failures. Shame they don't have a chaincase as standard though.
"The Bullitts look excellent & I can't imagine them suffering from frame failures. Shame they don't have a chaincase as standard though."
ReplyDeleteI agree, especially considering the faffing about that Dave42 went through.
The Bullitt is really so close, but even so remains still so very far from perfection in so many ways.
Shame.... :(