Matt and I both test-rode the Bakfiets. We had plenty of time, because our daughter had no interest in getting out of it.
One of the big advantages of going to Portland to try out a bunch of cargo bikes is the opportunity to test ride a lot of different box bikes. Box bikes, aka long johns, aka “those bikes that look like wheelbarrows” are thick on the ground in Portland, with at least five different kinds, of which we tried riding four (Bakfiets, Bullitt, Metrofiets, and Winther Wallaroo, but we missed the Cetma Largo/Margo). The Bakfiets is the most storied of these, occupying the same place that in the world of box bikes that Kleenex occupies in the world of facial tissues. If people know only one kind of box bikes, they know Bakfiets. Heck, Bakfiets means box bike.
Box bikes put the load and the length in front, hence the wheelbarrow analogy, and this involves some mental adjustment, because you’re pushing the kids out in front at intersections. I found it easiest to think of riding box bikes like pushing a stroller. The length in the front of these bikes is in fact roughly comparable to the length of a stroller. As box bikes go, even the Bakfiets long (which is the one we tried) is on the shorter end, at 8 feet end to end. However, unlike a stroller, you can talk with your kids when you’re riding a box bike with them. I never really got the attraction of this until I actually tried it myself. Having the kids in the front of the bike is awesome.
The Bakfiets is a Dutch bike, with the traditional Dutch riding posture, which is bolt upright and gives an expansive view of the road. When I first got on the Bakfiets, I thought, “Whoa! This bike is tall!” Also traditionally Dutch is its design, which aims directly for indestructible without even a nod towards nimble or lightweight. The Bakfiets weighs about 90 pounds and is intended to live outdoors in the Netherlands. You can leave this bike outdoors in this country as well; weather won’t bother it. However bike theft insurance isn’t as developed in the US as it is much of Europe, so if that is a concern, you’d want to have some kind of walk-in storage for it, because no way would you want to haul this bike up or down any kind of stairs.
My two kids, ages 3.5 and almost-7, had plenty of room on a Bakfiets bench.
The Bakfiets’ indestructibility means that it has pretty nice components. That also means that this bike is not cheap. There is no free lunch in the world of cargo bikes. What you get for your money with a Bakfiets is kid-hauling capability and ease that no other bike we’ve ever ridden can match. However this bike was also designed for an environment where the only inclines are the dikes preventing the ocean from washing away the entire country, which no one has any reason to climb regularly. That means you’ll be hating life every time you hit a hill on a Bakfiets.
The pros of the Bakfiets:
- Kids love this bike. Love it, love it, love it. Our kids loved all the front-loading box bikes we tried, as well as the trikes, but they loved the Bakfiets most of all. When we walked into Clever Cycles it was the first bike they wanted to try, and once they got in, they didn’t want to get out. The heights of seats inside different box bikes vary, but after generations of testing Bakfiets apparently has it just right. Flip the seats up and there’s plenty of room to nap. With two benches and two kids there’s room to split up fighting kids (and they’re in front where they can be supervised anyway). The only downside of the Bakfiets box from our perspective is that the sides are high enough that my daughter couldn’t self-load, and my son, who could, wanted us there for security.
- The kickstand on the Bakfiets is incredibly stable. It has four resting points, and when it’s down, the bike is as solid as a building. It can be engaged and disengaged with one foot while you are on the bike and holding the handlebars, minimizing the risk of tipping the bike and dumping the kids. It locks up and down with a THUNK so there is no doubt whether it’s where you want it to be.
- Like all box bikes, it comes with a box, which means that you can throw all kinds of stuff in there without worrying about does it fit, did I tie it down, did I remember the panniers, and so forth. The Bakfiets has a big box, too, and the seats fold up, meaning that without a kid on board it’s actually larger than the trunk of many cars, and since it’s open on the top, it’s actually a lot more accessible. What’s more, you can drop a car seat in this bike and haul infants.
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Four kids in the box, one on a rear seat, and one on a Follow-Me tandem. Ride on, party bike! If you want to haul lots of kids, the Bakfiets has no equal.
The back of the bike is like a normal bike, but because a Bakfiets is designed to carry serious weight, it can haul a lot more. That means that in addition to putting kids in the front box, you can stick a rear seat on the back, and/or a trailer-bike. The front box is supposed to hold up to three kids, but you can get four in there. That’s up to six kids on the bike, plus whatever cargo you can pack under the seats and on the rear rack. At which point you will move very slowly. But still! The bike can carry more kids than a minivan! And it’s a million times cooler.
- The payoff to all that weight is stability while riding. It offers a slow and stately ride. In addition, the Bakfiets has minimal startup wobble, even heavily loaded. It is certainly possible to dump this bike, but I didn’t manage it, and I was dumping my kids at a pace that was really starting to bother me on this trip—this is a hazard when switching bikes every few hours, because each one has a learning curve.
- The bike is designed to be grab-and-go for pretty much everyone. Everything you could want while riding is included. It has dynamo lights, an internally geared hub, a full chain guard, and fenders. The child seat and seat belts are built right into the box. The Bakfiets has a step-through frame that makes it accessible to riders of varying heights from very short to very tall. The box comes with a rubber (?) floor that keeps the box from echoing while the bike is moving. There are drainage holes in each corner.
- The Bakfiets has a rain/cold weather cover. It is so effective that one mom who had previously ridden in a cold-weather climate said her kids rode inside the box in t-shirts in freezing weather, and sometimes complained of the heat. But this was no problem, as it turns out, because the cover can also be vented from the back when it gets too hot inside.
The cons of the Bakfiets:
- All front box bikes have linkage steering. This involves a non-trivial learning curve. The wheel is way out in front, on the far end of the front box, and when you turn the handlebars, unlike a normal bike, the turn connects to the front wheel indirectly through the linkage. Family Ride told me that when she first got on a Bakfiets she ran it into a wall. I would have done the same thing myself if I hadn’t spent the previous two days figuring out linkage steering on other box bikes. (Don’t take a first test-ride of any cargo bike with the kids on board. Seriously.) That said, of all the box bikes we tried, the steering on the Bakfiets was by far the easiest to pick up. This is partially because unlike normal bikes, with these bikes you don’t really want to lean much into turns; this amplifies the turn and then the bike starts to oscillate until you hit something or fall over. But you sit up so high on a Bakfiets that it’s already difficult to lean much into turns. Anyway, when trying out a bike with linkage steering (a) try not to lean into turns, just move the handlebars, and (b) don’t look at the front wheel, look where you want to go. After a little while you get used to it, really.
- A much bigger problem is hills. The first time I hit a short incline on the Bakfiets I automatically leaned over to push, at which point I hit my chest on the handlebars. There’s that upright posture again. This bike does not climb. Although it is technically possible to stand while riding on hills it doesn’t help much. Going uphill on this bike involves suffering, and I didn’t even try it on a steep hill. Granted, Portland has many more hills than Chicago or Sacramento, but Bakfiets riders that we met complained about the kinds of hills that denizens of San Francisco like us only even think about when our son is on his single-speed bike, and which I would otherwise classify as an-incline-not-really-a-hill. Moreover, the roller brakes standard on a Bakfiets (which would be difficult to replace) will not effectively slow a bike of this weight on a steep downhill. I’m not sure that any brakes would. No one who sells Bakfiets bikes was willing to even consider putting an electric assist on one for us. It can be done and it has been done, and it’s certainly an option for people who want to extend their range in flatter locales. But we were informed that if we put an assist on a Bakfiets where we live there would be no safe way to get back down the hills that we could then climb. “This bike isn’t for you,” said people whose livelihood is selling family bikes.
- Like all cargo bikes with a box, this bike is wide and thus tough to park. I had also worried about riding with a box bike, after my experience feeling like the Yuba Mundo was too wide for San Francisco bike lanes. It turned out that that kind of width only bothers me when it’s behind me where I can’t see it. The Bakfiets has a wide box, but that never felt like a problem while riding, although it would be a tight squeeze through our narrow basement door (but possible).
- The Bakfiets is in many ways a car replacement. This comes at a price. The Bakfiets we rode was listed at $3500 for black, $3750 for cream. That’s not out of line if it’s actually replacing a car, and by comparison to a car it’s actually pretty reasonable. But it’s not cheap, even for a cargo bike; you can buy an assisted Yuba elMundo, for example, for almost $1000 less, and it can do some of the same things while also going up many hills. And you can stick a trailer on the back of a bike for far less than an elMundo, even if you decide to put an electric assist on that bike. And so forth. Cargo bikes tend to retain their value, so a Bakfiets will have decent resale value, but still, you’ve got to put down the money first (or get a bicycle loan) unless you find one used. And if you manage to find a used one it will still be expensive thanks to the fact that cargo bikes usually have good resale value.
- Finally, the Bakfiets is so well-designed for hauling kids that it is almost single-use. There are cargo-conversion accessories, but I found it difficult to imagine wanting to ride this bike much after my kids were old enough to want to ride exclusively on their own bikes. Most of the longtails and some of the other box bikes seemed more versatile; I could imagine using them for other things long after the kids outgrew them. You would definitely get a lot of years out of this bike no matter what; you can stick a car seat in the box from birth and kids seem happy to ride in it until they’re nine or ten, and with a couple of years between kids that’s an awfully long run. But it’s not forever, and our youngest is already three years old.
What do you mean, it’s time to get out now?
Overall, I liked the Bakfiets a lot. Matt liked it less, mostly because of the upright posture, which does not appeal to him much. We are conditioned to think about hills all the time. But we both agreed that this bike was absolutely amazing for carrying children. And as far as our kids were concerned, when a Bakfiets was in sight, other bikes might as well not exist. They could be coaxed into investigating other box bikes and the trikes, and a tandem always gets their attention, but the longtails were dead to them. The Bakfiets is the family bike that other bikes aspire to be.
And of course we will not be buying one. Nobody in Portland wanted to sell us a Bakfiets, and the reason was obvious. Hills and older children are the sticking points of cargo bikes (and bikes with trailers); the Bakfiets handles older kids without a hitch, but it cannot handle the steep hills of San Francisco. However if you happen to live someplace where a Bakfiets is a plausible option, it is definitely worth a ride.
Hum of the city 
While passing through the (flat-as-a-pancake) Netherlands I saw two teachers leading a group of kindergarden kids through the center of a busy city. The kids were packed into extra,extra large red wagons (with high sideboards), about a dozen each. It seemed like a very intelligent and practical society (um…with lots of bulging calf muscles)
My only quibble is that standing is possible. I do it all the time, but I have been riding our bakfiets for 16 months. I didn’t think it could be done, then Emily tweeted that it could and that little hills disappeared. The next day I gave it a try and it was great! I didn’t exclusively stand on hills, but it’s in my arsenal of tricks. Also fun: standing up on a speed bump coming down a hill, for that little extra whoosh!
I wish I hadn’t been so stubborn and refused the StokeMonkey when I first heard of it. Carpe diem.
Dutch friends down the road brought one over to the Boston area, and their twins (~1 yo) go many places in it. I love it, too, but couldn’t figure out where to store it. (I don’t want to keep it out in the open in Boston winters, even with a tarp or other cover.)
I’ve been thinking about brakes in hilly areas:
Tandems can really speed down descents — two 150# riders + bike (~35#) = 335#. Compared to bakfiets (100#) + driver (150#) + cargo (85#) = 335#.
How do tandem bicycles deal with braking? Some tandems use V-brakes or cantilever brakes (rim brakes!) with an accessory rear drum brake (hub) actuated by the stoker or a ratchet lever.
Surely engineers have solved this problem! Anyhoo, the lawyers will prevail. It’s the American Way…
Our DaVinci and Cannondale tandems both have larger size disk brakes than those found in single bikes. With loaded panniers we hit 60 mph descending a Mississippi bluff in the teeth of an approaching thunderstorm, though (luckily) there was no need to test the brake on that run.
I climb “hills” (inclines?) on our bakfiets by leaning forward and sort of placing my elbows on the handlebar grips and grabbing the center of the handlebars and kind of pulling backwards– if that makes any sense at all! Walking the bike works too, especially if you dump out any bigger kids and make them walk too 🙂
Yes, but walking the bike is so slow! We have to do that when our son is on his bike and hits a hill and it takes forever.
I think box bikes are best when your first kid is about 18 months…You take that kid everywhere in it (you are so excited to have a cargo bike!). Then you get a second kid and can take two – you might put one kid in a car seat in the box and the other kid on the back. Then eventually they can both sit up front. Add another kid or two and you can have that bike for years.
Starting when the youngest is three… I don’t see it.
I do love the series and it makes me think about what I want (in addition to our Joe Bike boxbike).
I guess I have to disagree with the thought about the timing for the usefulness of a bakfiets. We have had ours for five years now. We grew from two kids at age three and six to now three kids from three up. We used our bike with all three with both a mounted baby seat inside and a bobike mounted on the handlebars and two inside. It worked pretty well both ways.– though we have the long box (with both seats) and never recommend buying a shorter box on any bakfiets. As the kids have gotten bigger we have found ourselves carting musical instruments and school projects along with groceries and the kids. The kids continue to like the box even in 6th grade.
In respect to buying a box bike, we live in a city with very few hills. We do enjoy long months of brutal winter weather and we are acolytes of the church of the enclosed chain case. If you cope with snow and winter these weatherproof bikes require very very little maintenance in comparison to other bakfiets — which is a considerable cost factor over time, and you can stay on the road with your family instead of fixing things.
The inclusion of hub powered lights are also a major benefit as you spend little to nothing on lights again and never have to think about changing a battery or bulb when you least have time!
In terms of kids getting older we are huge fans of tandems– rigged classics or kids-in-front models. It’s fun to read your series especially considering that though we do use a big tandem on big hills in MA we are hill free in Chicago!
Hey – just in case you are still looking for a cargo bike, we live way up in the Berkeley Hills and we have an electrified Bakfiets bike. Totally awesome, no problems going up and down the hills.
Sarah Bowles, that’s really interesting, thanks for the reply – what kind of brakes does your bakfiets have? I grew up in the Berkeley area, and biked there a lot, and we now have a bakfiets in Davis, but I can’t imagine taking our (older model) bakfiets down streets like Euclid or even the Arlington… The brakes are just strong enough to got down the freeway and train overpasses in Davis.
Another Boxbike-owner-in-a-hilly-area here! I biked to and from work on an electrified (185W, EU-legal pedelec) Bakfiets Premium, fitted with what the dealer called a nordic-package (Living in Norway, so it seemed reasonable). It still has rollers up front, but with massive heat sinks, and a drum in the hub in the back. The latter will stop the bike very quickly if necessary, but in normal use there is some braking distance.
Hey Mark, I’m the hubby to Sarah, here’s the deets: it’s a stock Workcycles Cargo bike Long, but those Shimano Roller Brakes were not cutting it when bombing down the Berkeley Hills. I swapped out the fork for the same guy, but with Cantilever bosses. Put Magura hydraulic rim brakes on the front. Brakes are not an issue anymore. As long as I keep the roller brake in the rear greased up, it works fine too. I would not say it stops on a dime, but the brakes are plenty powerful enough. Plus, the 500w / 48v front wheel motor and battery is enough to climb back up with ease.
Hi phains and Sarah Bowles,
Where did you have your e-assist conversion done? I’ve been scouring the internet, and yours sounds like it might be one of the more powerful conversions out there.
Also, are you still happy with your conversion?
Thanks!
Hey Jesse,
We had ours done by Jelani, the owner of The Bicycle Works, in San Anselmo. Give him a call, he’s really great. Super knowledgeable about electric cargo bikes.
Ours is definitely one of the more powerful. It cranks out up to 1K watts, which I pretty much always use going up into the Berkeley Hills. The only nit I would have about it is that the product, by Grin Technologies, is a thumb throttle only. It would be a lot more comfortable to have a cruise control option or a pedal assist. I end up holding down the thumb throttle the entire way up the hill. It was a pain at first, but now I don’t really notice it too much.
I find that riding a front box cargo bike is much easier than this article makes it seem. I lived in San Francisco and I would consider riding one there. Few people will ever have to ride a hill in SF unless they live at the top of bottom of one. In the year I spent there I rode hills for fun, not necessity (lots of bike lanes go around). Front box cargo bikes are not that hard to push up a hill and I can ride it up everywhere I go on a daily basis. I commute 16 miles a day on one and recently I decided to ride it up the steepest hill we have here in Ventura CA and it was not too excessive.
We don’t see a lot of bakfietsen in San Francisco. We know a few people who brought one here. However unless they can be assisted, they tend to be impractical, and they don’t get ridden. Obviously it’s different elsewhere, but we were looking for a bike that was practical for our everyday lives, and we did, in fact, live at the top of a steep hill at the time. And now we live at the bottom of one.
Hi there,
Thank you for all this great info about hills. I have been struggling for 6 months to decide what type of cargo bike to get. My husband is not thrilled about my obsession to ride a bike with 2 kids (2 and 4) because of the hills, safety (fast drivers, no bike lanes etc.), the fact that we live in Toronto with long winters, and the price of course. I am now leaning towards a bakfiets with a mid-drive electric assist but since part of my commute will be without kids, I fear that the bike is not going that comfortable to ride in traffic. The idea riding of a long-tail when alone seems much more appealing.
One question I have for those riding a bakfiets : how easy is it to get it up the curb? In heavy traffic, I often just pick up my bike to go sideways onto the curb. I am worried that with this bike, I’d have to be perpendicular to the curb…and also wonder if it is at all possible to lift it that much. Any comments on that ?
In any case, I am relieved to see that people ride it uphill with electric assist. I have determined that whatever I get, in order to use the bike daily, I need the assist. Hauling one kid behind me is already difficult, I don’t think I can handle 2 + groceries.
I realize the original post was from 4 years ago but it was still great info.
Thanks.
I don’t like bumping our cargo bikes over curbs. It can be done but it’s awkward. I usually look for a driveway cutout or a pedestrian accessibility ramp when I need to get on the sidewalk (most frequently that’s when there are bike racks there.)
hum, that’s what I figured. Unfortunately, I ride in very heavy traffic and often have to hop on the sidewalk. I guess that’s also part of the learning curve with a cargo bike but since I have not started riding one…
Would it be less awkward with a long-tail type like yuba mundo ?
Sorry to hijack this post, I am just really desperate to make the right decision (I have a one time chance at this !).
Thanks.
Genevieve
In my experience, it’s slightly easier (because your hands are near the front of the bike, so you have a bit more leverage) but neither one is what I would call easy.
@HumOfTheCity – great post – Thanks!!
Hi Genevieve, realising this post is dated two years ago, but I too am in Toronto, living downtown near Q&B and have been exploring a cargo bike option. With welcoming our second two years ago, we’ve become way too car dependent and it’s bothering me.
As an urban commuter, I’ve sadly had to park my ride as I am doing school pick ups mostly by TTC. Anyway, I test rode a friend’s Mundo (with one 5.5yo) and found it to be too tippy for me with all the start/stops especially if there’s no sidewalk nearby and stopping mid-lane.
I’ve been speaking with the lovely folks at Bateman’s on Bathurst and Rob convinced me to test ride a Yuba Supermarche e-assist, which I loved. Never thought I would be coordinated enough to maneuver a boxbike. LOL.
Curious – what did you end up with and how do you find navigating our city streets?
I can avoid most heavy traffic areas by cutting through side streets (which I would likely do anyway as I build confidence).
Thanks!
Nice to hear from another urban commuter in Toronto.
I did end up buying the bakfiets long from urkai in Burlington. I added a mid drive electric assist and I have been using it since oct 2016.
My kids are now 5 and 7 and they are heavy ! So although I feel comfortable with the bike and absolutely love it, it is not for everyone (my husband is uninterested and as a result unable to take the kids in it).
Having the e-assist has made it a phenomenal device but without it, I could not have managed. I live off of Dufferin between St Clair and Eglington.
The rain cover is with me at all time and we have used it on many occasions. It really keeps the area warm in the winter. I wish I had a good s’un cover. I meant to ‘make’ one but never got around to.
I ride the bike on my own with no kids very often and I love that I can pick up groceries (and lots of it).
It would be great to also have a yuba mundo (with assist)! We’ll see.
Hope this helps.
If you need to connect, You can find me on Facebook. Always happy to chat about bikes !
Geneviève Trilling
Hello Hum of the city,
Really wonderful article. I live on the flat eastern shore of Maryland and I think the Bakfiet would really suit my needs. Can you share with me some possible places of where I can buy such a bike (e.g. the store you tested it with). Unfortunately, I am not having much luck with a simple internet search.
Many thanks,
Megan
Hi Megan, I don’t know much about bike shops in your area, but I think that BicycleSPACE may be an option, and I’d also refer you to Megan Odett, who runs DC Kidical Mass.