If you’ve started looking at cargo bikes you’ll have noticed they aren’t all the same shape. Three wheels, two wheels, a box on the front, a long rack out the back. It’s a bit like choosing between a road bike and a mountain bike: the right answer depends on what you’re actually going to do with it.
The trade-offs here are the heart of choosing an electric cargo bike, and our buying guide walks through the rest of the decision.
When we started Tribe in 2020 we sold one shape, a three wheeler with a box on the front, and this article used to argue that it was the best way to carry kids full stop. We’ve since added a two wheel longtail, the Evamos, and it has become our best selling bike. So this is the comparison as we would make it today.
Three wheels with a box on the front
Two wheels at the front with the box between them, one wheel at the back, and the kids sit in front of you where you can see them. The Tribe Original and the Ricky Rickshaw are both this shape. Up to four kids fit in the box of an Original, or two kids and a week of shopping, or a couple of balance bikes and all the beach gear.
The thing that surprises people is the parking brake. Squeeze it on and the bike stands up by itself, so loading kids in is a two handed job with nothing balancing on anything. It’s the same when somebody drops a banana halfway up the street: pull over, brake on, sort it out, go.
It’s also the most stable thing to ride at walking pace, which matters more than you’d expect when you’re pulling away from the lights with thirty kilos of children on board. Mum, dad, grandma and grandpa have all ridden ours without a second thought.
What you give up is nimbleness and width. A trike doesn’t lean into corners the way a bike does and it takes a ride or two to get used to, and it will not fit down a narrow side passage. Measure your gate before you order one.
Two wheels with a box on the front
This is the style you’ll have seen couriers riding around city CBDs, with a long box up front and the wheel right at the nose. They handle much more like a normal bike than a trike does, so they corner faster and thread through traffic better. The box comfortably fits two kids rather than four, and because it’s a two wheeler you’re back to a kickstand and a balancing act at the kerb.
We don’t sell one. There’s nothing wrong with them, it’s just that for the families we sell to, the trike and the longtail cover the ground between them.
Two wheels with a long tail
A normal length front end with a stretched rear deck, and the kids ride behind you. The Tribe Evamos is this shape. It’s the lightest bike we make and the one that still feels most like riding a bike, which means it climbs better, corners normally and fits down the side of a house.
Two kids is the comfortable number and three is possible with the right setup. It has a double-leg centre stand that lifts the rear wheel and holds the bike upright while you load, so the old longtail problem of propping a loaded bike against a fence doesn’t apply. You do have to put the stand down, which is a beat slower than squeezing a brake.
The other real difference is where the kids end up. In a box you can see them, talk to them, hand back a snack and referee. On a deck they’re behind you, which older kids generally prefer and which makes the bike a great deal easier to store.
So which one?
For most families it comes down to two questions.
How many kids, and how old are they? Three or four small ones, or a toddler you want where you can see them, points at the Original. One or two, or kids old enough to hang on to a rail themselves, points at the Evamos.
Where is it going to live? This decides more purchases than anything else we talk about. If the bike has to go down a side passage or into a normal garage alongside a car, get the tape measure out before you order. The Evamos fits places the Original simply doesn’t.
After that it’s hills, where the lighter Evamos has the advantage, and how much you want to carry beyond the kids, where the box wins comfortably.
Why we started with three wheels
Tribe’s goal has always been to get more families out on bikes having fun, and in 2020 the trike was the bike that did that for us. The space alone meant we left the car at home far more than we used to, and the stability meant everyone in the family felt comfortable riding it, grandparents included.
All of that is still true, and it’s why the Original is still very much in the range. What changed is that a lot of families wanted something lighter that fitted down the side of the house, and they told us so. The Evamos is that bike, and it now outsells the Original.
If you’d like a hand narrowing it down, our two minute quiz will get you to a single bike, or you can just go and look at all of them.
