The first time you stop at a red light on a cargo trike with the kids on board, something feels a bit odd. You don’t put a foot down or brace against the weight of the bike. You just sit there chatting while the kids argue about who saw the dog first.
What is a cargo trike?
A cargo trike is a cargo bike with three wheels instead of two, with a box up front between the two front wheels. Your kids and your gear sit ahead of you, in view, close enough to talk to at a normal volume.
It’s a different animal to the two wheel cargo bikes you see couriers riding through the city, which put a long box over a single front wheel. It’s different again to a longtail, which stretches the rack out behind you and puts the kids at your back. They’re all cargo bikes, they just suit different jobs.
Why the third wheel changes the ride
The obvious answer is stability, but it helps to be specific about when. A cargo trike isn’t more stable at speed. Where it’s far more stable is when you’re stopped, which covers most of the moments that make new riders nervous: waiting at the lights with two kids on board, loading a toddler in, or pulling over halfway up the street because someone’s dropped a banana. On three wheels you put the parking brake on, sort it out and go, without wrestling a kickstand or finding a wall to lean on.
The other thing you get is room. A two wheel box comfortably fits two kids. A trike box fits four, and if you haven’t got four, you’ve got room for scooters, balance bikes, a soccer ball and all the beach gear.
Then there’s who can ride it. The stability is why grandparents get on these bikes, and it’s the thing we hear most from families who’ve bought one.
When a trike isn’t the right bike
Three wheels aren’t as nimble. A two wheel cargo bike handles more like a normal bike, corners faster and threads through traffic more easily, so if most of your riding is fast and in the middle of the city, a trike might not suit you.
We don’t think that matters much for most families, because most family riding is cycleways, quiet back streets and 16 to 20 kilometres an hour with someone singing in the box.
If you want something that feels like the bike you already own, look at a longtail instead. The Tribe Evamos Longtail is our two wheel answer, and it rides like a normal bike with a very long rack.
The two Tribe cargo trikes
We make two trikes, for two quite different jobs.
The Tribe Original is the family cargo trike: the box up front, up to four kids, and the one most Tribe families end up on. It starts at $5,490.
The Ricky Rickshaw is the passenger version. There’s no step to climb over, room for one or two adults up front, and the rider’s close enough behind to chat the whole way. It’s the bike Cycling Without Age chapters use to take older people out on the road again, and it starts at $7,490.
Hear it from owners
It’s hard to get a feel for low speed stability from reading about it. The next best thing is hearing from people who already ride one, and every Tribe Original page has owner reviews from families doing the school run on theirs.
If you’d rather talk to someone in person, our bike shop partners around the country can give you professional advice, and they handle assembly and servicing too.
