There are a few downsides with riding kickbikes.
I won't mention the complication of trying to take a hand off a moving kickbike to execute hand signals. Or the under carriage scraping your get when you scoot over a gutter lip...
Then there's the physiological challenge of hill climbing without gearing ratios on your side...
All these may be de riguer but what has always bugged me was the kickbike's limited portage. My lifestyle often requires a cargo bike.
In my old scooter with its seat I could attach a bike rack and carry a donkey's load of stuff across the neighborhood. Seemingly overloaded, I'd walk the groceries home from shopping and coast down the hills.
But with the Finnish kickbike -- built for speed and such -- portage wasn't in the design brief.
I used to use front wheel saddle bags but they were complicated to access and were awkward to carry away from the bike. Since the carriage frame was too small to carry much on its own, I attached a sturdy platform cut from a bread tray.
The platform gives me a 'truck tray' to lay my gear on.
While kickbikes don't like weight in the front the setup works fine so long as the scooterer -- moi -- is aware of the bike's gravitational penchant , with heavy loads, to tip forward and the back wheel's willingness to rise up from the ground.You also lose some control over front wheel manoevre-ability. So be careful in traffic.
To compensate, and with portage in mind, wear a loaded back-back so that more weight is distributed towards the rear.
All I need to do now is find a mechanism so I can clip the tray on and off as required. That's not such a big issue as the strapping secures to the platform, not the tray.
All I need to do now is find a mechanism so I can clip the tray on and off as required. That's not such a big issue as the strapping secures to the platform, not the tray.
