So… I moved house a couple of months ago, to the outskirts of the Styrian city of Graz, halfway up a hill along the Mur river. Views are magnificent and I really enjoy the tranquility up here. Being a bit separated from the infrastructure of the city also means that the logistics of my day-to-day life had to change. The daily commute is about 12km with a 200m vertical (down in the morning, up in the afternoon) which is a really good distance and effort. It becomes a bit of a challenge though for the weekly shopping or for transporting random chunks of cast iron that have appeared via the post man to the workshop. I found that I was using my car way more than I liked to admit. Finally, I have a use case for an electric cargo bike!
A couple of years ago, I was involved in the prototyping for a small cargo bike from Switzerland, the “monoPole Toolbike” and I really liked the concept: A cargobike that can fit a standard eurobox container but is not longer than a regular 28” bicycle. The general design however is trademarked, and I also didn’t just want to copy it so I had a look at my tubing stock and came up with a version of my own.
20/24” wheels, slightly forward secondary headtube, split TT that continues into the seatstays, a bafang 1kW motor and a 3x3 geared hub that can tolerate up to 250Nm of input torque!
My brother mentioned that he was getting increasingly worried about the reliability of his 1980ies Suzuki motorbike so he is getting a toned down version with a 500W hub drive (he lives in flat northern Germany)
First task was to make an extension to my frame jig to accomodate the extra head tube
Two is almost batch production 
Quite a few mods were needed for the chainstay jig to fit this arrangement:
Dropouts are laser cut sliders with brazed on stainless friction surfaces and connect to the stays via stainless bearing balls
Yay, it’s starting to look like a bike!
A friend came to visit me in the workshop. He has a fancy camera and knows how to use it to his (and my) advantage:
Test fit of the cargo rack went ok, aluminium tig welding not so much (first try went into the scrap directly…)
Back from powder coating, I couldn’t be happier with how the color came out!
Then the friend with the camera came for a visit again:
Couldn’t be happier with how it came out! Some little things like cable management are still to be done, and connecting light seems to be quite a lot more involved than on an acoustic bike (I’m not good with electrons…) but overall I’m looking forward to taking part in #carryshitolympics
(колица is Serbian by the way, sounds like “kolitsa” and means wheelbarrow)
