Hello community! I thought ya’ll might be interested in my latest weird project. My pit bull puppy is now 45lbs and too big for my Crust Clydesdale cargo fork, so I decided to make a long nose cargo bike! I’m no framebuilder, but I can braze ok enough, So I decided to build off the front of a vintage steel mountain bike. I took inspiration from my boss Mark’s Frances cable steering cargo bike. I went with a 1989 Nishiki Ariel, partially because the bend in the downtube gives me more clearance for the cargo area, and partially because I wanted an excuse to buy an already weird bike haha.
I don’t have access to a bender, But we do have a hydraulic conduit bender here at the shop. I discovered I can get about a 12degree bend with some heat before my tubing would buckle. So I did everything in lots of little elbows.
Pretty much everything was eyeball alignment, so lots of it isn’t perfectly symmetrical. But it rides great, and proved out with a 55lb brick load test ride through Oakland!
My pup Roti isn’t scared of much, she’s still young, and shes very treat motivated. So I expect to have a fairly easy time with it. We’ve already got “sit” and “stay” down, and Ive got her pretty well trained to get in the car and go to her seat where I harness her up and clip her in. I’m starting by getting her to sit in the bike and reinforcing with treats. Soon I’ll harness her in and start walking around the back yard. Once she’s chill with that, I’ll try a ride. Tons of treats for positive reinforcement has been key in training my pup. I’ll update if I come across more keys to the process!
Yo love the bike Dave! Such a kook design as so well excecuted. Hope the training goes well. Riding around with ya dog on the front of a cargo bike is so much fun.
