Item, leading supplier of industrial aluminium profile systems asked us to design cargobikes to showcase the potential of their D30 lean production range. Faced with clamped connectors, a single, light tube size and the explicit demand to use many oft he new angular connectors, the only practicable solution lay in a space frame.

The tricycles are conventional – albeit very large – bogy types. What sets them apart is their low weight. We built a sofa from Euroboxes on top and rode them around the yard and loaded with one or two adults they were stable and fun.

With the bikes a fork was out of question for mechanical reasons, so once more, like in the Bastiaen Cargo, center hub steering was the solution. With a perfectly equipped workshop at hand, we succeeded in manufacturing a couple of steering hubs. Both bikes are a pleasure to ride, absolutely stiff and balanced. The only part that let us down (and also the only part not made from D30 profiles), was a steering rod of too light dimension, which led to a slight resonance in the frontwheel. We fixed that, by simply releasing four bolts and changing the steering angle. Try that on a welded frame!

A few days before my birth my parents visited a bike show. This caused some sort of prenatal imprinting, for I always liked bikes and in 1990 started building a cargobike by hacking apart some old diamond frames and a folding bike. My father joined the project – I still don´t know if for eagerness or concern – and soon our  „Long John“ ran, and it still runs today. (Did anyone say anything against 1970´s bike junk?)

Many years and two professions later we were expecting - to need another cargobike soon. As I suffer from designers disease (inability to simply buy something) the new cargobike had to be homemade, or at least of own design. I was looking for a simple straightforward design and - to my eye – forks on cargo bikes of the Long John type always looked wrong. A fork takes up precious cargo room and transfers (brake) energy to a peculiar point of the frame with the fork acting as a lever. So, the first sketches showed a center-hub steering. As this seemed impossible to build, I quickly forgot the idea until I saw an old Italjet scooter. I ordered a 2nd hand front swing arm with wheel and brake from ebay for little money and found it heavy but usable. It was joined to an old Trek MTB by a single tube by a framebuilder-friend and THE SUB was born.

I was completely surprised by the reactions that followed: people on the street were cargobike enthusiastic! 25 years ago I had been practically invisible riding a cargobike and now I was asked eager questions on every red traffic light. About that time the Bullitt came on the market, followed by many others. The first SUB was followed by a second one, this time with a face-to-face childrens seat, which received appraisal particularly from mothers. „Where can I buy that?“ or „You should sell those!“ was heard so often, that I started re-designing the steering to eliminate all the heavy scooter parts, which also had become more expensive at ebay, since I had published the building instructions on werkstatt-lastenrad.de.

The project lingered on my computer for three years pushed aside by life´s more import matters and other cargobike projects like the D30 and THE BOX until in 2014 the SUB placed 2nd in a cargobike design competition hosted by IHK Dortmund – by chance the very city where I had build my first cargobike 25 years earlier. So, I finally had the tooling for my front wheel and the first wheels made and ordered a prototype frame.

2017 saw the first series of ten Bastiaen Cargo, followed by another 14 in 2018. Bastiaen Cargo is joined by a growing crowd of customers, fans, friends, suppliers, dealers and helping hands and as I am writing this we are preparing Series3. If you like, please follow us in our blog or on instagram.

For an undisclosed client we developed a new economy-cargobike with a retro-touch. The client wished for a low priced entry-level product with a range of clever add-ons. The concept features elaborated detail solutions like a fork crown with integrated steering stops, a tail that can accomodate both belt/hub and chain geared drive trains and an optional upper tube that makes the frame as suitable for very small riers as for very large ones. The design with a deep tail end and a characteristic hump in the railing is inspired cruiser bikes and the "cab-forward-design" of american vintage cars. Thanks to 25 years of experience in this field both prototypes perform admirably at first try.