Is it just that whole notion that fathers who are involved with their children are not masculine?
There is also the fact that this is a certain subclass of cargo bikes with a bench in the 'cargo hold' that tends to be specifically designed to hold two young children. These bikes are marketed at yuppies (in both price and design); people who can't afford one of these, or who are more pragmatic about it tend to settle for attachable seats (mounted behind the handlebars or behind the saddle on the ubiquitous rear luggage rack above the rear wheel) on a normal bicycle, so riding a special cargo bike just for the few years that the kids can't ride their own bicycle may come across as overly luxurious and soft.
If you're not going uphill, it's not that much harder than riding without the trailer. But the key is to downshift and maintain a higher pedaling cadence when going up grades or into a headwind rather than relying on mashing down on the pedals.
I have never heard that. I have heard lots of women gussing over men playing with kids though.
I can maybe think these dads would be called "soft", because they are in a slow, not so powerful bike, whereas others are in strong, big fast cars, but even that is pretty stupid.
That would seem to be it, based on the rest of the sentence:
>> cargo-bike mothers are described as career-focussed mothers who are assertive and self-confident, while cargo-bike dads are portrayed as ‘soft’ and emancipated fathers
https://thoughtcatalog.com/nikita-gill/2016/02/love-a-soft-p...