Comment by raisin_churn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by raisin_churn | Hacker News Reader

If you don't have children and live in a relatively flat city, the car-replacement bicycle is even cheaper: any half-decent used mountain bike off craigslist, throw a pannier rack on the back of it and a pair of pannier bags, and never drive again. I think I'm about $400 deep into mine, including the rack, panniers, decent lock, lights with rechargeable batteries, and tires and tubes for the last 4,000 miles. So, not yet broken even compared to my 50mpg Prius if only taking gas into account, but I'd be way ahead if my wife would agree to sell the car and not have to pay insurance, registration+inspection, etc.

My brother-in-law recently got an electric scooter for his work commute. I did the math, and at current gas prices and electricity prices, it saves him $4 a day in fuel, plus another $10 for parking, plus wear and tear on his high-end sports car. With three days a week in the office, without selling the car, the e-scooter pays for itself in less than four months, and the commute time is the same. And, when he does get in his car, it's not to go sit in traffic going to work, so he actually gets more enjoyment out of his nice car.

Most Dutch don't even bother with a bakfiets for children (bakfietsen are actually kind of top of the market and mostly used by more affluent parents). Just a (safe!) seat on the Dutch style rear carrier. With both a baby and a toddler some parents also have a baby seat mounted on the steering bars and a toddler seat on the rear carrier. Totally normal; I'm doing this every day with one kid.

My kid just learned to ride a bicycle (without training wheels, going straight from balance bike to pedal bike) at 3½ years of age, so in a while he can ride along with us instead of being carried. (The perks of living in the Netherlands I guess.)

Be very careful with a kid that young in traffic: they have some extra risks that you may not see coming until it happens, for instance, kids bikes for kids that age have the pedals so close to the ground that a kerb strike isn't a rarity and the response to that can put them (and possibly you) in line of a car passing you in an eyeblink.

As for the bakfietsen being used by the more affluent parents: that used to be true but I have a family member that does not qualify as affluent by any stretch of the imagination and their bakfiets is their car replacement (they don't have a car) and that works very well for them. Such cases abound here (in NL), especially if one or more of the adults in a family do not have a driving license, which is more common than you might think.

That said, the e-bike bakfietsen that are top of the range definitely are aimed upmarket but there are plenty of cheaper ones. For many years we used (and still use) a third-hand unpowered bakfiets that we probably put more kilometers on than on most of our other bikes except for my commuter one.

I'm a Dutch parent, not an adrenaline junkie taking unnecessary risks with his kid. Of course all outings will be age and skill appropriate. For now he rides on the sidewalk (which is allowed for children) under supervision. Bicycle accidents statistically peak when children turn 11/12; when it's usually out of your hands in a cycling country. Younger kids aren't much of a problem if taught properly.

Ah I thought you had the child in traffic, that changes matters considerably. Riding on the sidewalk when you're that small is the best solution.

11/12 is indeed the risky age: strong enough to attain appreciable speed, but not smart enough to do so responsibly. One of my kids is right in the danger zone and has so far managed to avoid falling, which probably means that if and when he does it will be bad. I caution him whenever we go cycling together but autumn (wind, leaves) is coming and going home from school is such a motivating thing for him that I can't really get him to slow down. Tricky!

Spend some time teaching them how to fall! Don’t put your hands out, use the meat in your body, etc. Get it to the point they can do it without thinking about it. I’ve been hit by pickups running red lights and walked away with a few little scrapes and the bike utterly destroyed. Training can save your life and bones.

Yes, one or two years of well taught judo intro are also a lot of help in learning to 'fall'.

> For now he rides on the sidewalk (which is allowed for children)

Note that, to my Dutch surprise, bikes are legally obliged to go on sidewalks in many (most?) countries.

> Most Dutch don't even bother with a bakfiets for children (bakfietsen are actually kind of top of the market and mostly used by more affluent parents). Just a (safe!) seat on the Dutch style rear carrier.

Yes, this seems ideal to me. A bakfiets seems like it wouldn't handle that well, especially around the tight 180 degree corners that many paths near me have. Also they are probably too wide to ride in our narrow bike lanes, especially the two-way cycletracks where it would be a nuisance for cyclists going the opposite direction.

> (The perks of living in the Netherlands I guess.)

Undoubtedly. My city in the US is constantly hailed as one of the most bikeable in the country, which is probably true by many metrics, but I think you'd have to be mad to let a child under, say, 14 years old, ride further than a friend's house a couple blocks away here, and certainly not across any major roads. The actual bike infrastructure, such as it is, is pretty scary for most adults who aren't hardcore cyclists. Well, as a hardcore cyclist, it is often still pretty scary for me, but I'm also a hardcore ideologue so I have to do it. In contrast, in my suburban childhood, it was possible to bike to places miles away safely, though that was only because they had accidentally built sidewalks that nobody ever used, so we just used those as our bike lanes. Here in the city, actual pedestrians are trying to use the too-narrow sidewalks, so they can't be relied on for burgeoning cyclists who aren't yet strong and savvy enough to brave the roads.

I've occasionally ridden Danish cargo tricycles, and like any tricycle they're very different to steer compared to a bicycle.
Be careful not to tip it on the first corner. You have to actively steer it, rather than just leaning. I assume people get used to it, but I didn't really like riding one.

With three wheels these obviously aren't bicycles.

> With three wheels these obviously aren't bicycles.

Perhaps someone Dutch can correct me if I'm wrong, but from my understanding, bakfiets is Dutch for a bin-in-the-front style cargo bicycle (Google translates it as "bin bicycle"), and there is also a company that takes its name from this style of bike and makes cargo bikes and trikes in this bin-in-the-front style. I'm referring to the two-wheeled type, ie a bicycle, and I assume everyone else is, since that's what the video is about.

I watched this video previously, but if it's the one I'm thinking of he specifically demonstrates that a tricycle is worse than this type of bike for exactly this reason.

Yeah, 3:10 - 3:20.

Sorry, I didn't watch the video properly.

Yes, bakfiets just means "cargo cycle", of any type. The company Bakfiets makes cargo bicycles and cargo tricycles.

I've never ridden a cargo bicycle, so I can't comment on handling or stability. The tricycles are much more common in Copenhagen.

I walked 500m through the city centre and sat at a café for a couple of hours: I counted 11 cargo tricycles and 2 cargo bicycles.

Oh we've tried both and the bicycle cargo is much nicer for most activities, especially the bakfiets ones. We've tried lots of tricycles and I feel they're deathtraps, if you usually drive a bicycle. You need to really steer and when at >20kph, steering without banking, keeping 3 wheels on the ground is very hard, I find. Maybe lack of practice. But in a month of driving a tricycle, getting back to a bicycle cargo was really a contrast.

The only thing I'm missing really from tricycles is the canopy, the roof, some of those have. I haven't seen a bakfiets cover high enough for tall-but-young kids, and it's really annoying to resort to ponchos or other garments to keep water away... I'm almost in the mind of building one, if only I was a better woodworker...

Buying my second bakfiets short in 2 days, couldn't be happier to fork the cash over...

Living in The Hague, The Netherlands, my wife and I decided to indefinitely postpone owning a car for our two young kids (4 and 2) and buy a Gazelle Makki [0] and I must say I absolutely love it so far. My oldest can already ride her bike, but not everywhere, so having a car analogue is very convenient. Long distances we do by train or plane.

[0] https://www.gazellebikes.com/en-gb/makki-load

What kind of scooter, if you don't mind sharing?

It's from Ninebot, a Chinese company that bought Segway a couple years ago. They seem to be one of the biggest e-scooter manufacturers, including many sold under other brand names. I think the model he has is F40.

The biggest drawback he's found is that the top speed of 19mph is a little limiting on the roads with painted-on bike lanes where he rides, some where the speed limit is 35mph so the speed difference is a little uncomfortable. I think that's a result of many cities restricting personal electric vehicles to conform with the 20mph top speed of a class 2 electric bike, so e-scooter makers just impose the same limit. His city bans rental e-scooters, but doesn't regulate personal e-scooters at all, so he may end up selling it and getting a faster one, or just hacking the controller to raise the speed limiter.

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