[elliottkember]

The comment asking about riding positions drop bars was hilarious.

Lots of Americans in the comments is probably why, plus the Hacker News tendency toward armchair expertise.

The American grid system tends to produce hills that are unmanageable on a town or cargo bike, so bicycles are a fitness/enthusiast thing. And US cities are much more spread out, too. In more walkable European cities, these bikes make a lot of sense.

[Theodores]

There are so many excuses for why Americans don't ride. I have not heard about the grid system making the hills too steep before, but I suppose it applies to San Francisco, so I concede that could be a legitimate excuse. I went to SF with a heavily laden tourer bike and I found the hills manageable as you get a breather at the stop lights. I made good progress despite the hills. I might have only had 40kgs of cargo, but I did get an idea of the challenges.

There is much to criticise but there is so much to like. The sprawl of US cities was not a problem for me, it was a lot easier and less stressful on US roads than what we get in the UK. The shoulders on most US roads are defacto cycle lanes, which I really liked since a good speed could be maintained.

As a British observer, I can't help but laugh at how everything in the US is bigger. I do my grocery shopping by bicycle and I am the only person in the supermarket carrying 30kgs of stuff up a very steep hill. Everyone else drives. My bike is a normal one, but I feel that, if I was American, then I would be compelled to have some special needs bike, either a cargo bike or electric, to 'haul' even more stuff.

Everything just has to be bigger!!!

The book of excuses for not cycling is massive in America, but, I have never been to a better place for utility cycling. The whole place is really well set up for utility cycling, you just have to see it that way.

Fitness cycling is a high status pursuit, much like those silly games like tennis that were invented just to show how high status you are. Golf is the classic, so much arable land not under the plough is a true flex of wealth.

Fitness cycling shows that you are not working class, that you have the resources to not work. Utility cycling is low status, it shows you can't afford a car or you have been banned.

With utility cycling there is always a reason for the ride, it is not out of choice, if you don't do the ride, there will be consequences such as not having a job or having no food in. Yet there was a time before the car when all cycling was for utility reasons.

[Freak_NL]

These would work beautifully in Dutch cities, although you can easily see from the design that its native biotope is Paris, where cars are increasingly being pushed out of the narrow streets.

[StopDisinfo910]

The discussion is very much a case of people from the USA having the far too rare realisation than most places in Europe have nothing in common with their country.

[dathinab]

Are you sure? From the major EU cities I have visited at least 2 which have many "hills that are unmanageable on a town or cargo bike" (Zürich & Lisbon). And if we include smaller places its many many more places.

Now what "unmanageable" means can differ quite a lot by person. Like some people would call some of the streets in Lisbon "unmanageable" by walking ;)

But then in both cases it only affects part of the city and throw in a E-Bike and thinks are often quite fine.

Anyway the point is, the bike from the article seems quite far away from a general purpose cargo bike. But for places where it fit its niche it probably shines.

[wil421]

My area doesn’t have grids or anything. To get out of my neighborhood I have 200 feet of elevation change and I’ve only gone half a mile.