Looking into buying an electric-assist cargo trike. It seems the market is dominated by versions that have 2 front wheels and 1 rear, is this easier to use/work on or something? It seems to me that steering, maint, flat repair, and general use would make that far worse experience. Am I missing something?
Simplicity: One rear wheel makes the drivetrain much simpler. You do not need a shared axle connecting the rear wheels, or a differential. (Correction: Trikes with 2 wheels in the rear usually don’t have a differential. They simply drive one wheel and let the other freewheel. That means the bike always wants to turn one direction.)
Safety: Two wheels in front reduces the rollover risk when turning at speed.
Also, you might consider a 2-wheeled box bike (search for “bakfiets” or “long john”). I have not ridden one, but I have seen a few in the wild and their owners all gave raving reviews. They are less stable when stopped but ride much more like a regular bicycle.
@kersploosh@sh.itjust.works I’ve test ridden those, and found them to be too problematic with unbalanced loads (like groceries) and a poor choice on road surfaces as ugly as mine. Appreciate the suggestion, though!
I’ll keep test riding all the locally available options. It’d be nice to not require a car for my longer grocery trips.
@kersploosh@sh.itjust.works Shared rear axel seems a lot less complex than the mess required to do steering to two wheels, but safety for sure makes sense.
I drove trikes (the motorized variety) and while I never crashed, I have seen plenty. Is there really enough speed to do that?
Safety. The one front wheel arrangement opens the risk of tipovers during hard braking or cargo shift. It’s the reason that ATVs went to a quad configuration from from the original trikes.
@DrBob@lemmy.ca That sounds like the consensus.
