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This is the last week of the semester's teaching - and the pace of life has slowed enough for me to spend time on some more personal interests, including this blog. Maybe the most exciting news is that we bought the Christiania bike!

We hesitated a little, because well... they're not cheap, and certainly much too expensive for us to justify as a 'weekend toy'. Too big for a toy as well; you certainly can't hang them up in the hall the way you can with a regular bike.

But as it's turned out; it's become the family work horse. I've driven the car twice in last three months, and the pram almost as rarely. We use the trike for multiple trips each day - to drop the little one off at childcare & pick her up, shopping, cafe trips and the commute to work.

In fact we're thinking about selling our second car (which is an old bomb anyway), if we do maybe we can join flexicar so that we have a car available when we need it; they have a car located just around the corner from our house.

We saved a bit of money by buying the heavier steel framed version, and by just getting the frame without the box. We made our own box, and for the time being we're just strapping our daughters car seat in to carry her around, when she's a little bigger we'll make a bench and seat belts.


Steel frame with no box


The box in progress


The finished bike, our friends used it as their 'wedding car', here they are on route from their wedding to the reception. Crossing Punt Road was hilarious - honking and cheers.


Our daughter has become very possessive of the bike, and has been known to defend it vigorously against any other poor child who gets too close.


We did the Colac to Beech Forest rail trail. Beautiful, but bloody hard work. And the Christiania bike is really not designed for off-road riding.

We looked at getting a cheaper knockoff. And they really do look very similar to the Christiania bike, they've even used the same font in their marketing graphics. Bit cheeky really.

These bikes are much much cheaper than the Christiania (30-50% of the price), but I really don't know if they could stand up to the workout a cargo bike gets. The Christiania can carry 100kg whereas the knockoff can carry 80kg, but besides the frame, the main difference to me seems to be that the Christiania has Shimano disk brakes, and internal gears whereas the other has external gears and drum brakes. Having internal gears means you can change gears immediately, which makes a massive difference when you're trying to go up a hill with a load, or even over a small bump from a stop. And of course, when you're scooting down a hill with 190kgs on board (including rider), disk brakes provide a certain comfort.

In fact when I think about the trouble I have with the external gears of my two wheeler, I think buying the cheaper bike would have been an very expensive mistake. Yes we do love you Christiania.

6 Comments:

  1. pollyhaw said...
    Ah i am so envious and you may have made me even more determined to have one...my daughter is almost 2 and i find more and more the need of a car but really do not want it...alas we live in sydney and as yet have not found anywhere to have a test run...look forward to seeing future adventures!
    Anonymous said...
    My friend and I are currently trailing the christiana bike, and we are similarily in love... I am pushing a three year old and a baby around, finding turning quite an effort and am bit worried about terrains such as grass and stuff, not to sure how bumpy it can go before you run into the danger of tipping,, with a bit more practise do you feel really steady in it? I'm not a super confident rider, and we live in yarraville so we have trucks to contend with,, but I'm so convinced, as you say it is a serious investment.. and i am envisioning a future in melbourne where bikes dominate the roads scandinavian style... what a fantastic thing...! great blog by the way
    Kate McMahon said...
    Sydney would be much harder work than around collingwood & most Melbourne - more hills! But the newer bikes have lower gears than ours - and you can always get them geared even lower if want to.

    And Hs/poppets - you do get more confident - or at least I did. Once I worked out how the bike balanced I was much more confident on the Christiania than on a 2 wheeler, especially one with a baby seat on the back.

    We still avoid the main roads as much as possible, and stick to backstreets and off-road bike paths because traffic can be a problem. I'm with you - can't wait until we go the way of Copenhagen.
    Anonymous said...
    We thought we would save a bit of money by buying exactly that cheap knock-off you described. Well, it cost about $800, but then we spent about another $1,000 making it 'safe'. You see, the problem is that the cheaper version has practically NO brakes to speak of. Not with my little boys in it at least. Also, the steering is dangerous and should not be allowed on our roads - luckily I can weld and so created a king-pin setup like the christiania bike, added proper wheels and hydraulic discs to it. Also, changed the pivot point to be more like the christiania bike. Result? Much better, but also no rear brakes yet, and a bike that needs some refinishing to make it look good. Now, the steel in the cheap import is absolute rubbish - almost impossible to weld. I would have been better off starting from scratch.
    Unknown said...
    I actually enjoyed reading through this posting.Many thanks.

    Used Bikes
    Anonymous said...
    I hope you enjoyed Peter Jones' story about the 2000 Targa trials & tribulations in the members stories part of the Bolwell Club website. Here are a couple of piccies of the car in question, all stickered up and in Tasmania.Car Trailers in Melbourne

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