The landing of the 'cargo bikes': clean mobility for delivery and families

One of the XYZ Cargo cargo bikes on display at Ciclosferia, the event that is held until Sunday in Valencia.Mònica Torres

Cargo

or cargo bikes have come to Spain to stay.

Common for years in northern and central Europe, this mode of transport comes to replace cars in urban and metropolitan travel.

On cargo bikes, a driver can transport up to three children in the attached cart, or one adult.

The possibilities in cyclologistics skyrocket in the last mile delivery for food stores, cafeterias, hotels and restaurants, especially if they are in low emission areas.

“The

they have multiple uses and are used for courier services, food transport or to replace the second family car”, explains Ulrich Müller, manager of the German firm Riese & Müller, one of the more than 80 exhibitors at Ciclosferia, the urban cycling fair that held for the second consecutive year in Valencia and open to the public until Sunday.

The cargo bikes are electric and are prepared to carry a load of up to 200 kilos in total (weight of the velocipede, the driver and the load).

It started in Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, a country in which more than 200,000 units were sold last year alone.

“In Spain it is used in cyclomessaging, what happens is that it is not yet very developed.

They are in charge of last mile transport for companies such as DHL or Seur, among others.

Then there are the families, who usually use them to take their children to school and move around the city”, adds the CEO of the German company created 30 years ago by two engineers.

It is what Reese sells the most because children have a good time traveling and active sports are done, which is good for health and the environment.

The cycling infrastructure in Spain is,

in Müller's opinion, reaching a good level.

“And it's not just the lanes in the city that are important, but also in the entire metropolitan area: Barcelona, ​​for example, gets 400,000 people every day by car or public transport, so if a part could do it on normal bikes or of cargo, it would be good ”, he adds.

Another of the firms that exhibit cargo vehicles at Ciclosferia is XYZ Cargo, with a Danish design, and which manufactures in Spain a concept of a modular seamless bicycle that adapts to different uses, mainly cargo transport.

The design was born in Copenhagen and the factory in Spain has been established in Barcelona.

"In Barcelona they transport 11 tons of products such as beer, milk and other products for food stores, hotels, restaurants and cafeterias per day," says Antonio J. Domínguez, licensee of XYZ Cargo and head of the logistics company Cargobici.

They work with Pascual, Bimbo, Heineken and even with Glovo.

“The bike is fully adapted to courier, there is no rival, and what we are trying to show now is that it is the perfect vehicle for transporting goods over the last kilometer,

”, defends Domínguez.

An adult tries out a bike adapted to take children for a walk or to school at Ciclosferia in Valencia.

Monica Torres

Their models, with platform or box, circulate more on the road than on the bike lanes due to the width of the latter.

In addition, since they carry weight, "the cars respect us," warns the director.

Their transports can drag from 120 to 250 kilos of weight, in addition to the driver.

In September they will jump to Valencia.

“We have a brutal improvement gap in Spain.

There are companies in Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Valencia, Seville and Malaga.

Something big is brewing around the

”, predicts Domínguez, convinced that over time they will replace the traditional van, whether combustion or electric.

In Valencia, the Councilor for Sustainable Mobility, Giuseppe Grezzi, has launched a pilot project together with the Municipal Transport Company (EMT) to promote cargo

for personal use as an alternative to motorized vehicles.

They have some prototypes that they give out every week to citizens registered on a list because they are even considering creating a public rental service, although they are in an initial phase.

“Valencia is, along with Vitoria and Seville, one of the three best Spanish cities for bicycle use, according to a report from the OCU last year.

Its use has grown a lot due to the covid-19 pandemic and if the cities catch up with the construction of more kilometers of bike lanes, it will be used even more”, Grezzi is convinced.

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, assures that there has been a veritable explosion of

in many countries, because they are the perfect substitute for a vehicle at home.

“For many people, this bike thing is still something for

but the most advanced societies [he cites Germany, Denmark, France or the United Kingdom] are generally betting on this means of transport.

I hope we do the same in Spain because it is a perfect place for it to spread: because of the climate and because there is a lot of cycling culture, above all, sports (road and mountain), so what we have to achieve is that these people also move around the cities in the same way.

The fair, open to the public this Saturday and Sunday in one of the sheds in the port of Valencia, shows, in addition to cargo models, a New Zealand-designed water bike that will be seen this summer on the Spanish coast.

Or the classic Brompton folding bikes and cycling companies such as Bikefriendly, with a projection in a country as touristic as Spain.

A user tests the water bike designed by the New Zealand firm Manta in the dock of the port of Valencia during Ciclosferia.

Monica Torres

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