(Photo © Elly Blue)
Walking past the Concordia University campus in Northeast Portland recently, I spotted this cargo trike converted to a landscaping truck.
This useful vehicle appears to be a Wheelburro trike from Eugene (we wrote about these when the company first launched back in September) with a custom front end attachment to carry debris and some PVC tubes cleverly worked on to hold the tools.
I live near the campus and had previously spotted a bicycle with a long trailer attachment that held landscaping tools — this must be the upgrade.
If you see cool bike stuff around town, snap a photo and upload it to the BikePortland Photo Pool on Flickr. We’ll try to feature one photo a week… it could be yours!
As it happens we just (after queuing this up to be published) got an email from the fellow who operates this vehicle — soon we’ll hopefully be able to bring you more of the hard-hitting work-trike news you crave.
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Wow — is it an optical illusion or would it take a person 7′ tall to reach those handlebars from that saddle?
“… bring you more of the hard-hitting work-trike news you crave.”
How’d you know? Bring it on.
And yeah, it does look funky long.
I also noticed they use “forks” for the front wheels – allowing the use of standard front wheels. Generally a good strong mounting, works well – Aaron Tarfman and I did this on his Transformation Trike.
We went with Ackermann steering, rather than a central kingpin. More complexity, but better handling.
Though if you’re content going slow, a central kingpin is fine.
I think the funky length is more a function of cell phone photography than trike geometry. The good news is I’ll be headed over to see this trike (actually, this was just the test model — they now have their very own, in a nice shade of forest green) — early next week and will bring you an in-depth exposé with photos.
Must be an optical illusion.
I ride it, and it’s not a reach challenge.
What takes getting used to (it takes about a week) is the handlebar movement on turns. The handlebars don’t pivot like a bike, turning on top of the headset. They sweep in an arc in front of you, since the pivot point of the front cargo area is about a foot and a half ahead of the bars.