• This article includes paid promotion on behalf of Estarli
• Read more about sponsored content

E-cargo bikes are an increasingly common sight in UK towns and cities, but do they have a place in more rural areas? Alex Bowden and his family borrowed an Estarli eCargo Longtail to try to find out.

We have two young kids and one car. This is mostly okay at the minute, but we increasingly find ourselves in situations where a second car would be helpful, bordering on necessary.

If we still lived in Manchester, it wouldn’t really be a problem. Back there, we were frequently within walking distance of what we needed – and when we weren’t, it was only ever a bus, train or tram trip away.

Those public transport journeys could at times prove convoluted (and expensive), which is where an e-cargo bike can really come into its own. A bike like the Estarli eCargo Longtail means that you, your stuff, and potentially a passenger or two, can get directly from A to B under your own steam without having to first change at Y and then walk to your destination from the nearest stop at Z.

If you map everywhere you can easily get to on an e-cargo bike from an urban home, that area most likely contains pretty much everything you could ever need. And if you can get two kids on the back of the one bike – as you can with the Estarli eCargo – that’ll do the trick for a lot of families. (The rear rack is rated for up to 90kg of cargo, which should be enough for a couple of primary school age children and even a little beyond.)

However… we don’t live in Manchester. A few years ago we moved to what most people within the M60 routinely refer to as “the sticks” (usually with a confused/aghast look in their eye as they ponder the backwards life we must now lead, gawping at aeroplanes, darning our socks and burning turf for warmth).

Out here in the barren wilds of mid-Cheshire, all that everyday stuff is spread that little bit farther and wider. Our village has a café, a couple of corner shops, a post office and a smattering of other intermittently useful places, but the nearest supermarket is a 10-minute drive away, as is the library (and the high school, though that’s not yet a concern).

This means that with one car at our disposal, whenever one (or two) of us are out somewhere in it, whoever’s left at home has their horizons narrowed; their options restricted to places within walking distance for a four or six year old.

This is not a lot of places. So does that mean we need a second car?

What’s an e-cargo bike ride away?

It may not be the city, but plenty of the places we routinely go are not actually all that far away – not in any meaningful sense. While they’re annoyingly out of reach on foot, they’re pathetically near by car.

They are, in short, e-cargo bike distance away. Having use of the Estarli eCargo Longtail therefore opened up a whole world for us.

And let me tell you, the kids were elated when I told them we could now go on regular family trips to Screwfix and Tool Station.

But, you know what? They kind of were.

I mean, they absolutely weren’t – not in the sense of having newfound enthusiasm for plumbing supplies – but a lot of the time, the actual destination is just a minor detail. What we found is that on a basic level, a trip out on the back of the Estarli eCargo – any trip – is just really, really, tremendously fun.

One bike, two passengers

In our time with the bike, this was perhaps even the most obvious benefit. Travelling together on the same bike is fun for the kids on the back and therefore becomes unavoidably fun for you as a parent too.

A lot of the time we would just go out for a ride through places the kids can’t yet get to on their own bikes. We’d whizz down hills, the wind in the hair that we steadfastly refuse to have cut, the eCargo’s disc brakes smoothly easing our pace for the turns. Then we’d power up the other side, the 110Nm torque Ananda motor, designed specifically for Estarli, making light work of the gradient and load.

That motor also came in handy when we did have a destination in mind. One challenge of living in more rural areas as a cyclist is that your local area is most likely criss-crossed with relatively fast A-roads. Having ridden through this area for years, I can generally avoid them down back lanes, but even then you still need to get across one from time to time. A powerful mid-motor makes for a reassuringly rapid acceleration from a standing start at a crossroads.

It's also worth mentioning the stepless Enviolo hub gears at this point, which rather crucially allow you to change gear even when you're stationary.

Accidentally stopping in totally the wrong gear for setting off again can be a real problem when you're riding with derailleur gears. This is true even without a heavy load. With a couple of kids on the back, getting moving again becomes a quadriceps-straining nightmare.

However, with hub gears, it's simply a non-issue. If you've stopped in too big a gear, you can still change down even though you're not moving. This means that both you and motor will work smoothly and efficiently when you're ready to pull away.

It's the same when setting off from junctions. You're up and off and up to speed in no time. Then when you stop, the eCargo’s stout central kickstand keeps everything rock steady while you all climb (or get lifted) off.

A quick word here too for the belt drive, which as well as being longer-lasting than a chain, also negates the need for all that pesky fiddling and lubricating that you may think you'd do, but in actual fact probably wouldn't because you have two children.

The model Estarli supplied us with was the family version, which comes with rails around the passenger area and footrests below.

This was supplemented with a bench seat for my six-year-old daughter and a child seat for my four-year-old son. The two of them pretty much immediately agreed to sit in exactly the wrong seats and were rarely swayed from that – but everyone was safe and happy, so what are you going to do?

The more important thing was that we were no longer limited to trips to the same old overfamiliar playground. We could now travel further afield to several (far, far) better playgrounds, as well as to nature reserves and soft play – not to mention actual towns.

And Screwfix.

The big shop

Estarli also sent a prototype of their upcoming ‘cocoon’ – a large all-weather thingummy that makes it massively easier to pick up and carry surprisingly vast amounts stuff.

Crucially, this is compatible with small passengers, so you can go to the supermarket after you’ve dropped the kids off at school or head to that better playground later in the day with it still on.

I had one slightly nervy moment in the queue for the checkout when I realised I had a full trolley of shopping and hadn’t actually tried carrying anything in the cocoon yet. Fortunately, my fears proved unfounded.

Not only did the cocoon easily swallow everything I’d bought, it was in fact easier to stow than in the back of the car because I could easily wedge everything upright. Despite my best efforts, I usually open the boot in the driveway to find that at least one bag has shed his load, but there was none of that here.

Nor were there any issues with balance or power. Hopping onto the saddle, I wondered whether all that cargo might make things a little cumbersome, but the load sits sufficiently low and the motor is sufficiently sharp that I almost forgot it was there. (Unlike some of the other stuff I carried around during my time with the bike, it didn't jabber away at me either.)

Conclusion

When it comes to getting an e-cargo bike instead of a car, every area has its drawbacks. You may be concerned about riding on certain roads or wonder whether you really will be able to do everything you need.

What I’d say to that is, firstly, I wouldn’t weigh increases in journey time too heavily. A slightly longer ride via some quieter roads is going to feel an awful lot nicer than the equivalent car journey.

It probably won’t actually take much longer either – certainly once you’ve factored in parking. (Parking at our local medical practice switches from basically impossible to impossibly straightforward, for example, bringing with it a quite considerable time saving.)

Secondly, it might be worth properly assessing how much stuff is within genuine e-cycling distance. Vital amenities like the library, nursery and a chippy are a 10-15-minute ride away from us, but the Estarli eCargo gets you up to 15mph and keeps you there, no bother – so it's easy to go further. For us, it’s barely half an hour to towns (plural) even with creative routing to avoid the traffic - and once there, there’s no real concern about overloading for the return leg.

So can an e-cargo bike replace a car even when your family doesn’t live in a city? I think it would be a challenge to go entirely car-free, but for us at least it could certainly negate the need for the (unavoidably costly) second car that so many people seem to feel is essential.