Creative cargo bike builder

Paul Larsen of Toronto makes some interesting cargo bikes in his spare time. While Larsen's Toronto-based business, Invodane, focuses on creative engineering solutions for large-scale industrial projects, he's also been dabbling with making the cargo bikes that he grew up with in Denmark. Since moving to Canada he has not seen such a large amount of interest as there is this year. On a lazy Sunday I decided to go see Larsen's collection of bikes.

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Larsen proudly showed off his collection that included his own creations and imported cargo bikes and trikes from Europe. As I arrived he was just handing off the retrofitted cargo bike that a customer was just picking up for his two kids, which included two kid seats that are secured firmly to the cargo bay of the bike. We then proceeded to try out his custom large flat bed cargo trike and followed up with a couple cargo trikes imported from Denmark and a Bullitt cargo bike, a very light, narrow and long two-wheeled cargo bike.

The easiest to maneouvre were the two-wheelers since the loads were quite low and I could easily lean into turns. People seem to think that trikes are inherently stable since they have three wheels but they don't seem to realize that most roads are sloped which means you are always fighting against the lean of the trike whether going straight or turning corners. There has been some improvement with the fancier trikes made by companies such as Nihola, which have front wheels which swivel independently, much like those of a car.

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Unfortunately, Larsen is only producing cargo bikes as a hobby. He's doing this, I imagine, simply for the love of the bikes and making people happy because he isn't able to pay for his own labour. That means he's willing but don't expect him to meet any deadlines. It would take some work to make this a commercially-viable bike, unlike what other cargo bike makers are pumping out. Larsen is still a good place to go if you want a custom configuration or if you want something creative.

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