Cargo bikes are shaking up the image of the European city center. These eye-catching boxes-on-wheels are rapidly becoming the transport of choice for today’s environmentally conscious, urban-dwelling families. Despite being practical and chic, cargo bikes can be heavy – some with electric-assist can weigh up to 60 kilograms. And the greater the weight, the more effort needed to maneuver the vehicle through streets, intersections or past other road users. Fortunately, custom bicycle designers and tinkerers at Maniac & Sane are showing how things can be made easier, by creating ultralight cargo bikes made of fiber composite materials. A unique feature in their designs are special 3D-printed components made of INFINAM® PA12 from Evonik.

Whether it be a child, a dog or a crate of water, a cargo bike can transport it all. In fact, statistics show these are respectively also the most popular loads carried by cargo bike users. And it seems more and more people every day are transporting themselves, their pets or even goods with their own leg-pedaling power. Trends from the last three years continue to show upward growth in this direction. While there were 16,000 cargo bikes sold in Germany in 2019, the number skyrocketed to 100,000 two years later, as the economic effects of the pandemic subsided. And in Europe, cargo bike sales grew by an average of 40 percent between 2019 and 2021. Looking ahead, several market studies predict annual market growth for cargo bikes of more than 22 percent through 2030.

Meet Martin Fleischhauer. As a passionate "biker" and engineer for lightweight structures, he recognized this trend and founded the startup cargo-bike manufacturer, Maniac & Sane, based in Darmstadt, Germany.

"Though the urban environment is becoming increasingly dense and crowded, people want to live in it in a healthy and environmentally conscious way. Cargo bikes are the right solution for this area of tension, because they fit perfectly into everyday life. Along with saving time and the effort of searching for a parking space, using cargo bikes as transportation also provides us an entertaining form of exercise. It’s no wonder we're seeing more and more of them on our streets," explains Fleischhauer.

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