A small Dutch bicycle company called Workcycles, designs, builds and ships a ‘long-john’ style cargo bike (bakfiets) with model name Kr8. We ordered a Kr8 and built it here in Stellenbosch.
The Kr8 was packed well and arrived in good condition by air-frieght.
Then we unpacked everything.
At this point the excitement of bike N+1 disappeared quickly, it dawned on us that this could be quite tricky, and the overwelming fear of failure arrived, had we ‘bitten off more than we could chew’ ? However, after the first few steps we had assembled something resembling a long-john bike which spurred us on.
Not long after this step the complete bike was built and ready to test ride.
The relative ease and speed with which we got to this stage is testament to the design, the build before shipping (notably the back wheel) and the partial disassemble for packing. The chassis split in the middle is very useful!
After the celebration and first test rides we then had to disassemble just enough to fit in our SUV (Toyota RAV 4). Because it is shipped by air, batteries are not allowed to ship with it, and so we had to find a local dealer specialising in the e-bike motor. We found Chilled Squirrel in Capetown and asked them to install and wire the battery for us.
The disassembly was straight forward, we split the chassis and removed the front brake lever and lowered the seat and handlebars. The rear section was held by our bike stand whilst the front section balanced well on the kick stand.
However, we quickly realised that to transport the rear section it would be very convenient to make a small wooden T-shaped stand and bolt it to the chasis joint.
Then we were able to load the two sections into the SUV. For more stability we tied the two sections together.
A final note, the advice from Workcycles to use rachet spanners was a great piece of advice. Also a small socket wrench helped as well.
The battery was installed and the Kr8 glides beautifully around Stellenbosch.
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