Hauling 800 lbs of e-waste with an electric cargo bike

I needed to move about 800 lbs of e-waste from a church where I had a project to collect it to a location a mile away where there was an annual RecycleForce e-waste collection drive.

The Yuba Mundo is rated to carry over 400 lbs of cargo and the Bikes-at-Work trailer is rated to carry 300 lbs, but to be safe I divided the job into four trips since the destination was not far away.

Seen here in the photo:

• Two 18 gallon bins, strapped to either side of the Yuba Mundo. Together they form a wide platform across the top to strap even more.
• The trailer has a 45 gallon container on the bottom and 36 gallon container on the top.

It turned out that the electric assist made short work of the hauling this load, including being able to climb the hill at 16 mph. I likely could have safely reduced the number of trips by using the longer trailer set-up. No sweating or grunting required.

While hauling more weight at once may have worked, I take hauling this much weight on a bike seriously and wanted to be conservative about what I was attempting.

The “Stand Alone” double-sided kickstand was indensiple for this job, keeping the bike level and steady as we loaded and unloaded the bike and trailer.

All the weight towards the rear of the bike did create some real concerns. One was that bike could start to tip off the centerstand towards the back corner if it was too far off balance. Also, the weight on the rear plus some pressure from the trailer hitch both unweighted the front wheel some. That made handling a bit twitchy, especially at low speeds.

If that effect had been stronger, it could have also caused the front-wheel drive motor to not engage as well, causing more problems.

Thanks to Kent and Justin who also helped with the project.