A Bolt-On Cargo Fork

Over the past few months, I’ve been tinkering with the idea of a way to convert bicycles to “Short Johns” or “Cycle Trucks” along the lines of the Crust Clydesdale Cargo Fork. I wanted to find a way to do a bolt-on mod that would work for most bikes, without the need to swap the whole fork, and at a price point that was a biiiit more accessible than the $$$ premium most cargo bike mods seems to be going for.

Well, here’s what I came up with: a bolt-on fork extender and integral rack that converts most 700c and 26” bicycle forks to 20” cargo carriers. It’s got a bit of for-aft adjustment so it handles head tube angles from ~70 to ~73 degrees. I was actually able to get the whole thing fabricated and assembled for around 1/2 the price of a Crust Clydesdale fork, so I consider the experiment a great success 🙂 

A $10 IKEA basket (20" x 20") strapped onto the rack makes for a great cargo area. It works wonderfully for trucking around all sorts of items.

I did some grocery shopping today and was able to easily transport 55lbs / 22kgs (!!!) of produce and frozen foods home. The design was modelled around a target capacity of 25kgs, so this was a near-perfect test. Speaking from experience of doing this many times before, this is way WAY easier now, and with a lot greater capacity!

I’m also tinkering with the idea of selling / giving a few to friends to test out, but wanted to see what the hive-mind things about it. So… what do you guys think?