CargoBike x Rooftent, Anyone?

Hi all,

Voilá: I present to you the 'tentfiets' (biketent).
Pictures of our prototype that isn't working yet )!' but we're building on it with lots of enthousiasm and a total lack of realism (yay for romance above ratio).

Got the advice to post our crazy project on here as well, if you like to read more on the Story of Origin and How We Got Stuck in the Process, read further

So to all of you who are interested in how we got to this idea en why on earth we're trying to create this biketent (fietstent in Dutch)….here's a little background info (haha, not so little, i'm in my storytelling mood and not smoothing it out with AI and breaking all current internet rules of keeping it short and with a lot of language mistakes b/c it's not my mothertongue. So enjoy!. )

About one and a half years ago. we were asked by an acquitance if we were interested in buying an electric cargo Bullitt frame (Larry vs Harry). But since we already have tons of bikes (we're Dutch) we didn't know what to do with it.

But it's such a beautiful bike and it was a good offer so we started to imagine what we could do with it. Suddenly some loose ends inside my head found eachother and I started to wonder if it would be possible to combine the bike with a daktenk (rooftent) and with that, combine two passions of ours: cycling and camping

So within a week we went to a rooftent shop nearby and asked the owner what he thought of this crazy idea.

He loved it!

And said we could borrow an old tent to make a prototype.

Then we phoned the Bullitt guy, shared the idea

He also loved it!

and offered us that we could borrow the bike as well.

Thus, we now had a crazy idea ánd a bike and a tent and no costs yet. We took some old wood from the basement, build a 'cage', screwed the tent on top and voila: prototype 0.1. We actually took some old tent poles to stabilize the whol thing (hahaha, really laughing at our complete ignorance of "Weight distribution" 😄 back then)

There was this annual 'crazy on wheel' camp event nearby (15km) where all kind of weird vehicels gather to show off their crazyness. I knew this was the place I would have to be, both to do our first try out, but also get imput from other liked minded creators

Cycling there was quite scary, the wooden cage was definitely stretched to it's maximum capacity and i had to manouver through small pathways and descent quite a steep hill for Dutch standards. But I felt incredible cool on my bike.

And even cooler when i entered the campingground, put my bike on the brake, unfolded the tent and sat next to it on the ground with a cold beer.

All within 10 minutes.

So many people liked the idea, and all of them worried for the stability. And that………..was exactly what worried me as well.

When i got into bed that night, I had ten people standing around the biketent watching what would happen….I climbed the three stairtreads cautiously… tried to enter the tent without much movement, turned to my back…..and then the bike tilted and it all collapsed. But no bruises, only a few on my ego

So i unscrewed the rooftent, put it on the ground and actually had a good night sleep.

The next day i skrewed the tent to the wooden cage again, cycled back home and the next chapter began.

I had learned three things:

1. the wooden cage wasn't strong enough
2. we would have to find a way of counterbalancing the tent or fixating the bike
3. we had to find a way to fixate the hinge

So we went online, bought aluminium profiles (around €600,-), build a new cage and added an extra support to the bike.

And if you've read all the way to this part of the post then you now know where in the process we are right now. Because this is exactly where we're stuck. The last time we tried that bike still tilted.

We have a cage, we still have the tent, we have some pictures an video's but unfortunately we had to bring back the Bullitt frame, being very gratefull we were able to borrow it for this process.

We still love the idea and we have some thoughts on how we can improve.

Best option now seems to put the tent on a rail that you can slide back so the hinge isn't next to, but in the middle of the bike, and then 4 poles on each corner of the tent to fixate and distribute the weight of the tent.

But we haven't gotten there

So being stuck, i though i just throw it on the internet and see if it can do it's old skool magic. And it seems to work! It's so motivating to hear that others have also imagined this crazy idea, so many people loving it and already getting nice and smart suggestions. Please keep them coming.

And for all of you who are wondering: "but why?????"

I'd like to quote our youngest child: "just because!!!!"