Instant Karma With a Crust Cargo Bike Fork Review
Given my fascination with cargo bikes, I had to ask Jimmy over at Luckyduck in Oakland, CA about that funky-looking cargo bike parked in front of the shop. An 80’s Cinelli Ottomila mountain bike with a giant cargo container on top of a little front wheel. How could this be?
The answer is the Clydesdale fork from Crust Bikes, a google-worthy outfit out of Belmar, New Jersey. The crust makes frames, forks, stems, and more! Some even US-made. The Clydesdale fork is designed to turn your old non-suspension-corrected MTB or tourer into a solid cargo hauler. It’s built over a 20” wheel for a low center of gravity, to make hauling easy.
The basic platform is ready for whatever you want to put on it. There are plenty of braze-one to screw things into to the top of the platform so you could mount a box or just a flat board if that suits your needs. There are also mounts for both disk and cantilever brakes, as well as fenders.
What will you need? A 20” wheel with a 9mm axle and a bike. The Clydesdale fork is designed for a 400mm (15 ¾”) crown-to-axle height and a 72˚ head angle. If your bike is designed around those numbers, which are pretty common, then you will have achieved perfection and the rack will ride level. If your axle-crown is higher or lower, your frame angles will change by about one degree for every 10mm of height. This is all described in detail on the website and slight variations are not the end of the world. Other stats include a 340mm steerer tube and availability in both 1″ and 1 1/8″ steerer tubes, both threadless. The 1″ model includes a shim for using 1 1/8″ threadless stems and comes with a Cane Creek 40 headset.
Jimmy does a lot of shopping for the shop and has had up to 70 lbs on there, including “The Dog”. Crust doesn’t list a weight limit but I am seeing a picture of a human riding on one, what fun! A clean and simple way to create a cargo bike, do check them out. $245 for the 1 1/8” model. $265 for the 1”.
6/22/18 Correction: Only the 1″ model comes with a Cane Creek 40 headset
