A hand-made transport beauty that can carry up to 100 kg loads, yet still with excellent riding capabilities! This is the perfect inner-city delivery bicycle.

The VELORBIS Long John bicycle is a transport bike with an extraordinary long-wheel base that can carry a huge load, but can still squeeze through traffic with ease. In order to carry considerably more loads on a 2-wheeler bicycle, the design and ergonomics require a long-wheel base structure where the front wheel is steered via a linkage. Bicycles such as the VELORBIS Long John have the carrier extremely low, making them very stable with large loads.

Cycle trailers can provide a good solution to the problem of quickly adapting a bicycle to be capable of carrying extra loads. However, they do suffer from disadvantages, such as

• one wheeled trailers are scarcely wider than the towing bicycle, but are restricted to carrying loads of only up to about 30 kg
• two wheeled trailers can carry higher payloads, but can clip kerbs and overturn when cornering
• restrict access to some cycle paths and gaps through congested traffic
• are not easy to keep under observation when in motion

These disadvantages might be overcome by fitting the load carrying extension to the front, not the rear of a bicycle. The traditional delivery bike has the basket in front. Our Danish Long John, originally marketed around 1938, takes this to an extreme and has a stated load carrying capacity of 100 Kg. It can carry bags of cement weighing this much without experiencing any great impact on the handling of the bike. Going up hill is of course much harder work, but no different to towing a heavily laden trailer. The basket on the Long John protrudes only a small amount beyond the pedals and so causes little restriction on the gaps through which the bike can pass.

The Long John is a great child carrier too. Note that as a child carrier, the child or children can be observed by their custodian and they get a clear view of what is going on around them. Perhaps they are also more visible to motor traffic than they would be in a trailer.