Sean Gabrus keeps a mental statistic he calls the “cargo-bikes-per-playground measurement.” Whenever he pulls up to a playground with his two sons, he makes note of how many hefty electric cargo bikes he sees parked around.
“It’s like ‘okay, let me scan and see how many bikes are here,’ and it’s gone up, and it’s going up like month over month,” Gabrus said in an interview at William Sheridan playground in Williamsburg, his sons Kai, 4, and Nico, 2, playing nearby.
Gabrus is part of the growing number of New York parents who’ve turned to cargo bikes, specifically the Dutch-style, boxy, front-loading ones, to handle family errands such as school drop-offs, grocery runs, and playground visits. The market category reached nearly $100 million in U.S. sales in 2024, according to the group PeopleForBikes.
Gabrus bought his bike, an Urban Arrow FamilyNext Pro, at the Propel e-bike shop this past September and said he’s traveled about 1,500 miles with it since. “We use it quite often, enough that we sold our car,” Gabrus said about his family’s Ford Explorer. “It was literally within a few months we knew that we just didn’t need it anymore.”
Gabrus said the bike has expanded his family’s reach from a few nearby playgrounds to destinations up to 25 miles away, including Central Park and the Children’s Museum of Manhattan.
“They call it Daddy Camp. We hit the road every day on the bike,” Gabrus said about his children. “Now every day, my kids ask me ‘where we’re going to go today, Dad,’ because they know the range we can go is way further.”
The want for freedom is now seen at Whee!, a new family-oriented cargo bike shop in Park Slope that began selling bikes last month. Founders Evan Abel and Ed Casabian said they spent months wondering why New York had so few places to buy these bikes. “Chicago has more cargo bike shops than New York,” Abel said.
Casabian bikes his two children to school in Clinton Hill and Crown Heights on an Urban Arrow. “It’s the only way I could do it. Otherwise, I’d spend my whole day just picking up and dropping off kids,” Casabian said.
A selection of available bike models inside Whee!.Photo by Sam Brule
Whee!’s selection of bikes ranges from Aventon e-bikes which can cost around $2,000 to Urban Arrows, around $9,000. Despite cost, the founders at Whee! said their early sales have surpassed their expectations.
“People will come down the block after a test ride, literally just going ‘whee!’” Abel said. “Once you try it, you buy it.”
During a recent Urban Arrow test ride through Prospect Park with this reporter seated in the cargo area, Abel stopped to speak with a mother riding a cargo bike. After asking a few questions and scheduling maintenance on her bike, she said she was happy to finally have a shop nearby.
At Propel, an e-bike shop near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Nora McCauley is what the shop calls a “matchmaker.” There, she helps pair families and prospective customers with the right bike for them. A common goal is helping families use their car less. “We have a lot of customers who have a car and just literally try never to use it,” McCauley said.
“I sometimes feel like I’ve sold half the cargo bikes in Brooklyn,” McCauley said. She recalled families talking about spending a fortune on Ubers for the convenience, despite having a car, and how these bikes will help them save money.
Few New Yorkers have spent more time with cargo bikes than Shelly Mossey, owner of Rolling Orange Bike Shop in Carroll Gardens, who exchanged greetings with a stream of neighbors and customers during an interview outside the shop. Mossey has used human-powered cargo bikes to haul freight since his days as a partner at Chick Chack, a courier service.
“The truckers hated them because they were taking all the work,” Mossey said. “It’s a thrill for me to get where I’m going everywhere on my bike.”
Mossey said he’s seen “a huge rise in motorized cargo bikes, and mostly the rise in that is for hauling your kids around, not for deliveries.” He called the bikes a “great alternative to using a car.”
The larger trend of motors on the bikes troubled him however. “There’s just chaos now in the bike lanes. Just total chaos,” Mossey said. “People have stopped buying pedal bikes.”
Mossey shared that the shift in consumer interests has worsened his bike shop’s business. Despite concerns for his business, he maintained a need for safety above all. “Please, motorized e-bike riders, please respect traditional cyclists in the bike lane.”
Those on e-bikes have shared similar worries about vehicle speeds in bike lanes. “If you’re going 28 miles an hour, you shouldn’t be in a bike lane. If you’re not pedaling, you shouldn’t be in a bike lane,” Gabrus said.
But city infrastructure is beginning to catch up to the changing vehicles occupying the streets and bike lanes. On May 6, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced that the Department of Transportation will redesign 10 miles of Bergen Street and Dean Street, where the Bergen Bike Bus comes through, into bike boulevards.
“It’s an exciting time to be biking in New York City,” Casabian said.