Gabrus bought his bike, an Urban Arrow FamilyNext Pro<\/a>, at the Propel e-bike shop this past September and said he\u2019s traveled about 1,500 miles with it since. \u201cWe use it quite often, enough that we sold our car,\u201d Gabrus said about his family\u2019s Ford Explorer. \u201cIt was literally within a few months we knew that we just didn\u2019t need it anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n Gabrus said the bike has expanded his family\u2019s reach from a few nearby playgrounds to destinations up to 25 miles away, including Central Park and the Children\u2019s Museum of Manhattan.\n<\/p>\n \u201cThey call it Daddy Camp. We hit the road every day on the bike,\u201d Gabrus said about his children. \u201cNow every day, my kids ask me \u2018where we\u2019re going to go today, Dad,\u2019 because they know the range we can go is way further.\u201d<\/p>\n The want for freedom is now seen at Whee!<\/a>, 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. \u201cChicago has more cargo bike shops than New York,\u201d Abel said.<\/p>\n Casabian bikes his two children to school in Clinton Hill and Crown Heights on an Urban Arrow. \u201cIt\u2019s the only way I could do it. Otherwise, I\u2019d spend my whole day just picking up and dropping off kids,\u201d Casabian said.<\/p>\n Whee!\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPeople will come down the block after a test ride, literally just going \u2018whee!\u2019\u201d Abel said. \u201cOnce you try it, you buy it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n At Propel<\/a>, an e-bike shop near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Nora McCauley is what the shop calls a \u201cmatchmaker.\u201d There, she helps pair families and prospective customers with the right bike for them. A common goal is helping families use their car less. \u201cWe have a lot of customers who have a car and just literally try never to use it,\u201d McCauley said.<\/p>\n \u201cI sometimes feel like I\u2019ve sold half the cargo bikes in Brooklyn,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n Few New Yorkers have spent more time with cargo bikes than Shelly Mossey, owner of Rolling Orange Bike Shop<\/a> 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe truckers hated them because they were taking all the work,\u201d Mossey said. \u201cIt\u2019s a thrill for me to get where I\u2019m going everywhere on my bike.\u201d<\/p>\n Mossey said he\u2019s seen \u201ca huge rise in motorized cargo bikes, and mostly the rise in that is for hauling your kids around, not for deliveries.\u201d He called the bikes a \u201cgreat alternative to using a car.\u201d<\/p>\n The larger trend of motors on the bikes troubled him however. \u201cThere\u2019s just chaos now in the bike lanes. Just total chaos,\u201d Mossey said. \u201cPeople have stopped buying pedal bikes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Mossey shared that the shift in consumer interests has worsened his bike shop\u2019s business. Despite concerns for his business, he maintained a need for safety above all. \u201cPlease, motorized e-bike riders, please respect traditional cyclists in the bike lane.\u201d<\/p>\n Those on e-bikes have shared similar worries about vehicle speeds in bike lanes. \u201cIf you\u2019re going 28 miles an hour, you shouldn\u2019t be in a bike lane. If you\u2019re not pedaling, you shouldn\u2019t be in a bike lane,\u201d Gabrus said.<\/p>\n 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<\/a> 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<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an exciting time to be biking in New York City,\u201d Casabian said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sean Gabrus keeps a mental statistic he calls the \u201ccargo-bikes-per-playground measurement.\u201d Whenever he pulls up to a playground…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":958148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,219911,80817,385395,1121,78352,385396,405,403,50,2295,5226,5225,5228,5227,305351,385397,522,67,586,132,5230,385398,68,2969,385399],"class_list":["post-958147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-bicycling","tag-bike","tag-bike-boom","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-navy-yard","tag-cargo-bike","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-propel","tag-rolling-orange-bike-shop","tag-transportation","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-urban-arrow-familynext-pro","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-whee"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116980192870468405","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=958147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/958148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=958147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=958147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=958147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/DSC4458.jpg\")
A selection of available bike models inside Whee!.Photo by Sam Brule<\/p>\n