Every bike I sell goes through these six stages in this order. A hired bike stops at stage two, and a bike wheeled in broken on a Tuesday morning joins at stage six.
I opened Cargoqo in 2021 in an old tyre workshop with four hire bikes and one repair stand, after two winters fixing neighbours' box bikes in my courtyard. There are three stands and eight hire bikes now. About a third of the bench is trade riders who cannot lose a day on the road, which is why Mondays belong to them. The order of things has not changed.
Linnea
01Ride
Bring the load you actually carry: the children, two crates of shopping, the trade box with your tools in it. We take the bike out on the flat behind the shop for 30 to 45 minutes. A bike that feels light when empty feels very different with 60 kg in the front, and this is the moment to find that out, not after you have paid.
02Hire
Take a family box bike home for a week, Tuesday to Tuesday, for 1,750 kr. Put it through the nursery run, a wet morning and your own bike room door. If you order a new bike within 30 days, the 1,750 kr comes off its price.
03Order
Box, motor, rain cover and locks are chosen at the counter, with the bike you rode standing beside us. A 20 percent deposit holds the order and your place on stand two. The rest waits until the bike fits you.
04Build
Every new bike is assembled on stand two. Each load-bearing bolt is torqued to its figure and then marked across bolt and frame, so a bolt that has moved shows at a glance at every service after.
Before handover there is one more mark. Inside the box I draw a pencil line at the height of the tallest child it was fitted for, with the date beside it. At the next service I can see how much they have grown, and whether the belts need moving.
05Fit
We ride round the block together and set the saddle, the bar reach and the brake lever reach to your hands while you ride. The balance is paid then, once the bike fits, and not before.
06Check
Within 8 weeks of handover the bike comes back for a free check, because cables stretch and spokes bed in. Then, before the salt season, it gets the standard service. This is also where a bike wheeled in broken joins the line.
Buy
Front-loaders, long-tails and three-wheel boxes built to order on stand two, and refurbished bikes from our own hire fleet.
Workshop
Safety checks, full strip services, motor and battery diagnosis and the trade fleet plan, on three stands.
Hire
Family box bikes by the day, week or month, and trade flat-decks and three-wheel boxes by the day or week. Weekly hire runs Tuesday to Tuesday.