Could 2025 be the breakthrough year for the longtail in the Netherlands?

By Jos Sluijsmans, Director of the International Cargo Bike Festival

Cover photo: Car.los Mobility

Last Sunday and Monday, 9 and 10 February, I was at the B2B Festival in the Dutch city of Den Bosch; 160 stands and more than 4,000 visitors, mostly cycling professionals from the trade.

One of the things that stood out at the show was that many brands – both well-known and less well-known – had added a longtail cargo bike to their range. It was clear from the conversations I had that there are high expectations for this type of bike in the coming season. In Flanders, more longtails have been sold than front-loader cargo bikes for a while now. But the Netherlands is a real ‘bakfiets‘ country and the introduction of the longtail has been a bit slower here than in Belgium.

I was reminded of the time when I started working in the bike business. I was mainly concerned with non-standard bikes – unusual design, new materials, different drive systems – and even then, in 2005 or 2006, I was very charmed by the bikes from Xtracycle and Yuba Mundo: robust bikes with extended rear carriers. At the time, I didn’t know they were called ‘longtail’. The first longtails came from the United States. I used two of them myself for deliveries and marketing activities and also sold a few at the time, but it didn’t really catch on and I’m not much of a salesman either, so things tended to tail off quickly.

A great American documentary film on the rise and use of longtails in America is Motherload by Liz Canning. Some of the footage was shot at the International Cargo Bike Festival in Nijmegen in 2014. At the time, the film was still supposed to be called Less Car, More Cargo, but things turned out differently and few shots from Nijmegen ended up in the final version of Motherload.

It is really great to see that there are so many types of longtails on the market now. The electrification of the bike industry has also made them a lot more attractive, because without electric assistance and with a lot of cargo, they were quite heavy bikes.

Even last year, in 2024, the Centurion Vario (Merida’s longtail – pictured right) became Cargobike of the Year 2024 at the RAI Association’s annual Bicycle Awards election. I am curious to see which bike will become the 2025 Cargobike of the Year, but there is quite a good chance it will be another longtail.

For the upcoming International Cargo Bike Festival, on 13 and 14 October in Utrecht, we expect many exhibitors with longtails in their range. You’ll find information on exhibiting here: https://cargobikefestival.com/exhibit/