Welcome to the Cargo Bike Nation’s Cup – the world’s fiercest competition in front-loading urban mobility. It’s not just a friendly match; it’s a full-blown showdown where national pride and engineering collide. And like hockey itself, the strongest teams tend to hail from Northern and Nordic countries. Representing Denmark: the legendary Bullitt, the original cargo bike from the once mean-streets of Copenhagen. Holland puts forth Urban Arrow, a newer generation born from heavyweight Dutch cycling culture. Germany sends in Riese & Müller, a big-spending team with tech to spare. And from the USA comes Trek, the scrappy underdog, making its first serious play with the Trek Fetch. Ready? Let’s drop the puck!

Safety in the Box

Every hockey player knows the importance of body armour; pads, helmets and visor. Front-loading cargo bikes come equipped with their own kind of armour: a strong, impact-resistant cargo box that surrounds passengers, especially kids. This safety cell absorbs shocks and collisions, keeping those inside safe and secure.

Unlike longtail bikes where kids sit exposed on the rear rack, front-loaders provide real safety. Most car accidents with cyclists occur from the rear, and most fatalities too. Longtails, alas, are not long on safety. Every bike in this lineup earns points for suit-up safety.

Fast Break: Bullitt on the Rush

Speed, precision, and control win games. This is also true for cargo bikes. And, this is where Bullitt leads. Born in 2006 from a need to cut through traffic, hop curbs, and squeeze through tight city corners, a Bullitt is a sub-60lb machine that dances through gridlock.

Compare that to the early steel-and-wood cargo bikes from Holland – 145lb bruisers more suited to cruising Holland’s bike highways than handling tight gritty turns. In 2012, Urban Arrow appeared and put Dutch cargo bikes on a weight loss plan, dropping the weight to 110lbs with an aluminum frame and EPP box. But it still klomps around like a wooden shoe. Bullitt’s nimble design reflects a country where cargo bike design was forged without the luxury of Holland’s bike lanes. This gritty origin story explains why a Bullitt’s design works so well outside of Denmark too.

The Power-to-Weight Champion

Cargo bike brands love quoting torque stats – 85nm! 90nm! – but what matters is how much weight that power has to haul. Especially if a good part of that weight is the bike itself. A Bullitt E6100 motor delivers 65nm, but because the bike only weighs 55lb, it has a stunning 21.83W/kg power-to-weight ratio. That’s better than an Urban Arrow (13.64W/kg) or any Riese & Müller model. If you need power, then opt for a Bullitt EP801. With 28.55W/kg it’s the most powerful cargo bike on the market.

Then there’s the Trek Fetch. For some inexplicable reason it hits the scale at 165lb. That’s three times the weight of a Bullitt – and even with a strong motor, it rides like a tank. Weight matters. And in city traffic, lighter bikes carry more stuff, preserve battery, and feel safer too. Read more about power to weight here.

Ditch The Zamboni

For shorter distances, bikes outcompete cars. Which is why they shouldn’t be sold like cars. The more bells and whistles a bike has, the more like a car it becomes. And, that means more maintenance, more weight, width and getting stuck. Consider the most essential part on a bike: the frame. Bullitt’s frame is a one-piece alloy body – strong, narrow, and stiff in the corners. There is no rear suspension swing-arm, no front suspension, and no unnecessary joints. Urban Arrow bikes are a two-piece body joined by four bolts. This helps flat-pack the bikes for shipping but also adds potential failure points, as seen in Babboe’s frame recall. Riese and Muller go further, splitting their frames into three pieces. That’s because they add a suspension swingarm. The question is, do you need this?

But, rear suspension is overkill. It suspends the rider more than the passengers and adds costly maintenance. A much simpler – and more effective option (lighter too) – is a suspension seatpost. As for using front suspension? On front-loading cargo bikes, the load sits level or behind the suspension fork, meaning that the vertical weight isn’t compressing the fork in the same way it would on a mountain bike. It looks cool and that’s about it. Bullitt skips these gimmicks and delivers a bike designed for the last mile; those short distances where a bike can outcompete a car.

Cargo Bikes Master the Quick Shift

What we’re trying to say is that cargo bikes are not SUVs. They’re made to master short trips. And, when you consider that over 50% of North American car journeys are under three miles, this is exactly the gridlock that a cargo bike slices through. Studies show that a city cyclist who lives and works in the ‘last mile’ rarely exceeds 15km in a day of riding. In other words, you may be doing a lot of trips, but overall mileage is generally low. Your cargo bike does the majority of trips. Your car does the majority of annual mileage. It’s the trips that matter.

Now, consider that even the smallest battery gives a rider 60km of range. With that in mind, range anxiety becomes more a sales-pitch than a real concern. For perspective, here in Toronto, FedEx rides their Bullitt E6100’s all day and only accumulate an average daily mileage of 35km. One (comparatively small) 418W battery does the trick. So, if for some reason you commute is over 30km – which is amazing but also exceptional –  then you can still charge the battery at the office to 80% in just two hours. In short, for most urban families or businesses, even the most basic mileage a battery provides (combined with short charging times) is all you need.

Overloaded and Offside

Brands that push massive battery capacity are selling that SUV dream. All you gain is more weight. For instance, no one needs a dual-battery, full suspension Riese & Muller Load cargo bike unless they view cargo biking as a recreational sport rather than last-mile transportation. As a rule, cargo bikes outcompete cars where distances are too short to drive. Cars connect distances that are too far to cycle. Cars are good, but they’re terrible when the vast majority of drivers are bottlenecking themselves and others by driving under three miles. Here’s how the Dutch distribute their use of walking, bicycles and cars.

So, it’s all very well for a cargo bike company to try and compete with cars for distances over 15km, but even the Dutch know that’s a fantasy. Nonetheless, many cargo bike manufacturers seem to sell that fantasy. We’re looking at you, Trek Bicycles. Whereas Bullitt has the origin story of a cargo bike that grew out of Copenhagen’s rise into a bicycle city, Trek Bicycle Company can be found in the suburbs of small town America. Sometimes you’ll see a Ford F350 struggling downtown Toronto. That’s the Trek Fetch.

Use-case matters. If your trips are short, don’t lug a battery built for Everest. And remember, the heavier a bike is the bigger the battery needs to be to push it. In the world of cargo bikes, heaviness only begets more heaviness.

From Rookie to Veteran: A Cargo Bike That Grows With You

Most front-loaders brands assume you’re carrying kids. But what if you’re not? Here is where Bullitt isn’t chasing the puck. Unlike all cargo bikes compared here, a Bullitt has the longest lifetime value. You could buy one before kids, during kids, after kids – or no kids whatsoever! You see, when the cargo bike moved from Denmark to Holland it was because the Dutch saw its use for carrying kids. After this, nearly every cargo bike by default has been a kid carrying machine. And, like any minivan also made for kids, it usually gets bought when the kids are borne and sold when the kids grow up. You could use it after the kids grow up, but they tend to be so heavy they ride like a, well, minivan.

A Bullitt is quite different. As seen, it is a lightweight bike that is so fun to ride on its own that many prefer it to a “regular bike.” It becomes your regular bike. And, unlike any other regular bike, it can carry groceries, big trips to the Home Hardware, or a BBQ and cooler for weekend gatherings at the park. A Bullitt, in other words, grows with you and not just your kids.

Playing Every Position

One overlooked element in cargo bike design is rider posture—and it matters more than most think. A Bullitt is one of the only front-loaders that offers a full range of riding positions. Want that upright, easygoing “sit-up-and-beg” posture of an Urban Arrow? You’ve got it. Prefer a forward-leaning, aggressive stance like a FedEx courier threading traffic? Also an option. (It’s no accident Bullitts are the bike of choice for DHL and FedEx fleets worldwide).

This kind of adaptability is rare. Riese & Müller’s Load bikes come close, but most others—including Trek’s Fetch, Urban Arrow, and Riese & Müller’s Transporter—lock riders into a single upright position. That might feel friendly at the shop, but it doesn’t scale well with speed or heavier loads. If you want the flexibility of a low center of gravity with the posture you choose, the Bullitt is in a league of its own—and at half the weight of an Urban Arrow, it’s not even close.

In the Box: Where Bullitt Takes a Minor Penalty

Even the best teams take a hit now and then. With Bullitt, it’s family capacity. If they are in the penalty box its because their box isn’t big enough. But when they build it, expect the best. Nobody thinks outside the box like Bullitt. Bullitt grew up in the gritty 1980’s Copenhagen streets before the present bike-lane boom. By the time the kids grew up, they could already ride to school on pristine bicycle highways. This is true for most brands of cargo bikes, even the SUV-sized Urban Arrow needs a second bench once kids hit seven.

But here’s the twist: the Bullitt’s flatbed can take any box width. That’s something you can’t do with bikes like the Riese and Muller Transporter or Urban Arrow, because the box is part of the bike. The closest competitor is the Riese and Muller Load; their bike is also sold with an open flatbed. But, this flatbed is delimited in size by welded sidewalls that prevent any sort of third-party solution. So, you’re just as stuck.

Luckily, companies like Bullitt who take engineering seriously have lots of engineers following them. The great thing about a Bullitt is that it’s flatbed chassis can take any width of box (FedEx has exploited this with quite a wide box). And, there are companies who make wider boxes for bigger kids, including our friends at Splendid Bicycles in Portland, Oregon, Rad3 in Germany, Madjax in the UK, and Convoy out of Germany. Unfortunately, there is no retailer margins for such products so we cannot source them ourselves. Bullitt has promised a bigger box, so until then, it’s a two-minute minor with the best line of engineers on the penalty kill.

Final Score: Bullitt Wins in a Blowout

When it comes to performance, weight, power efficiency, versatility, and ride feel — Bullitt dominates. Urban Arrow makes a strong case in bike-lane-rich environments. Riese & Müller overengineers for problems most riders don’t have. And Trek? Well, North America needs more domestic contenders, but the Fetch isn’t it yet.

This isn’t just about specs — it’s about feel, use-case, and longevity. The Bullitt is more than a cargo bike. It’s a precision tool, a nimble commuter, a grocery hauler, a family carrier, and a design that earns the crown again and again. Game over.

Final Minutes In The Last Mile

Cargo bikes aren’t just an alternative—they’re a total rethink of what short-range transport can be. They win by being lighter, faster, safer, and more adaptable to daily life. They’re not built to outgun cars on the open road; they’re built to beat them in the tight, chaotic corners of city living. Whether you’re picking up a kid, a crate, or a coffee, the best cargo bike isn’t the one with the most features—it’s the one that gets out of your way and into your life. And when the buzzer sounds, it’s clear: the Bullitt is still skating circles around the competition.

Interested in a Bullitt? Book a remote or in-store sales appointment here! Or, shoot us an email at info@pedaal.com