Veolo Bike Trailer: Lightweight Beeing on Hold

There’s no doubt that an electric cargo bike is a great thing. However, it is not without some drawbacks. It is usually larger and heavier than a conventional ebike and offers a correspondingly different riding experience. Anyone who doesn’t need one every day and doesn’t want to ride several bikes will certainly think carefully about such a purchase. Especially given the relatively high prices for some models. Therefore, it seems very tempting to be able to use your existing ebike as a cargo bike. Especially if it only required a single accessory as a structural modification.

The dichotomy between the benefits of a cargo bike and its disadvantages is well known. Just think of how tricky it can be to park a bike in the basement one flight of stairs down. It is not without reason that there are a number of solutions on the market that address precisely these issues. You can ride the Convercycle either as an e-cargo bike or as a city ebike. Or you can opt for models from Omnium or the Surly Skid Loader, which want to be a “normal” bike that offers numerous options for transporting cargo. Alternatively, you could swap your fork for a Joker Mini, which can carry loads of up to 45 kilograms.

From children’s taxi to pack animal

Johann Schmidt had other ideas. The product designer was looking for an even more minimalist solution. He obviously remembered his experience with child trailers. They fit on pretty much any bike, can be attached and detached in a matter of seconds and turn a bike into a taxi for the offspring and back again. And what works for children should be transferable to other applications. No sooner said than done. Two years after the first drafts were created, the Veolo is now an extremely high-quality cargo trailer on its two wheels. If it had the Thule logo emblazoned on it, it would probably not cause much surprise.

Instead, it says Veolo on it and has Veolo inside. In concrete terms, this means: A lightweight bicycle trailer with an aluminium frame and cargo bed. Thule-compatible axle coupling. Both wheels individually suspended from a swing arm and additionally suspended by an elastomer. Low centre of gravity for maximum riding safety at high speeds on bends and uneven surfaces. Plus a functional yet dynamic appearance that has been nominated for the Saxon State Prize for Design 2023. Oh, and a maximum payload of 80 kilograms. Not an unimportant feature for a trailer 😉.

Sporty and resilient at the same time

Overall, this gives the Veolo an extremely versatile profile. With its powerful suspension and unladen weight of just 8.5 kilograms, the bike trailer seems ideally suited to carrying the majority of your luggage on longer tours. It should be able to cope with occasional off-road passages without any problems. Even single trails don’t seem completely out of the question. After all, its track width of 76.5 centimetres is no wider than the handlebar width of many mountain bikes.

In addition to this sportiness, the Veolo has the qualities of a real packhorse. On the 48 centimetre wide and 78 centimetre long cargo bed, you can carry a weight of up to 80 kilograms. Given the low edge of the platform, this is not so easy to manage. Conveniently, the manufacturer has provided additional packing hangers for this purpose. These are also made of aluminium and measure a good 50 centimetres in height and width. They can be mounted either on the long sides of the trailer or on its narrow front and rear. This creates a boundary that can support larger objects.

The accessories also include a huge weatherproof bag with a roll-top fastener. It can hold 230 litres. In some cases, the combination of packing hangers and the bag could be the perfect solution for transporting shopping and other everyday items. However, feedback from initial tests has made the manufacturer reconsider the concept of the large bag. After all, such a large volume quickly goes hand in hand with a large mass. And despite the shoulder strap, only a few people voluntarily throw it over their shoulders. That’s why Johann Schmidt and his small team are reportedly working hard on a smaller utilisation concept for the storage space.

Small mood dampener

When considering how to get the most out of the Veolo, there is one more important fact to bear in mind. The 80-kilogram payload sounds tempting. In practice, you will probably only rarely really utilise this. There are two reasons for this. The first goes back to a recommendation made by the German Federal Ministry of Transport in 1999. In an “Information sheet for carrying trailers behind bicycles” attached to Section 67 of the Road Traffic Licensing Regulations (StVZO), it is recommended that the towing capacity of an unbraked bicycle trailer should be limited to 40 kilograms. This would mean that the capacity of the Veolo would be reduced by half.

Reason number two is the fact that the vast majority of ebike manufacturers add the weight of an unbraked trailer to the maximum permitted total weight of the ebike. After all, the ebike’s brakes must bring both vehicles to a safe stop at all times. In the case of a lightweight urban ebike such as the Ridetronic, you therefore deduct from its maximum system weight of 120 kilograms perhaps 80 kilograms for the rider, 16 kilograms for the bike itself and end up with just 24 kilograms that you are still allowed to tow. With the Surly Skid Loader mentioned at the beginning of the article, the calculation would start at 181 kilograms. However, this ebike also weighs a good ten kilograms more than a Ridetronic.

Frugal in many respects

Of course, these regulations cannot dispute all the advantages of the bike trailer. The flexibility of the solution in particular has its charm. Like a trump card, you can pull it out of your sleeve when you need it in everyday life and then put it back in again. You don’t have to reserve a lot of space for it. You can remove the wheels from the Veolo and stow them in the cargo bed in no time at all. Thanks to a wall bracket, it disappears skilfully into the cellar, storeroom or hallway, where it awaits its next use.

Obviously, the manufacturer has put a lot of thought into practicality. The same applies to the efforts to leave as small an ecological footprint as possible. According to Veolo, around 80 per cent of the components used come from Germany. Assembly, storage, quality control and dispatch all take place at the company headquarters in Leipzig or start from there. The supply chains are correspondingly short. Wherever plastic can be dispensed with in the design, this is done. The single-origin processing of high-quality materials results in a long service life for the trailer, which Veolo estimates to be at least 20 years. It should be possible to replace parts that are known in advance not to last this long. And once the entire Veolo has reached the end of its life, it can be almost completely recycled.

The near future of the Veolo is still uncertain

Before that happens, however, you would first have to own one. Which admittedly won’t be a bargain. Veolo wants to launch the bike trailer on the market next spring for the hefty sum of 790 euros. At this point, some of you may be faltering and struggling to keep your composure. On a closer look, however, the price is hardly surprising. Such a vehicle will be manufactured in relatively small series, at least to begin with. High-quality materials will be used and it will be produced in Germany. In terms of technical standard, the Veolo is already on a par with what competitors are currently offering. The models from Reacha are a good example of this.

Whether sales of the Veolo will actually start in 2024 will be decided in the next few days. The manufacturer is currently trying to raise the necessary capital via a Kickstarter campaign in order to start series production. The aim is to raise 89,000 euros by the 17th of December. As of today, around 10,000 euros are still missing. With 19 days left, reaching the funding target seems entirely feasible. If you are convinced by the product and could wait until April 2024 for a delivery, this might be something for you. In the event of success, you could save quite a bit. You can pre-order the standard version of the trailer on Kickstarter for 550 euros.

Veolo bike trailer at a glance

• Maximum payload: 80 kg
• Unladen weight: 8.5 kg
• Internal dimensions: 48 cm x 78 cm
• Track width: 76.5 cm
• Overall length featuring standard coupling: 135 cm
• Planned price: 790 euros

Pictures: Veolo UG