Comment & Analysis: After moving back to Naas, buying a cargo bike has allowed Dr Elaine McGoff to transport her two girls, Naoise (11) and Zoë (8), around the town while staying as a one-car family. Here, she explains how, from the moment the bike arrived, the whole family fell in love with it.
Cycling has been a large part of my life since I was a kid. I’ve never been without a bike, and have often relied on it as my only form of transport in the various countries I’ve lived. My ambition is to follow in the footsteps of my granny Bridie McGoff, who was well known for cycling her high nelly around the streets of Naas well into her 80s. If she can do it, I can do it.
We now live back in Naas — home to sporadic and often non-existent cycling lanes. We’ve had a long-tail electric cargo bike for about a year and a half, and we use it daily to get our girls to and from school, and around town for after-school activities and shopping.
We’ve clocked up well over 3,000km to date. We’re one of only four or five cargo bikes that I’ve spotted around Naas, so we’re very much still a novelty around town.
I spent two years looking longingly at long-tail e-bikes, but the cost was a big hurdle. Did we really need another bike when we already all owned at least one each? Would I feel safe enough on the roads in the chaotic school traffic with the girls on the back?
I’m a confident cyclist, but having very precious cargo on board does change how you feel on the road, and any parent that has braved the school run knows that all bets are off when it comes to what stupid things car drivers do around school drop off and pickup.
After two years of vacillating, and hoping to win the lotto (which we never played), we invested in a Bicicapace long-tail e-bike from Rothar bike shop in Phibsboro. We used the Cycle-to-Work scheme to make it more affordable.
This decision was definitely influenced by the Irish cargo bike owners who were tweeting about their positive experiences with theirs, so thanks to all the bike-fluencers on Twitter!
From the moment it arrived, we were all in love with it. The benefits are multifold. I feel happier when I cycle first thing in the morning, it somehow sets us all up for the day.



As a family, we get to see the changes in the neighbourhood through the seasons — we cycle past our local lakes and keep a close eye out for the return of the swallows, and for the swans, ducks and moorhens nesting. We get to see bats if we’re cycling at dusk. And even on the coldest of mornings, the mist sitting over the lakes as the sun rises has literally stopped us in our tracks with its beauty. It’s worth every frozen finger.
This bike has taken anything that we have thrown at it. Four kids in the back, guitars, 8ft Christmas trees, the Christmas grocery shop, adults on the back, a paddleboard with kids wedged in alongside it. We decorate it for Halloween and Christmas, and fret over it when it when we leave it locked up untended in public places. It’s like another member of the family.
Another really unexpected benefit is the social side. We tend to cycle past the same people each morning, and slowly, over time, we’ve built up a whole network of people that we wave to, smile at and share a few words with.
It sounds small, but it’s really surprising how much it can lift your day just by having a friendly interaction with someone. It makes us all feel like we’re part of a community, that we’re rooted in our neighbourhood.
We’re also a novelty around town, often eliciting comments, gasps and waves. I suspect my recent trip with the Christmas tree on the back left some jaws hanging around town. Luckily, my girls still see this as a good thing. They enjoy the attention, and are not yet too embarrassed by it. I know it’s in the post, but for the moment, it’s still a novelty for them. Part of me hopes this daily, not quite fitting-in experience will stand to them in their future.
There are challenges, which mostly come on four wheels. Car drivers are the main frustration we encounter on our journeys. Drivers behaving badly, passing too close, cutting you off or simply trying to drive through you because they somehow don’t see a huge bike, covered in high visibility stickers in primary position on the road. Thankfully, the negative interactions are not so frequent, and most car drivers are really respectful of our novel wheels.
A lot of people seem to think the rain would be a problem, but surprisingly it really doesn’t actually rain that much. We bought a rain tent for our bike, so the girls are mostly dry, and on the really bad days, I just wear my rain gear, and it’s fine.
Wind is not your friend on any bike, so there are days when I choose to leave the bike at home. They’re rare enough, but they inevitably involve gale-force winds. Swerving on the road because of the wind does not go well with inattentive and unsafe drivers passing too close.
All in all, the family bike has literally changed how we move and enabled us to continue to be a one-car family. Cargo bikes are the key to enabling the active travel shift we so badly need. But we need to give families the safe, segregated infrastructure so they don’t need to be experienced and brave cyclists to take to the roads with their precious cargo.
If we could provide a network of safe cycling lanes combined with a bike library where families could try out or rent cargo bikes, I honestly think you’d see a revolution in how we make short journeys in towns like Naas. If you build it, they will come, and they’ll love every minute of it. I know we all do.
Dr Elaine McGoff is the head of advocacy with An Taisce.

Lovely to hear. I got a Bike43 from Rothar in June this year and use it for the school run in rural north Galway. My two boys are the envy of their school friends.
Surprisingly few incidents (and most of those have been when I’ve ventured near Galway city). One thing I do notice is despite the rhetoric in the media about farmers supposed anti green views tractors are by far the most conscientious to cyclists on rural roads.
This is brilliant!