I live in Amsterdam with my wife since 2007, and I never owned a car here. We happily embraced the local bike culture, and when we became parents, the kids (we have two) started to be carried around in our bikes using Yepp bike seats.
Oh, don’t get me wrong: we do use public transportation and even car, occasionally: we subscribe to the Green Wheels shared car system. By occasionally I mean, like 500 km in a year, if that. For the daily life, a bike is extremely useful in Amsterdam.
But, with the kids growing and becoming too big for the Yepp bike seats, we began to feel the need of a way to ferry both of them by bike. Here, the Dutch invention called the bakfiets, a cargo bike, became an object of desire for us.
But which one to buy? There are quite a few options of brands and models, and it is usually an expensive item, so choosing the right one for you can be a daunting task.
We decided to go for one of the most expensive brands, the very modern and high tech Urban Arrow. Created in 2010, their e-bikes started to become more and more numerous in Dutch bike paths, despite the premium price. Branding themselves as an smart urban mobility option, the streamlined design of the Urban Arrow won prizes and recognition even outside the Netherlands. If bakfiets were cars, Urban Arrow would be a high-performance luxury model, all carbon and synthetic materials and on board computers, and the classical pedal-only powered wooden bakfiets would be your family car from the 70’s, with crank windows and old school carburetors.
Is the Urban Arrow worth the premium price? Is it a good match for your needs? I can’t decide for you, of course, but I can tell about my experience, from a first-person perspective. Maybe you can use this to compare with other models reviews and reach a conclusion of what’s right for you.
(And if that happens to be different of whats right for me, well, that’s okay. I’m glad if I can help one way or another).
Oh, and from now on I'll refer to the Urban Arrow as UA.
TL;DR version: the very short version Urban Arrow review
This ended up being a big review, so if you are in a hurry (or just feeling like lazy Sunday), here is the very short version:
Pros: safe, conformable, high quality materials and finishing, high tech features, excellent handling
Cons: hard to park, expensive, harder to handle if you have less than 160 cm
Verdict: an excellent alternative to a family car in Amsterdam, if you can afford it
Feeling like more an in-depth review? Let’s do this:
The Urban Arrow users (aka us): sharing the driving
First of all: we have our UA for a month, so take that into consideration. It is used both by me (176cm man) and my wife (155cm woman) to ferry around our 2 kids (7 and 3 yo).
It is very easy to adjust the saddle height, so there is no much problem in sharing the bike with another person with different height. Adjusting the handlebar height is more of a hassle, so we worked out a compromise. That said, it is very easy to adjust the UA to your taste, and we are both happy sharing it.
The Urban Arrow Models
As I understand, there are 3 models of the eletric UA Family: Active Plus, Performance and Performance CX. The difference is the electric Bosch Motor potency.
Bosch Active motor 50Nm with 400Wh
Bosch Performance Line motor 63 Nm with 400W
Bosch Performance Line CX motor 75 Nm with 500W
What does all that “Whs” and “Nm” and tech stuff mean, anyway? How do you choose your model? Let’s see…
Power Assistance and gears in the Urban Arrow cargo bike
Since we have 2 kids and the wind is the Dutch Mountain (and it is always, always, I mean, freaking ALWAYS against you), we decided to skip the basic Active Plus, and go for the middle one, the Performance. I read that you could climb a tree with the Performance CX. That would be overkill to us: the performance handles it more than enough for us, even with kids and groceries against the wind.
The motor does not push the bike all by itself tho. You have to pedal still, and the electric motor engages and start assisting you as soon as you start doing it (and desingages if you go over 25 km/h)
You can choose from 4 levels of motor assistance (eco, tour, sport, turbo). Most of the time I keep it on the lowest one, eco, which gives you 40% of power. But the other levels definitely help in starting the bike, bridge climbs, overtaking slower bikes and the wind.
The eco setting means also that your battery charge will last longer, and you can go several longish rides without recharging it . But even if you use more power, recharging the battery is easy and quick. Info about how much power you have left is on your on-board computer and also available pressing a button on the side of the battery.
Gears on the Urban Arrow
The motor is not your only help. The gears are also very nice, called the NuVinci continuous gear, with "infinity hub". Which this fine piece of marketese means is that there are no fixed set gears (like 1st, 2nd etc): you simply rotate the grip and the gears changes ratio to precisely match what you want. Once you get used to it, and it is very easy to do so, it is very nice. I use it all the time.
One warning tho: when the bike is stopped, you have a smaller ratio range, so if you can, try to remember to put it on the lowest ratio when you are stopping, so it will be selected when you have to start it.
Another nice feature of the electric assistance is the "walk" button, located at the left grip, where you select the power assistance level. When you are pushing the bike on foot, if you press the "walk" button, the motor gives you a small assistance (no more than 6 km/h, and it disengages as soon as you stop, hit the brakes or release it). This is very helpful, and wife has told me it made her life waaaaay easier, as UA is a heavy and bulky bike. Which brings me to the...
The Urban Arrow bike size and handling
All this assistance is very useful and all, but how practical is the UA to handle it on the bike lane? And how about parking?
On the bike lane, it definitely takes some space. It is a bike truck and imposes itself, especially in busy traffic: the others have to take it into consideration as they go (doesn't mean they do: it is Amsterdam, you know).
Even with the front part being long and taking mores space as you do a turn, is very easy to do curves after a little practice, and the bike is very stable. The mass distribution is good and the faster you go, the more stable it is.
(BTW: the electric assistance disengages at 25 km/h, so no racing pls, even tho the brakes are very, very good).
Once it stops, it helps to be at least 160 cm, or so my wife tells me. She cannot reach her feet to the ground while sitting on the saddle, even in the lowest setting, which makes more difficult to start the bike on red lights and such. However, she says to me that this does not stop her to enjoy riding the UA, and she’s getting pretty good in hoping on and off the saddle.
Since I do reach the ground, I find more or less easy to maneuver at lower speeds, as I can use my feet if necessary. And, again, all the electric assistance and gear box helps, like, a LOT. And once you need to park, there’s a grip just besides the saddle that is very useful in maneuvering and pushing the bike to park. Oh yeah, parking. Don’t get me started…
The Urban Arrow parking problem in Amsterdam
I mean, it is stable, the kick stands are awesome, the grip behind the saddle is very handy indeed but the problem is: where to PARK this thing? We still struggle with this. Amsterdam is not really made to park a car-bike like the UA.
Since bike racks are not an option for the UA, you can forget this utopic guideline "always chain it to a fixed object". Not gonna happen most of the time. If you're lucky, you can find a lamp post with no other bikes, and in a position where it wouldn't block the whole sidewalk, but this is not often. Many times, you’ll just leave it unattached.
Since the UA is very expensive, this can be nerve wracking. So, let's review the anti-theft features
Anti-theft features on the Urban Arrow
There are a few: the on-board computer (which is very nice btw) is removable, you have a back wheel circular lock and the battery pack is key locked (you can take it with you or leave it locked on the bike). Ours also have a sticker saying, "this bike is GPS tagged". We also bought a big fat ABUS chain lock (€100, more expensive than my other bike).
Yeah, good luck fooling the professionals. We insured the hell out of it the second we had the frame number. We considered it as integral part of the cost of owning an UA. Not an extra we have to pay, but part of the very cost. We figured that fear of theft shouldn't stop us from using it. I mean, what would be the point to spend a lot of money and then not enjoying it for fear of losing it? Then it's better not buy it at all. If it gets stolen, it is insured. If not, we are enjoying it.
Insurance review is beyond of this already big post, so I won't cover it (cover it? Get it?). Just say we used consumenten bond for recommendation (yes, we are subscribers).
Urban Arrow Kids Safety features
Speaking of safety, here are the kids’ safety features. You have a very nice seat belt, with a sturdy magnetic lock. It is at the same time easy to operate and safe. The bak, the cargo area, is made of the same material of bike helmets, which means that, as the UA marketing guy said, your kids are basically inside a giant bike helmet. They are also always inside your field of vision.
As I mentioned before, the kick stand is very, very stable and strong. Kids climb in and out of the bike without it moving a single millimeter. Once it is parked, it is parked.
And it can be very comfortable too, even in bad weather, if you have the rain cover, which is a must have accessory in the Netherlands. Oh yeah. The accessories.
The Urban Arrow Accessories
Accessories can add quite heavily to the (already high) price of the bike. But they are worth it. Besides the lock and the rain cover, we bought the cargo cover (still haven’t received it), the back rack and the carbon chain. This last one means that we don’t need to grease and maintain the chain. But the main reason that sold this upgrade to us is the claim that it lasts like 4 times a normal chain, which makes it very worth it on the long run. TBD. It is also very quiet.
The rain cover is more or less easy to mount. I still need to practice to do it quickly enough, with kids complaining about the cold and wet. And, oh yeah: God forbid a bee enters the cover. It happened once, and I had a thermo-nuclear explosion level of kid screams in the middle of an intersection. On my very first day using the UA, as I was getting used to it. Oh, the fun.
(I stopped the bike as soon it was safe to do it, undid the rain cover and the bee went its merry way, and I was left with two wet shivering terrified kids #fml ).
The Price (and verdict)
There is no getting around it. UA is expensive. The base model starts at €4350, and model upgrade, accessories, chain and insurance all can easily bring it upwards the €5300 mark. And I’m not even mentioning maintenance costs.
Holy crap, this is car price range already. Or is it? I Don’t know, I do not own a car. And that is the point. UA claims in its sales page to be an alternative to a family car, and I agree. We think it is more convenient than owning a normal car, and cheaper in the long run (not to mention greener). Parking problems for parking problems, parking a car is not easy too.
And once you have an UA you immediately see where your money went. It is very high tech, high quality finish and materials, full of small conveniences and smart features to make your life easier, or to help assuage the cons you might have with such a big bike.
One month and a half of use on, our life is so much easier than not having a family bike (or a car) to move around the city with kids. If you can afford it, I think it is a better alternative than a city car, and I do recommend the UA.
Where to buy the Urban Arrow
There are several dealers in the Netherlands, Belgium, Uk and Germany, and I believe most of them would allow for a test ride. You can use Urban Arrow website to search for one. We got ours at Dr. Beyke Online in Amsterdam.
You can learn more about Urban Arrow also on their YouTube channel, which contains several very useful videos.