One of the What can be intimidating about purchasing an electric cargo bike is how unknown it feels. Whether a bike is designed with strange geometry and wheel sizes or with strange features for heavy hauling, every ride can feel unfamiliar.
For traditional cyclists who want to bring home the equivalent amount of food of a trip to the supermarket but don’t want to mess with technology they’re unfamiliar with, the Trek Fetch+ 2 is a decent option. It’s more expensive than some of our favorite alternatives, but it has an easy-to-use step-by-step design, well-made components, and great plastic bins (and other accessories) for storage.
There are bikes with more advanced features for that price, but even after spending a summer riding the Fetch+ 2, it barely needed a tune-up. For a modern electric cargo bike with a classic cargo bike maintenance schedule, it might be worth spending a little more money.
On the road
The Fetch+ 2 is the smaller of Trek’s two latest electric cargo bikes, which includes the Fetch+ 4 with box front ($8,500)which is more geared towards taking dogs and kids between shopping and beer.
Instead, the Fetch+ 2 is a more traditional step-through cargo bike that employs a variety of accessories, most notably two plastic panniers that hang from an extended rack at the rear. You can get a padded seat cover for the back so your friends can strap on and ride, or mount a pair of child seats behind you, but I’d probably use this bike more for running errands than transporting little ones.
Photography: Walk
as a art object, the bike is simple and straightforward, which is ideal for such an expensive bike. The battery is integrated into the frame, but a sizeable bulge means no one will fail to notice that it’s an e-bike. You can get it in three colors. I liked the black on our review unit, but the bright blue would probably be my choice if I bought one.
While much of the bike will be familiar to anyone who has seen or looked at a cargo bike, Trek really gets the geometry and styling of this bike right to the point of making it very useful for many tasks. Even the double-sided stand raises and lowers with remarkable ease (surprisingly rare on other large e-bikes I’ve used). I especially enjoyed using the rear saddlebags to carry berries and other easily crushed items that tend to rattle in the softer saddlebags.
A lot of things fit in the saddlebags; I was able to get four full size grocery bags spread between the two black plastic bags. I like that they had little plugs in the bottom that you could use a plastic bag to cover and then fill with ice and drinks.
Walking
I spent a couple of months using the Fetch+ 2 as my primary bike and was much more impressed than anticipated, given the specs and price.
On paper, this is an expensive electric bike that has pretty standard mid-drive cargo bike specs. The Bosch 85Nm motor and 500wH battery are good for 20+ miles a day on a charge in any city, but they’re no better than models like the larger Xtracycle Stoker, which has the same torque and a 630wH battery. . for $4,999. The Trek also has no carbon belt drive or variable transmission, which we consider the best (and easiest to maintain) shifting mechanism for cargo bikes.