Xtracycle, the maker of everyone’s favorite longtail cargo bike conversion kit, has now open sourced the specs for the Xtracycle in hopes of getting the bike industry to adopt it as a standard. If it happens, it’ll be great news; more cool parts & accessories for everyone.
I personally feel that Xtracycle is quite wise to do this. Even though the bike industry is, as a whole, notoriously nonstandard, Xtracycle is going the right way here. They’ve got a proven product, wildly popular spin-offs like the Big Dummy, and a burgeoning market for more widespread adoption of the bicycle as alternate transportation.
Hopefully other makers adopt the Longtail Standard and run with it; it’ll only be better for everyone if they do. Only time will tell…