This week’s Reader’s Rig comes from Nathaniel in Iowa, who shares the well-loved Yuba Mundo V4 cargo bike he’s been using to haul passengers, groceries, furniture, and more for 13 years and counting. Read Nathaniel’s story and find details on his Yuba here…

Words and photos by Nathaniel Adkins

Hello there! I’m Nathaniel. I’m what you could call a Cosmopolitan Iowan—over the course of 44 years, I’ve lived in all five of Iowa’s area codes, plus a year in southwest Wisconsin. These days, I serve as a Lutheran pastor in a small city about an hour west of the Mississippi River. Around town, I try to ride my bike instead of driving my car as much as possible.

Yuba Mundo V4

Whenever I can, I get out to ride trails and gravel roads. Once a year or so, my family and I attempt some form of bikepacking—even if we just ride somewhere and bring back firewood to burn during a backyard camp-out. Every few years, I try to ride at least a few days of RAGBRAI, [The Des Moines] Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa.

  • Yuba Mundo V4
  • Yuba Mundo V4

The Orange Lazarus, a name suggested by my spouse after a hedonistic slush flavor from an old episode of The Adventures of Pete & Pete, is a 2012 Yuba Mundo V4 longtail cargo bike. It came to live with our family when we bought it new from Olympia Cycles (RIP) in Omaha in 2013. At the time, our daughter was one year old; it was the very first bike she ever rode. Over the years, we added another child to our family, and the Orange Lazarus received a series of upgrades: disc brakes, a front cargo basket, a custom-welded seatpost tube (pirated off of an old Pacific Scorpio MTB) to pull a trailer bike, and a home-installed Bafang BBS02 mid-drive motor.

  • Yuba Mundo V4
  • Yuba Mundo V4
  • Yuba Mundo V4
  • Yuba Mundo V4
  • Yuba Mundo V4

In addition to many passengers (including an entire Confirmation class, one kid at a time), this bike has hauled boxes, furniture, groceries, hardware, strollers, lawn waste, luggage, stage props, and multiple bicycles. I rode The Orange Lazarus over 200 miles across Western and Central Iowa during RAGBRAI LVI in 2013. When the weather cooperates, it carries/escorts my children to school and home again almost every day; it carries me on my daily errands and gets me to my pastoral care visits.

  • Frame/Fork: 2012 Yuba Mundo V4 with integrated rear rack, orange
  • Rims: Double wall, 36H (front) / 48H (wheel)
  • Hubs: Modus BMX (still spinning smoothly after 13 years!)
  • Tires: Serfas Drifter 26 x 2.0”
  • Handlebars: King HB-T310 (front) / Yuba Hold-On (rear)
  • Headset: 1 1/8” Steel, threaded
  • Crankset: Bafang 175mm
  • Chainring: Lekkie Bling Ring, 42T
  • Pedals: Black Ops Nylo-Pro II Platform Pedals, Blue, 9/16″
  • Cassette: Shimano Tourney TZ-500 7-speed Freewheel Hyperglide 14-34T MegaRange
  • Derailleur(s): SRAM X3 7-speed
  • Brakes: Tektro Aries 160mm
  • Shifter(s): SRAM Trigger X3.0
  • Front rack: Yuba Bread Basket
  • Rear bags: Yuba Go-Getter
  • Trailer: Mongoose Pro AC-200 (garage sale find many years ago)
  • Other accessories: Bafang BBS02 mid-drive motor; 48 volt 750 watt battery;

When I sit down with my parishioners at home, many of them start our conversation with, “So, did you ride your bike?” It’s neither fast nor light (it weighed around 60 pounds before I added the motor and battery), nor is it agile or sexy: it is the consummate Dad Bike. I have other bikes in my fleet—my venerable Raleigh Technium MTB, a Gravity fat bike, an old Trek tandem—but if I had to pare it down to a single two-wheeler, the Orange Lazarus would unarguably make the cut.

Yuba Mundo V4
  • Yuba Mundo V4
  • Yuba Mundo V4
  • Yuba Mundo V4

Before her baby brother was born, I asked my then-three-year-old, “Should we make a painting to put in the baby’s room?” She replied, “Yes. A robot riding the orange bike past a cornfield.” The Orange Lazarus was the first bike my son ever rode, too.

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