E-bike businesses prove cargo trailers can replace vans for landscaping and repairs

On a Toronto street corner, Emil Glassbourg pulls up to a client's home with his e-bike and trailer loaded with twelve bags of mulch, potting soil, multiple rakes and shovels, a telescopic tree pruner, and an artificial tree covered in pink flowers. He doesn't need to worry about parking. He doesn't own a van or a pickup truck. And he never considered getting one, even as his landscaping business grew.

Glassbourg runs Fabulous Flora, a gardening and landscaping company that operates entirely on two wheels and electric power. He's one of a growing number of business owners discovering that the equipment and tools required to run a service business—whether landscaping, bike repair, or laundry delivery—can fit into a cargo trailer hitched to an e-bike. The economics are straightforward: no fuel costs, no insurance premiums tied to vehicles, no time lost sitting in traffic. The visibility is unexpected: potential clients flag him down at stop signs or approach him when his trailer sits parked outside a job site.

Matteo Zammit co-founded a bike repair co-operative that brings maintenance and repair services to people's homes and workplaces across the Greater Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo areas using e-cargo bikes and trailers. He started with a regular bicycle and a messenger bag, but the e-bike expanded his operational range, and trailers mean he restocks parts less frequently. The business model works because bike tools and parts are relatively compact. If his team drove cars, Zammit said, they would spend their days stuck in traffic, pay higher insurance and fuel costs, and ultimately charge clients more. The large trailer with its banner and flag also serves as mobile advertising.

Both Glassbourg and Zammit frame their choice as more than practical. Zammit sees it as "a beautiful example to show the city what you can do on a bicycle." Glassbourg aligns the approach with his philosophy of gardening itself: "Not being wasteful, respecting the ecosystem and building the ecosystem." The choice attracts clients who share those values. It's a form of business differentiation that a white van cannot replicate.

The infrastructure supporting these operations comes largely from Wike, a company based in Guelph, Ontario. The company's late founder, Bob Bell, designed trailers to make the outdoors accessible without a car—initially for carrying children, canoes, and kayaks. He then created a landscaping trailer priced at just over $1,000, complete with tool straps and a fold-down ramp for rolling equipment like lawnmowers. The trailer was conceived partly to help teenagers start affordable summer businesses. Madison Soegtrop, who runs Wike's operations, said the company has found it "really rewarding seeing all the people that have actually started businesses with it."

Glassbourg is among those entrepreneurs. Zammit built his custom trailer from a Wike do-it-yourself kit. Zammit notes that Wike's trailers, which work with any bike you already own, are "much more accessible" than off-the-shelf cargo e-bikes, which typically cost $6,000 or more. The landscaping trailer has become popular for groundskeeping at universities and city parks—the Toronto Botanical Gardens and the City of Montreal both own them. On the week Soegtrop was interviewed, the company had shipped one every single day across North America. A sister company distributes Wike trailers throughout Europe.

The company has also developed a lidded version of the landscaping trailer for other types of businesses. Street vendors and festival programmers use them. Several are deployed by a laundry pickup and delivery service in New York City. The range of applications suggests that the constraint isn't the technology or the economics—it's imagination about what work can be done without a motor. As these businesses expand and multiply, they're reshaping what urban service delivery looks like, one trailer at a time.