Biquattro Open Here's the Biquattro in full-on cargo-carrying mode. It can carry up to 90 pounds in 5.3 cubic feet of cargo space. Photo credit: Biquattro

Gerry's Bike Trailer You don't need to chop up your bike to carry a load. A trailer can hitch onto the back of any bike and let you move house, carry a sound system on the next Critical Mass ride, or just bring the groceries back from the store. Here we see Gerry Lauzon's Mk3 bike trailer, built from lumber and old bike parts for a total cost of $34. If you're looking to use your car less, then a trailer is probably the most practical way to start. Photo credit: Gerry Lauzon/Flickr

Beer-Keg Bike By way of the Eco Velo comes Todd Consentino's Surly Long Haul Trucker. This conservative mod shows what can be done if you pay a little extra for good components. Surly's LHT is pretty indestructible as it is, but paired with the Tubus Cargo rack. it's tough enough to take a keg to a party, although that much weight that high up means you're going to have to skip drinking any beers if you want to get home safely. Unless you've emptied the keg, of course. Photo credit: Todd Consentino via Eco Velo

Tire-Carrier Bike Another image from China shot (and Photoshopped) by photographer Alain Delorme. Doesn't this guy get, uh, tired? Photo credit: Alain Delorme

You'd be surprised how much you can carry on a bike, and I don't just mean the site of a huge beer belly shaking over the front wheel of a Berlin commuter bike. Some bikes are made to carry a load, whether it's the famous Worksman of New York, or the bright-yellow machines ridden by German postal workers in Berlin (again). But the best cargo bikes are those that have been hacked to achieve a specific load-carrying task. And that's what you'll see in this gallery of great cargo-bike mods. Above: Bottle-Carrier Bike Photographer Alain Delorme loves crazy Chinese cyclists so much, he put together a whole project documenting the insanely overloaded cargo bikes in Shanghai. The images look to have had a certain amount of photoshopping applied, but if you have ever visited China, you'll know that these precarious precipices are close enough to reality to be just barely believable. Photo credit: Alain Delorme

Cargo Bike for Dogs Here's another one of Tom's Cargo Bikes. This dog-carrying machine from Bryan, of Sacramento, California, has a door in the side of the box to let his pooches in and out. Photo credit: Tom's Cargo Bikes

Biquattro Closed The Biquattro is an electric bike that turns into a trike. The pedal-assisted convertible is small enough to be easily parked outside the store. When you come back out with too many groceries, you simply pull the two rear wheels apart to form a load-carrying platform between them. The Biquattro is an entry in the James Dyson Awards. Photo credit: Biquattro

Box Bike With Its Box Stage 2 of Nick's bike was to add a box built from dumpster-dived plywood. It's not pretty, but it works. Photo credit: Nick Johnson/Flickr via DIY Bakfiets

Boxless Box Bike Far harder than just bolting a rack onto the bike is this bakfiets, or box-bike, from Nick Johnson. He doesn't have a car, and he didn't want to borrow one every time he needed to shift things from here to there. The answer was a Dutch-style cargo bike that follows the bakfiets design, putting the load in front of the rider, but behind the front wheel. This meant moving that wheel and, after some trial and error, Nick modded an old Schwinn into a bike that was tough and comfortable. Here you see the Stage 1. Photo credit: Nick Johnson/Flickr via DIY Bakfiets