# Ride Bikes. Bring Kids!



## fbagatelleblack (Mar 31, 2005)

Hi All,

Cycloculture features product reviews of child carrying devices (one trailer and one child seat).

http://cycloculture.blogspot.com/2008/08/product-reviews-offspring-haulers.html

Enjoy!

- FBB


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## MB1 (Jan 27, 2004)

I hope you aren't carrying a kid in the basket!

BTW Kids on bikes are my favorite part of riding.


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## lx93 (Jun 14, 2007)

MB1 said:


> I hope you aren't carrying a kid in the basket!


Around my neighborhood, they carry each other on handlebars or on their backs. I feel sorry for the ones who wind up learning thru mistakes...

Great to see parents passing on a love for cycling to their kids the safe way like the OP is doing.


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## fbagatelleblack (Mar 31, 2005)

MB1 said:


> I hope you aren't carrying a kid in the basket!


Naw, I am waiting until I get my big Wald front basket for that.

- FBB


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## Leopold Porkstacker (Jul 15, 2005)

My wife and I are borrowing an older used Burley D'Lite two-child trailer. The past couple mornings I’ve ridden them to daycare (which is a decent 3.3 mile roundtrip warmup ride before I ride to work) and every day this week so far my wife has picked them up from daycare with the trailer. The problem is that I need to get myself an $80 or so Craiglist bike that’s not a carbon fiber frame solely for transporting them, since my wife’s tiny 15.5" frame (cheapo Performance mountain bike) is too small for me to ride comfortably.


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## fbagatelleblack (Mar 31, 2005)

Leopold Porkstacker said:


> The problem is that I need to get myself an $80 or so Craiglist bike that’s not a carbon fiber frame solely for transporting them, since my wife’s tiny 15.5" frame (cheapo Performance mountain bike) is too small for me to ride comfortably.


You probably already know enough about craigslist to find a good bike, but (just in case) here is an article I wrote on buying bikes on craigslist.

http://cycloculture.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-to-buy-bicycle-on-craigslistorg.html

Prices for old steel road bikes have gone through the roof lately, but you can still get some screaming deals, especially on old steel hard-tail mountain bikes, which you can retrofit into what are arguably the best possible commuters.

- FBB


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## Chain (Dec 28, 2006)

Leopold Porkstacker said:


> My wife and I are borrowing an older used Burley D'Lite two-child trailer. The past couple mornings I’ve ridden them to daycare (which is a decent 3.3 mile roundtrip warmup ride before I ride to work) and every day this week so far my wife has picked them up from daycare with the trailer. The problem is that I need to get myself an $80 or so Craiglist bike that’s not a carbon fiber frame solely for transporting them, since my wife’s tiny 15.5" frame (cheapo Performance mountain bike) is too small for me to ride comfortably.


My and I did the burly for a few years. Wife would buggy her up to daycare and lock the buggy to the bike rack and then go onto work. I would get home and cruise up on my cruiser and bring her home. It was only a half a mile, but still worth it. When my daughter turned 4 she started riding her own bike. That made things much easier. Now when I pick her up we will often go for a longer ride on the way home just to get out and ride.:thumbsup:


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## buck-50 (Sep 20, 2005)

fbagatelleblack said:


> Naw, I am waiting until I get my big Wald front basket for that.
> 
> - FBB


Want mine? 

Not to threadjack, but the big Wald paperboy basket is a major disappointment. It's gotta weigh 10 pounds. It doesn't hold more than my panniers, and it carries the load high. 

It also mounts to the axel, which makes tire changes a total pain in the @$$. 

Save yer pennies, m'boy.


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## Sledgehammer03 (Mar 7, 2006)

Leopold Porkstacker said:


> My wife and I are borrowing an older used Burley D'Lite two-child trailer. The past couple mornings I’ve ridden them to daycare (which is a decent 3.3 mile roundtrip warmup ride before I ride to work) and every day this week so far my wife has picked them up from daycare with the trailer. The problem is that I need to get myself an $80 or so Craiglist bike that’s not a carbon fiber frame solely for transporting them, since my wife’s tiny 15.5" frame (cheapo Performance mountain bike) is too small for me to ride comfortably.


You just need a couple Alternative hitches, available at rei http://www.rei.com/product/671711

Work great with any bike, and mucho easy :thumbsup:


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## Leopold Porkstacker (Jul 15, 2005)

Sledgehammer03 said:


> You just need a couple Alternative hitches, available at rei http://www.rei.com/product/671711
> 
> Work great with any bike, and mucho easy :thumbsup:


So, you would recommend using it with my 2008 Ridley Damocles then?   My first guess would be that that would be a lot of extra strain on the rear triangle.


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## ispoke (Feb 28, 2005)

Hi Forbes. Thanks for continuing to put out informative cycling discussions. A question about the Topeak rear seat - have you been satisfied with the handling while having your kid's weight that high?

I've been considering a rear seat as our little one approaches 1 yr old. In these forums the subject has come up a number of times and it's usually overwhelmed by a chorus of trailer proponents who ridicule rear seats. But since rear seats are used around the world, and I haven't had any problems crashing or dropping bikes loaded with camping panniers, I can't imagine the seat would be so bad for the little one...


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## rmp (Aug 25, 2004)

ispoke said:


> Hi Forbes. Thanks for continuing to put out informative cycling discussions. A question about the Topeak rear seat - have you been satisfied with the handling while having your kid's weight that high?


This is old, but I just picked up one of the Topeak rear seats and we (my 3yr old daughter and I) have been using it for about a month now. We just did our first daycare/daddy commute with it this morning.

We also have a Chariot Cougar 1 trailer - it's definitely easier to ride with the child seat on the back vs pulling the trailer, although the bike is certainly less stable (out of the saddle pedaling is tough). My daughter has fun though because we can actually have conversations while riding - hard to do when she is back in the trailer. My main bike now is a specialized Singlecross cx bike. I've swapped the stock 42x18 gears to 40x20 and it works pretty good all around. I can get up the hills we encounter while seated and still have a decent speed on the flats after I've dropped her off at school and taken the seat off. 

Getting her up there and strapped in is the hardest part. Have to lean the bike against something, and her helmet has to go on after the shoulder straps are done.

Of course now I need more storage on the bike than my backpack allows (for all of her school stuff, my clothes and our lunches) so I either need to find some panniers that fit alongside her seat, or get a front rack and bag or panniers. 

She'll be ready for a trail-a-bike pretty soon I bet, so that will be fun too. She's really tall for her age (over 41 inches @ 3yrs old): she no longer fits in the trailer with her helmet on, and she is almost too tall for the shoulder straps on the Topeak seat.

rmp


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## ispoke (Feb 28, 2005)

Thanks for refreshing the post rmp. I look forward to using our Topeak seat when the little one is perhaps 2 or 2-1/2. Until then she's too small (and uncooperative), since the helmet has to be fairly high to fit into its cutout in the seat.

I suspect the double-kickstand we bought will make it a tad easier loading a kid in the seat, but of course it will still be a handful since dropping the bike is a must-not!

Until then we're happy using the Chariot. Looking forward to trying the ski attachment next winter...


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## eeblack (Dec 16, 2007)

Another option for biking with your (smaller) kids is the iBert Safe-T Front Mounted seat. It provides a much better view for my 2-year old than of my behind, and I know just when she's fallen asleep. She also likes to hold the handlebars and pretend she's driving.

http://www.amazon.com/iBert-Safe-T-...e=UTF8&s=sporting-goods&qid=1244653596&sr=8-3

A link to user photos of the product:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-media/product-gallery/B000H4E7EO/ref=cm_ciu_pdp_images_all


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## seeborough (Feb 3, 2004)

eeblack said:


> Another option for biking with your (smaller) kids is the iBert Safe-T Front Mounted seat. It provides a much better view for my 2-year old than of my behind, and I know just when she's fallen asleep. She also likes to hold the handlebars and pretend she's driving.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/iBert-Safe-T-...e=UTF8&s=sporting-goods&qid=1244653596&sr=8-3
> 
> ...


Very cool. I have been looking for something like that - thanks.


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## seeborough (Feb 3, 2004)

Not being a fan of trailers, I have used that Toepeak seat in the OP's picture for three years with great success. Excellent product.


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## bestroman (Aug 21, 2009)

seeborough said:


> Very cool. I have been looking for something like that - thanks.


If you're looking for reviews, tips, installation instruction of iBert Child Bike Seat.
You can visit my blog: iBert Child Bike Seat Reviews>>


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## Leopold Porkstacker (Jul 15, 2005)

Don’t buy the Performance/Nashbar (same crap, different logos) trailiers. There is soooo much lateral play in the wheels that the wheel-to-road geometry changes while cornering, in a very dangerous way which could, even at low speeds, induce a rollover. We bought the Performance “Childs PBS Rumble Seat” (item # 20-2013), and it didn’t last two hours in our possession before I decided to return it to Performance. Seriously, the build quality is really cheap, too. I was putting it together in the garage, and once I was done building it was when I noticed the amount of unwanted cornering-induced camber angle change (in the neighbourhood of +/-5°). I brought it back to the Performance store and told them that I simply didn’t feel safe with my kids in something of such questionable build quality and design. They refunded our money.

So, then we shot the wad, and bought the Burley Delite ST… save your lunch money, kids, it’s almost three times the price of the crappy Performance trailer. But, the build quality really is top-notch, although not as top-notch as our 1998 (or was it 1999) model we had been borrowing from some friends. They used to be made in the USA, but now they’re made in China, and built in the USA. But, the build quality is exponentially higher than the Performance one.


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## seeborough (Feb 3, 2004)

bestroman said:


> If you're looking for reviews, tips, installation instruction of iBert Child Bike Seat.
> You can visit my blog: iBert Child Bike Seat Reviews>>


Thanks. Quite useful.


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## undies (Oct 13, 2005)

MB1 said:


> BTW Kids on bikes are my favorite part of riding.


I still have vivid memories of riding in a child seat on the backs of my parent's bikes in the early 1970s. Later they hauled me in a homemade plywood trailer. I cherish these memories every time I ride today!


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