Recreational & Family - Converting a jogging stroller into a bike trailer?

Has anyone seen of or heard of safe way to convert a 3-wheel jogging stroller into a bike trailer? We have an older InStep aluminum 3-wheel jogger in excellent shape. It's nicely made and folds up. It's also pretty light. We got it second hand from a neighbor. We don't use it very much as a stroller and wondered if we could convert it safely into a bike trailer. Various Google searches don't seem to provide an answer. There are a lot of conversion kits for making a bike trailer into a stroller, but not the other way around. :)

http://www.instep.net/productImagesBikes/149regular-1.jpg

I'm guessing we'd want a swivel wheel on the front. These joggers are partly made with bike parts it seems anyway. Doesn't seem this would be difficult to convert, but I want my daughter to be safe. We're not quite sure she's ready for a trail-a-bike yet. Guess the "safest" thing would be to just get a dedicated bike trailer. ;)

Not really trying to be a cheapskate here. More trying to re-use/re-cycle what we already have.

Don't do it.
The jogging stroller has way too high center of gravity to be safely used as a bicycle trailer.
I recommend craigslisting/consigning your jogging stroller and getting a used dedicated trailer.

sailor,
whose DW owns a stable of decent strollers

Ditto. The seat is up too high and the front wheel doesn't swivel. That's asking for trouble if you pull it from a bike.


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Don't do it.
The jogging stroller has way too high center of gravity to be safely used as a bicycle trailer.
I recommend craigslisting/consigning your jogging stroller and getting a used dedicated trailer.

sailor,
whose DW owns a stable of decent strollers

+1 on the CG.

Additionally, I imagine the cost in time, money and effort would far exceed what you could purchase. I think the end product would not be nearly as good as a dedicated trailer.

The nicer trailers do convert to strollers, but they too are not as nice as dedicated jogging strollers.

Thanks. I'll cross that off the list of bicycle-related projects. :)

I was going to say remove the front wheel and make a hitch in its place, but noticed what others said, the seat is much higher than a bike trailer and you can corner faster on a bike than jogging so it could tip easily.

The original Baby Jogger company once made a bike trailer kit that converted their single Baby Jogger 2 jogger into a bicycle trailer--I picked one up at a garage sale & converted my jogger into a trailer. It had a blue/pink canopy that fit over the seat and aluminum braces with a hitch that attached to the seatpost. Front wheel was removed and the rear wheelbase was widened with spacers. Actually worked quite well, but it was quite complex to put together and took up a lot of room in the garage--they were only made a few years.

I actually did just this, I had a different styled trailer for my son, he seemed to get way to restless riding in it to the point my wife and I could only get about 10 minutes riding in before my 16 month old son just wasnt having it. I also have a nice single seat Baby Jogger and seeing how he does just fine in a stroller I fitted the front bar section off of my older trailer to one of the arms of my Baby jogger, I actually threw it together on a whim with 3 hose clamps, I know, I know, ghetto rigged, but its only temporary, I intend this weekend to fab some actual brackets. My wife doesn't ride over 7 or 8 mph when she tows little man and for now though this actually works really well, we have about 12 miles on this setup. The rear wheelbase on this stroller is plenty wide and he loves to ride in it.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h213/drtracer/Picture2887.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h213/drtracer/Picture2885.jpg

I actually did just this, I had a different styled trailer for my son, he seemed to get way to restless riding in it to the point my wife and I could only get about 10 minutes riding in before my 16 month old son just wasnt having it. I also have a nice single seat Baby Jogger and seeing how he does just fine in a stroller I fitted the front bar section off of my older trailer to one of the arms of my Baby jogger, I actually threw it together on a whim with 3 hose clamps, I know, I know, ghetto rigged, but its only temporary, I intend this weekend to fab some actual brackets. My wife doesn't ride over 7 or 8 mph when she tows little man and for now though this actually works really well, we have about 12 miles on this setup. The rear wheelbase on this stroller is plenty wide and he loves to ride in it.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h213/drtracer/Picture2887.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h213/drtracer/Picture2885.jpg

That is a pretty nice way to do it on the cheap.

The issues I see with that setup are:

The center of gravity is pretty high with the strollers
No front protection options for the baby, i.e. any sort of flying object will not be stopped from going into the kids face
I can't tell how much play your attachment point has. I'd keep an eye on that because if it does break, I think they would end up potentially pole vaulting.


I've flipped both a Burley and my current trailer. In all cases unintentional but it can happen. You'll need to be extra careful with that setup.

The no protection one is not too big of an issue. A fender will take care of alot of debris. I frequently ride mine without any protection. I just slow down for the puddles and keep an eye out for debris. If you can get them to wear sunglasses reliably that will take away the majority of the potential problems.

The hose clamps don't allow for any adjustments differences in orientation between the trailer and the bike. It looks like your hitch can do some left to right, not sure about up down and rotational. I assume it can if it is from a bike trailer hitch. Most problems occur when you hit the limits of the articulation or from terrain/obstacles.

All you need now is a little extra storage on the trailer and you can do some small errands.

That is a pretty nice way to do it on the cheap.

The issues I see with that setup are:

The center of gravity is pretty high with the strollers
No front protection options for the baby, i.e. any sort of flying object will not be stopped from going into the kids face
I can't tell how much play your attachment point has. I'd keep an eye on that because if it does break, I think they would end up potentially pole vaulting.


I've flipped both a Burley and my current trailer. In all cases unintentional but it can happen. You'll need to be extra careful with that setup.

The no protection one is not too big of an issue. A fender will take care of alot of debris. I frequently ride mine without any protection. I just slow down for the puddles and keep an eye out for debris. If you can get them to wear sunglasses reliably that will take away the majority of the potential problems.

The hose clamps don't allow for any adjustments differences in orientation between the trailer and the bike. It looks like your hitch can do some left to right, not sure about up down and rotational. I assume it can if it is from a bike trailer hitch. Most problems occur when you hit the limits of the articulation or from terrain/obstacles.

All you need now is a little extra storage on the trailer and you can do some small errands.



About the flying debris, I forgot to mention that the right side tire of the jogger actually lines up perfectly with the rear wheel of the bike off setting him by around a foot or more, putting him off to the left rear of the biker, but now that you mention it, I will definately put a rear fender on the bike because he can still catch something at just the right angle of toss. The attachment at the bike frame has a large spring and is very flexible fortunately. Although she rides super slow and carefully with him, I may even devise a set of rear wheel spacers for the cart, as you can never be to carefull. I definately appreciate the constructive feedback as I will take it all into concideration, after all, I can't have anything happening to my little buddy.:thumb:

.... Although she rides super slow and carefully with him, I may even devise a set of rear wheel spacers for the cart, as you can never be to carefull. I definately appreciate the constructive feedback as I will take it all into concideration, after all, I can't have anything happening to my little buddy.:thumb:

And constructively is exactly how I meant it :thumb:.

I tried to word the debris part to indicate that the danger is not only from what your tire throws up but also what could be in the air not from your bike. Things like bugs, items thrown up by others (cars, bikes, passersby, etc.). It is extremely rare, in my experience, to have something from another vehicle hit you. I'm talking about rocks and sticks, etc. I've spent many hours in paceslines during and after rainstorms eating grit, I'm not counting that. The worst was a rock that someone in front kicked up. It was about half the size of a fist but given our speed, I think it gave me a small fracture on my shin. That thing hurt for a few months. So, if you are really worried, think about some form of cover, even if it is only netting. On a personal note, I don't have fenders and we ride about 80-90% of the time without the cover on. We only use it if it is wet, cold or we are on a busy road. Hopefully debris won't be a big issue for you. It has only been a problem once for me and that was the rock incident. The downside is that it only takes one to make your life miserable :).

The high CG looks like it will be your biggest worry. Spreading the wheel base can mitigate that. One thing to take into consideration there is do you need to go through any pylon type gates, the ones where they stick 4x4 posts in the ground to keep motorcycles and such off of trails. We have some where our trailer won't fit through.

Have you seen the taga or the zigo? Maybe you could look at the problem the other way around......... ;)
http://www.taga.nl/
http://myzigo.com/