First tour with a toddler
 

Well, I caught something nasty last week and sat around the house not wanting to move or do anything, so what better time to update my crazyguyonabike journal?

We skipped a couple of summers, but I wanted to go on tour again in 2012, but this time we had a 2 year old. I did some reading of others' journals for tips, but there weren't that many, and toddler doesn't bring up much here either. The whole journal is here at crazyguy, so I won't bother regurgitating.

Going in, I knew I wanted easier terrain, no harsh weather exposures and shorter distances with access to playgrounds and other services, so nothing too remote. I had been wanting to do northern Michigan for a while, but as part of a little larger ride, so I had quite a bit of it somewhat thought out before. About ten days before the trip though, I ended up with a staph infection on my knee that ended up getting me hospitalized before the trip. A week before we left and it hurt to put weight on my leg, much less bike. So we shortened the trip and cut out the camping, which really made it easy to take a two year old along. In short, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be, and it was genuinely fun having her along, even if it was a bit more work and cut down on some options. Now I just have to spend the next couple of years getting her to power her own weight! :)

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Very nice!

Without ever having used one, I recommend a WeeHoo trailer. A great combination between a trail-a-bike and a trailer like you have (except it doesn't have a cover).

And I can tell you that there is a big difference between going up hills pulling a trailer and a trail-a-bike with the kid pedaling.

Cheers,
Charles

Great write-up! Thanks for sharing. We did our first tour with our son when he was about the same age, using our Burley Solo. We only did three days though. Getting them started young in the trailer and being careful to mix in breaks, playgrounds and other fun stuff allowed us to do lots of rides, even longer ones, with him being content - even happy - in the trailer. Now eight years old, he graduated a few years back to the middle seat on our Santana triplet bike. We just did our first multi-day tour with him stoking this summer, spending a week or so touring in Austria.

Keep it up!

Very nice. My wife and I really enjoyed M-119 when we rode it.