My son's gotten too big for his Topeak kiddie seat. So no more hopping off the train one stop early with my 26" folder and strapping him to the back.

There is a bus, but it will only get us to my house with seconds to spare to meet my first grader, who apparently has a driver this year who drives like a bat out of hell, got to all his home-bound stops early on the first day and had to drive a bunch of kids back to school because their parents missed the stop. So I'm afraid to cut it close.

We have a Madsen bucket, and while I can do the 33 or 34 mile r/t on my old road bike solo, I can't ride an empty madsen 17 miles in and 17 miles back with the last 7 miles loaded. I average 18+ mph on the road bike, but between me and my wife, we've been making about 10 mph on the Madsen.

What's worse, my wife has added a day of daycare, so three of my five commuting days involves this child pick-up. I don't want to go down to only two commuting days a week!

I've been thinking on this for days, and have come up with some solutions:

1.) Xtra my folder and try to convince the conductor that it still counts as a "folding bike" (the only type allowed during commuting hours) and also hope it doesn't break in half.

2.) Ride the Madsen in 7 miles to daycare, hop on some locked-up beater 12 speed from CL, and ride to work and back on that.

3.) Switch the front racks from my utility bike to my folder and put all my gear up front to make a better balanced rig that will still feel pretty safe to ride on at least until the winter weather precludes commuting with the little guy.

None of these are that great an option. I had such a successful academic year worth of commuting last year. It put me in such great shape, and into such a good frame of mind. I'd hate to diminish that. Ideas?