View Single Post
Old 07-14-04, 08:25 PM
  #8  
BikingWithKids
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 16
Mentioned: 0 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 0 Post(s)
Likes: 0
Liked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Thanks for visiting our site.

No matter what you choose, I don't think you can go wrong.

I'd say that the biggest reason for choosing the tandem over the trailerbike is the stability it offers over the trailerbike. As my son approached 60 pounds, the wobble factor was fairly large, in fact too large for my wife's comfort level. With the tandem, there is virtually no wobble factor with a child stoker. Another factor is that although the trailerbikes come with a relatively smooth tire, but if you need to replace it, most bike shops carry only knobby 20 or 24 inch tires, which increase drag quite a bit.

The only change from a single/trailerbike to a tandem in my experience is that the turning radius is larger. I didn't experience an loss of freedom at all. In fact I gained a bit of freedom when its just my son and I, because there is no setup time with the tandem as there was in attaching the trailerbike, we can just grab the bike and go. As far as distance goes, 20 miles with the trailerbike was a chore, but it is a breeze with the tandem. If you do get a trailerbike, make sure that you get one with gears, because even a 6 yewar old can help pedal, and the gear ratio in the single speeds is not small emough to help effectively when an extra set of legs could be most helpful.

I've seen tandem trailerbikes on eBay occasionally, one was even fitted with a baby seat in the stoker position. I don't know how wobbly they would be however, especially since the baby seat raises the center of gravity on the trailerbike considerably.

I would stay away from things like the Trailgator, which attaches a regular kids bike by the fork, making it effectively a trailerbike. I've heard that the wobble factor on those makes them almost unmanageable.

Good luck in your choice,

Mark Stoughton
BikingWithKids.NET

Originally Posted by andyuk
Thanks and good website. The chances are that our 3 yro will be cycling before big sister learnt to.
I reckon if we get a trailer bike for 6yro daughter, it can be handed down to sister when the time comes - perhaps sooner rather than later; and also for now, try and get hold of a child seat (second hand maybe) for our 3 yro - to go on my bike.

I may take some convincing to go down the tandem route. Is there an initial sense of loss of freedom? Perhaps two trailer bikes at some point if we all start going on longer cycles. Which leads to....how does one get it all on the car rack?

Andy
BikingWithKids is offline