I hooked up the Burley and commuted for the first time with my 3-year-old son this morning. He was so excited to be riding in with dad he cut short his cartoon time this morning to leave with me. He wore his "biking gloves" into day care. What a great feeling.

Can't wait to pick up the little guy tonight.

Cool.
I pick my son up usually once a week. On those days he talks about it at day care all day long. He is 3 as well.

..at least that is what the day care folks tell me. He does act very excited.

I have 3-year old twins and occasionally I'm able to trailer them to daycare as part of my commute. One of my goals this spring and summer is to make it more frequent. It's the best commute ever.

What do you guys do with the trailer for the rest of the commute?

I've thought about doing the same thing, but don't really want to deal with commuting the rest of the way to work with a trailer and figuring out how to secure/store it.

Good question -- I'm lucky that I can bring my bike inside my office. I did have to wrestle with it quite a bit to get it on the elevator, but after doing it a few times, I'll have it down to a science. I don't need my rack/panniers with it -- I just throw everything in the back of that, which is kinda nice. I should add, my son's day care is only 4 blocks from where I work.

My wife drops the kid off at school with the trailer using her car.
The day care stores the trailer folded up in a closet.

I'm lucky that I'm able to keep it in a locked cage with plenty of room. I lock the bike to the rack and rely on the low likelihood that a thief is going to be familiar enough with the Chariot hitch to steal the trailer.

At our daycare they've been letting me leave the flattened trailer in the staff lounge.

edit-> I am continuing to totally dig commuting to school w/ my 5 yr old, we've been doing this since September although I was scheduled out of it for the winter quarter. He is getting much better at controlling the bike, but still not quite comfy w/o the training wheels, though he has gotten some good weekend runs in on only 2 wheels. One last schedule change, and when my wife starts bike commuting, she will take over riding w/ the 5 yr old and I will switch over to taking the 2 yr old in her trailer to her daycare.

I drop my 9yr old off at school on my way to work. he rides a 24" cruiser. We have our best talks on this ride!

I was at the library the other day and a dad with his 4-5 ish year old son showed up. They had one of those things (what do they call them?) that attach to the seat post, has handlebars and allows the child to help pedal. One could see that the little tyke was SO PROUD to be riding with dad!

trail-a-bike

do you guys feel safe with them on the back..?

what roads d you ride on

I'm way more cautious when I'm have my 3-year-old in the Burley. My 6-mile commute is 90% MUP so it's pretty safe. I ride on the sidewalk on the one stretch of four lane traffic -- no way I'm risking my son on a busy street. When I cross a busy intersection, I walk the bike across and get eye contact with the driver before proceeding. In my brief experience of riding with him, I've found that drivers are way more courteous when they see the Burley. When I ride solo, I'm on the street for sure.

Sounds like there are a lot of dad's out there spending quality time with their kids on the bike -- I applaud ALL OF YOU!

I am 10% MUP, 85% slow residential streets, and 5% a high traffic 6 lane street. I take to the sidewalk on the latter street . I'm going so dang slow that riding on the sidewalk makes sense. Plus, my wife would kill me if I rode in the street on the 6 lane road hauling the kid. Marriage is about compromise. That and risking a 3 year olds life is not amusing for me. Heck, this same road is risky for me traveling at 20-30mph on a bike.

Also called a ride-behind (or here: efterløber -- 'afterrunner' ). Burley makes one that attaches to a rack (included), that, from my understanding, gives a much better connection than most (I used a Trek once -- it was awful). Actually, Burley has discontinued this line , I think, so get one while you can (but like all Burley products, get ready to open the wallet a bit...)

Wait, was this a trailer, or a trail-a-bike? Either way, it pretty cool, huh? My wife takes the our older daughter (five) to school in a trailer, because she doesn't like the difficulty with balancing the ride-behind. On days when I take her in, she gets much more excited about the ride-behind. She wears her gloves and tucks her lunch on her own rack (so _she's_ the one who has to carry it ).

Anyway, if you used a trailer, just _wait_ until you get a ride-behind.

I've got the Burley trailer. I've seen those trail-a-bikes. Maybe that will be the next investment It'll be great once he learns to actually ride solo.