Robnz

I know it isn't prefered by many of you, but we love our Trail-gator. it is perfect for allowing independence as well as hooking them up again when the going gets tough. OUrs doesn't lean very much either. We use it on trails mostly.

Murrays

Well, it’s a few months later, how’s your outlook now?

My situation: My wife and I are very avid cyclists. We have a daughter who will be four in a month and has grown tired of the Burley trailer.

We ordered a Co-Motion tandem which should arrive in about a month My plan is to use the trailer the rest of this year and buy a trail-a-bike for next year. OTOH, if my wife and I don’t get along on the tandem, I could go straight to the kid stoker kit.

A question for the group, what speeds do you feel comfortable with using a trail-a-bike? I’m concerned that the speed on the tandem will be greater than 20 mph on flats and 35 mph on down hills.

Does the Burley Piccolo work with a standard rack or does it require a rack from Burley? I would like to have the option of using the trail-a-bike on other bikes without changing the rack.

Finally, a comment on cost - the Piccolo might be more expensive up front, but they are selling for $275-300 on eBay so the end cost really isn’t that much more than other models.

-murray

Toothpick

RE: Speed; My son is 4 and the only time he doesn't particularly like it is on descents where I allow the speed to get to between 25 and 30. I don't really like to go that fast on the trail-a-bike setup anyway due to the safety factor. Your daughter may be different, but although he can ride his bike without training wheels and has had "some" time to get use to the trail-a-bike, he still gives a fair amount of side-to-side "wobble" when he's giving good pedal effort. There's also the attention span issue when he decides to look behind, which can also cause the bike to sway some. Usually at the top of hills I ask him to stay still and not "wobble" on the way down. Hope this helps.

hubs

RCSMAJ -- w/ 85# slightly off balance in back be sure you have the upper body strength (and maybe lower back) to handle it. I ride a tandem with my 80# almost 7 year old who is a good biker on her own bike ... but early on I had some lower back pain from balancing. I have since tweeked my set-up and worked up to the experience, but it is more of a workout than I expected. I'm a 42 yr old, 150# ... swimmer and recreational cyclist (I might do a couple hours, 20 miles on my hybrid as a big ride) ... so while I'm generally fit, I'm not a major jock either. Just to give the perspective! Good Luck. BTW, we have a Raleigh Companion and enjoy it very much. It does not cruise the asphalt like a dream, but it's a great starter tandem and handles a cut through the park grass fine in addition to the road. Also the stoker size is relatively small which we needed.

Again, good luck and happy cycling.

P.S. Can your son use a scooter? I saw someone who was having trouble with their kid balancing and the kid couldn't do a scooter. They worked on the scooter ... a regular razor type, roller blade wheels and handle. up and down the block. Once the kid had the scooter balance, the bike came right along.

Michel Gagnon

I have gone over the growing pains. I have ridden the tandem 1000 km so far, including about 500-600 km with the trailercycle too. Once I had fine-tuned my position correctly, I find the bike almost as stable with the trailercycle as without. I am now ready to tour with it... both kids and 6 panniers.


Almost as comfortable as with the single bike or the tandem by itself. Once I have dealt with the basic handling issues (i.e. 1-2 long rides), the limiting factors are:
- Stability/solidity of the child: No problem riding at 60-70 km/h with my then 7-year-old child who had ridden it for 3 years (3000 km per year), but I wouldn't do it with my 4-year-old child who is riding on it for her first summer.
- Smoothness of the ride: Bumps and potholes are sometimes hard. It's easy to see the rear end jump too high in the air. IOW, don't ride too fast if there are nasty potholes.
- Emergency stops ahead? I have ridden at 60-70 km/h a few times with the oldest child, but the road was smooth, there were no driveways, and I could watch for deers (or lack thereof) far enough.


It definitely needs its own rack. You can buy more extra racks; I think they are sold at $60-70 U.S., and their stability compares to that of a Tubus Cargo rack AFAIK. IOW, great touring rack.

BikingWithKids

You don't mention how old your son is, but by the fact that he is whizzing around on his own bike makes me guess that he is 5 or 6. If that is the case, you might want to think about getting a trailerbike with a 24" wheel, instead of the 20" that most trailerbikes come with. That way he won't outgrow the trailerbike until he is about 8 or 9.

I would also definitely recommend a model with gears, as the single speeds are not geared for the kid to help effectively on hills. Believe it or not, a child as young as seven can really be a help pedalling, given the proper gearing. My son's only complaint about the trailerbike was that he could not help out as much as he liked on starts and hills, because the pedals couldn't go around fast enough. We tested and they were in the range of the 6th or 7th gear. I ended up building a wheel around an old 3-speed hub just to get him the gearing that he wanted.

Our trailerbike is a Trek Mountain Train 241, but I'd get the next model up which has 6 or 7 speeds.

Mark Stoughton
BikingWithKids.NET

spinbackle

Just got our Adams Trail A Bike today and put 17 miles on it. I have a 4.5 year old boy and he was game for going that distance (we previously went 10 miles on a beater trail a bike). We made frequent stops every 6-7 miles or so. He has his own Camelbak (Skeeter) and we take plenty of snacks for both of us. He told me several times that this was his "best day ever." We got the Starter model and it actually has a larger chainring and smaller freewheel than the beater = a smoother pedal stroke in the back! I adjusted the rear hub and the bottom bracket (both too tight, but I'm anal). We have slicks all around and the ride was sweet (I'm pulling with a mountain bike). Thanks to all the contributors in this thread.

Istanbul_Tea

Just to chime in here on this interesting thread...

we have used a trailer (Bell) and our daughter got tired of it very quickly so we went cheap and bought an InStep tag-a-long (I believe from Target)... she loved it but due to its attaching mount (on the adults seatpost) it had a lot of sway as our daughter would shift around looking at the sights.

We then went up a notch to the Adam's and while better we found it still wasn't rock solid.

Finally we bite the bullet and bought the Burley Piccolo... amazing difference.

It's rock solid, stable when she decides to move around... the rack mount is beefy and doesn't move (as in feel wobbly).

We are so impressed that it's what we will be using on our multi year tour. We are having a framebuilder do some slight alterations to it... adding 3 bottle cage mounts, a custom front and rear rack as well as build up a custom rear wheel that's beefier.

In the end... you get what you pay for.... buy the Piccolo, pay the xtra $$ and when it comes time to re-sell it you'll get your money back for the most part.

Red2000SS

LOL, I have a 5 year old daughter who rides a Trek Mountain Train trailer bike behind me. She has ridden several rallies with me. I think our top speed we reached was 32mph going downhill. She thought is was cool - "Faster daddy..." I have to laugh about the wobbling around part. Her balance is not great - she has her own bike but cannot ride it without training wheels. Sometimes it feels like I have someone on the back just trying to make me wreck! Fortunately I outweigh her by about 180lbs... On the last rally we did, at one point she decided that all the cracks in the pavement that were patched with tar were in fact LASERS!!! to be avoided at all costs, she would heave violently side to side in an effort to avoid being struck by the LASERS! I talked her into calming down, but the thought did cross my mind as we were descending @ ~32 mph that "I hope she doesn't see any LASERS!!!!" LOL...

I think the trailer bikes are great, we have had a lot of fun.

amoreena

Interesting to find this thread and read the information here. We're totally new to the trailer-bike realm. Just bought a used Kent Co-Pilot this weekend and have been enjoying it. I realize that's not a top-notch brand/model, but I think it's going to work for us for a while. We shall see. I never dreamed until reading this thread that a trailer-bike could mount in any way other than to the seat post! I'd welcome whatever comments or experience anyone wants to share related to Kent Co-Pilot trailer-bikes.

BikingWithKids

I've found the Trek Montain Train's stability to be directly related to how tightly the quick release is set. The tighter the better. The mount is designed to allow horizontal and vertical pivoting of the trailerbike, for terrain changed and turns, but the twisting motion allowed is minimal if the bike is attached tightly. If the quick release is set too loosely, twisting can and does occur.

Mark Stoughton
BikingWithKids.NET

BikingWithKids

I too bought the starter trailer bike, and found that the gear ratio was too large for effective stoker pedalling. I ended up building a wheel with a three speed hub. I've posted two articles on my solution (with pictures) on my web site at Tale of a Trailer Bike and The Making of a Trailer Bike

Mark Stoughton
BikingWithKids.NET

crucible

We've been using a trail-a-bike for our 4 year old daughter for the past four months.

We use it around 4-5 times a week for inner-city errands, going to the park, and biking around the bike trails here in Vancouver.

She loves it and has a great time on it. My wife and I each have a trail-a-bike mount on our seatpost so that we can transfer the unit back and forth. My wife's bike is a commuter hybrid and mine's a road bike.

My daughter insisted on getting her own horn, which she uses to great effect at all of the intersections. She has a small hydration pack on her back to let her drink whenever she wants to, and the trail-a bike has an LED backlight so that we can be seen at night.

It's the best biking investment that our family has made this year.


George