Kid carrying devices

With the caveat that my wife does all of the towing, the trailer’s been great for us. She does the bulk of the towing because she uses her bike and the trailer to get around town, but also because trailer manufacturers strongly suggest/require a steel frame. My only steel frame is a fixed gear, and that idea was a non-starter.

We started with our son Axel at, I want to say, 9 months. Much before that and I doubt we could’ve found a helmet that fit or that he could’ve kept his head upright in. As was we had to prop him up with a bolster pillow. Otherwise when he fell asleep he’d list to one side and his head would lean in to the sidewall of the trailer, bulging a bit toward the wheel in a way that seemed not good.

Axel tops out at about 20 miles. In addition to ride’s around town, we did a ride from Vancouver, B.C. to Astoria, Oregon. Timing longer rides around naps will help. Having a favorite book or toy stashed next to your little one will help. When the stars aligned we could go for about 4 hours before he’d start to let us hear about it.

We did try other seating solutions. They tended to require an upright bike or handlebar set-up, which neither my wife or I have. I know this all probably sounds absurd or barbaric to some folks, but Axel seems to dig being around us and our bikes. Good luck with your decision.

We had a Burley and it is probably the nicest trailer out there.

Pack up the kid, the babbas (bottles), toys, book, pillow, blanky, etc and you’re good to go!!!

A Topeak child seat like this and a single and a double burley trailer. (No, I am not the octomom). The child seat has pretty good retention so your squirmy kid is not going anywhere. But when she falls asleep (and I do mean “when”, not "if") the child seat is not ideal because her head will be flopping around and people will stare at you like you are a child abuser. Trust me on that… The Burley is excellent in pretty much every way. We got the double thinking we could put two kids in it and ditch the child seat, but that has not proven to be possible, at least in our experience. My kids tend to be a little too into each others business, if you know what I mean, and things don’t go smoothly. So we always end up with little Magnus (2.5) in the child seat and her big Sis (5.5) in the double Burley. Good fences make good neighbors… I’ve even had the burley on the same bike as the child seat which is quite an excellent workout.

they grow so fast you’ll probably like that you bought something with multiple uses.

my mother surprised me with a b-day gift of a bell trailer (couldn’t find it on their website) and i have been very pleased. it is not constructed with the same quality of a burley, but it is worth it weight in gold. i have used it for bunch of random adventures: hooked it up to the cyclocross rig and took little zach out for some gravel roadin’, hook it up to the mtb for visits to the neighborhood playground, hook it up to the roadie rig for some resistance hill training, i’ve done some grocery runs with it, and i’ve even thrown the haulbag in there with bolting/aid gear for developing sport routes in a local quarry. i’ve also used a neighbor’s trailer which is made by schwinn, which worked well but the hitch/anchor setup is more complicated. burley seems to be the top of the class.

My bad.

I really think this whole thread was just a reason to show off that cute picture.

But from my experience from working in a shop, I’d say that the child seats that mount on a rack are probably only good for short jaunts around town whilst the child is awake.

Personally, I don’t know if I’d put any spawn of mine in one (ex-coworker had done some time in Germany & he stated that the Germans actually call them “baby-flingers”. Don’t know if it’s true though).

I’m a fan of the trailers (Burley, Chariot, Trek, etc.) as they seem a bit more secure (they generally remain upright if you crash, less of a balance issue if the kid is asleep, you can throw some toys in there to keep them entertained, etc.) & they can be repurposed as uber-grocery-getters.
Downside to the trailer is that they widen up the width of the track that you’d need.

It looks like it’s going to be a trailer. The LBS sells Burley, so it’ll probably be the winner.

(Okay, not really me, but I did that before I was a dad and it puts way too much trust in a cab driver. )