Biking With Babies
November 6, 2020 12:27 PM Subscribe
I always thought those cargo bikes were the neatest things but when the time came to bike my kids around I opted for a trailer for my bike and my wife put a child seat on the back of hers because wow, cargo bikes are expensive, and I was never sure if we'd get enough use out of it to justify the cost.
For whatever reason it was always more fun biking with the kids in tow. Now they're bigger and have their own bikes which is a different kind of fun but we can't go as far together as we could when the adults were carting the kids.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:10 PM on November 6, 2020
For whatever reason it was always more fun biking with the kids in tow. Now they're bigger and have their own bikes which is a different kind of fun but we can't go as far together as we could when the adults were carting the kids.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:10 PM on November 6, 2020
Also - tandem biking with big kids is totally a thing.
posted by aniola at 1:19 PM on November 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by aniola at 1:19 PM on November 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
The best thing I've done in the past two years was to splurge on a used Bullitt cargo bike which I use to carry my kids to the local market, playgrounds, and trails. They love it.
Mrs. gauche initially resented the cost but has come around pretty hard and is sort of idly looking for a bike of her own, probably a longtail as she prefers the handling, and probably something that I will electrify if it does not already come as an e-bike.
Cargo bikes are wonderful in the way they open up family riding and riding as transportation rather than as sport. I don't drive in my town anymore; I just ride.
posted by gauche at 1:36 PM on November 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
Mrs. gauche initially resented the cost but has come around pretty hard and is sort of idly looking for a bike of her own, probably a longtail as she prefers the handling, and probably something that I will electrify if it does not already come as an e-bike.
Cargo bikes are wonderful in the way they open up family riding and riding as transportation rather than as sport. I don't drive in my town anymore; I just ride.
posted by gauche at 1:36 PM on November 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
Also - tandem biking with big kids is totally a thing.
Now I want to train them up so that they can ride more or less indefinitely - ie they'll get bored before they get tired. They can go pretty far if we have snack breaks along the way, and who doesn't like a snack break. I think really I need to be aware that while I'm ok with riding my bike all day, anything more than an hour or two probably feels like an eternity to them.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:51 PM on November 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
Now I want to train them up so that they can ride more or less indefinitely - ie they'll get bored before they get tired. They can go pretty far if we have snack breaks along the way, and who doesn't like a snack break. I think really I need to be aware that while I'm ok with riding my bike all day, anything more than an hour or two probably feels like an eternity to them.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:51 PM on November 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
One of my favorite subjects! :D Ahoy, linkdump:
* BicycleDutch on cycling with a baby (more advice-based), and cycling with babies and toddlers (more pictures and examples).
* Danish cargo biking with kids, including pram seats that clip into the bike box!
* Japanese mamas on bikes with their babies!
* An adorable biking with babies music video.
* Veilig achterop, a classic Dutch song about being a small child biking with your dad. The video is just Paul van Vliet singing on stage, but the chorus translates to:
* BicycleDutch on cycling with a baby (more advice-based), and cycling with babies and toddlers (more pictures and examples).
* Danish cargo biking with kids, including pram seats that clip into the bike box!
* Japanese mamas on bikes with their babies!
* An adorable biking with babies music video.
* Veilig achterop, a classic Dutch song about being a small child biking with your dad. The video is just Paul van Vliet singing on stage, but the chorus translates to:
Safe behind Father on the back of his bikeposted by Pandora Kouti at 2:17 PM on November 6, 2020 [4 favorites]
Father knows the way and I don't know anything yet
Safe behind Father, I am not alone
Father knows the way, Father knows where to go.
The other nice thing about babies and toddlers on bikes is all that rushing fresh air makes them sleepy and you get GREAT naps.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:31 PM on November 6, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:31 PM on November 6, 2020 [6 favorites]
When I had my kids I was also inundated with so many conflicting sources of information about biking with kids. Part of the problem is that any risk is unacceptable to some of the very safety-conscious parents out there. I waited the recommended 1 year before putting my kids on bike seats/trailers, but they love it. And generally, people love seeing two kids on the back of a bike!
I got a Tern GSD (electric cargo bike) last year and both my kids and I love it. It's basically everything I could want in a bike. Small package, large carrying capacity, can do almost anything a regular bike can do, and 80% of what we need our car to do.
posted by thewumpusisdead at 2:40 PM on November 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
I got a Tern GSD (electric cargo bike) last year and both my kids and I love it. It's basically everything I could want in a bike. Small package, large carrying capacity, can do almost anything a regular bike can do, and 80% of what we need our car to do.
posted by thewumpusisdead at 2:40 PM on November 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
Just anecdotally I reckon the child-bearing cargo bike to be more ubiquitous in Copenhagen than in Amsterdam. In Copenhagen they're dealing with a parking crisis in the vicinity of nursery schools, where many parents will choose to leave the bike during the day and continue their commute on a more nimble standard bike. In the Netherlands many parents just opt for an overbuilt but by-appearances-normal city bike. For many new parents in Scandinavia a cargo bike has just become part of the lifestyle, but even as a total bike nerd I never got one, prefering to carry my daughter in a top-tube mounted "bulldog" seat I lined with a sheepskin, eventually graduating to a Follow-me-Tandem.
My favorite current cargo bike design is the Muli, with folding basket and small-wheel design which allows for easier parking and transport on municipal rail. I envision popping my dog in there and then folding the basket up around him, allowing him to stick his head out the front in the wind.
posted by St. Oops at 4:05 PM on November 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
My favorite current cargo bike design is the Muli, with folding basket and small-wheel design which allows for easier parking and transport on municipal rail. I envision popping my dog in there and then folding the basket up around him, allowing him to stick his head out the front in the wind.
posted by St. Oops at 4:05 PM on November 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
Once I got the baby to associate riding the bike with the helmet, the helmet wasn't a problem. We did a lot of me pushing the bike with her in the seat until then. She loves seeing the lake on the bike, and also the city park stables, where young girls learn to ride horses, which, seeing those kids and animals just blows her mind.
When she wants to go, she s all, "Bike! Yeah!!! Woo!!"
The thing about babies in bikes is that they don't stay babies for long!
She also loves picking my back pocket. Funny one.
And, yes, people think it s mega cute when she waves "hello!" at them. Feels pretty great.
posted by eustatic at 7:02 PM on November 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
When she wants to go, she s all, "Bike! Yeah!!! Woo!!"
The thing about babies in bikes is that they don't stay babies for long!
She also loves picking my back pocket. Funny one.
And, yes, people think it s mega cute when she waves "hello!" at them. Feels pretty great.
posted by eustatic at 7:02 PM on November 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
Woot! Good times. Our boy was born in 1975 when we were young and car[e]free. Had bikes though. I drilled holes round the edge of a D-shaped plywood offcut and Herself wove a basket with two little leg-holes which fit on the cross-bar. The chap was Veilig voorop bij vader op de fiets between my arms. A tuthree years later, we were in Rotterdam and I was encouraged to rob more robust plywood off-cuts from work to make a rear-carrier arm-chair as 4 sides of a cube. Because boy, he amused himself making brrrrp sounds with his foot against the spokes . . . until he tried it the wrong side of the rear seat-stay and brought the vehicle to a screaming halt. Yaroo! I guess now we'd be up before the cruelty-man. fwiw we've never owned a pram, buggy or stroller. When the kids were too heavy to carry they were big enough to prop up against a lamp-post while everyone got a breather.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:34 AM on November 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:34 AM on November 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
One thing that COVID took from me was a year of school drop-offs via tag-along bike. Next year my kid will be too big to haul around that way, and I won’t get to hear his twice daily bike radio show around the lake. So much singing, such weird lyrics.
For those of you looking to bike with kids age 4+, I can’t recommend enough the Burley Kazoo/Piccolo tag-along. We used a sub-par tag-along twice before I found the Kazoo on Craigslist, and it is night and day - the rack attachment is super stable and detaches without messing with your seat post, and I was able to lock the tag-along up at school and continue my solo commute downtown (where my bike fit into a standard bike locker - a cargo bike would not have fit inside).
posted by Maarika at 7:18 AM on November 7, 2020
For those of you looking to bike with kids age 4+, I can’t recommend enough the Burley Kazoo/Piccolo tag-along. We used a sub-par tag-along twice before I found the Kazoo on Craigslist, and it is night and day - the rack attachment is super stable and detaches without messing with your seat post, and I was able to lock the tag-along up at school and continue my solo commute downtown (where my bike fit into a standard bike locker - a cargo bike would not have fit inside).
posted by Maarika at 7:18 AM on November 7, 2020
Maarika you might like the FollowMe Tandem. I was at the start of a group ride and a parent-child pair pulled up, the parent detached the child's bike from their own, and they were ready to bike independently.
posted by aniola at 7:56 AM on November 7, 2020
posted by aniola at 7:56 AM on November 7, 2020
Or maybe it's for the same size kids that ride tagalongs? This kid looked about 8.
posted by aniola at 7:58 AM on November 7, 2020
posted by aniola at 7:58 AM on November 7, 2020
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