FAMILY BUSINESS
If you feel guilty about leaving your partner and child at home while you go out for a ride, could taking the little one with you boost your brownie points and your fitness?
Having kids does reduce the hours you’re able to dedicate to cycling. Maintaining fitness can be a challenge, and if commuting by bike isn’t an option, you’re left to rely on an understanding partner, childcare days or training at the extremities of the day when little ones are, hopefully, asleep.
When your child reaches six months, you can include them in your riding plans. We’ve looked at five ways you can carry your kid on your bike to get them out enjoying the ride as much as you.
First Steps
The most popular way to take your child cycling is with a rear-mounted child seat. It’s worthwhile physical exercise with increased resistance due to mass and wind, and definite rolling resistance increases.
Topeak’s Babyseat II weighs 3.4kg, plus about 800g for its tubular aluminium rack. Uniquely,
this seat has suspension to isolate your passenger from the worst bumps, raising their seated height and providing a better view. The seat has a perforated, padded liner, flip-up roll bar, adjustable footrests with Velcro straps and a harness, and takes children up to 22kg/48.5lb.
The seat fitted further forward than expected on our Specialized Sequoia, keeping rider and passenger snug but not affecting comfort, and our riding experience didn’t alter that much. Slow speed handling requires more care, and riding out of the saddle is challenging due to the pendulum effect of the higher centre of mass, but it’s possible. Your road position and cornering lines are unchanged, but corner speed and lean angle are reduced. Choosing a bike with lower than usual gears is wise since hauling an extra 16kg up any hill is hard work.
The major factor that’ll determine your ride duration is your passenger’s patience, but concentrate on your seated pedalling technique and maintaining a consistent effort. buggy to bike duties Thule’s Chariot Cross transforms from a folding, all-weather child’s pushchair to a bike trailer. When in trailer mode the front wheels are inverted, ready to be replaced for pushchair duty again. Accessories convert it for jogging and skiing, and adjustable leaf springs on the rear wheels ensure a smooth ride.
Inside, there’s a padded, reclining seat, a five-point harness and storage pockets, while the large front opening has a zipped mesh screen, or clip-on clear rain cover.
The towing arm with fail safe security straps on each end installs in seconds. Its hard rubber ball end slots into an alloy cup bolted to the left side of a rear wheel skewer, or thru-axle (a thru-axle fitting isn’t supplied). It cleverly allows turning with bike and arm at around 90 degrees to each other without snagging.
Loading up or stopping to attend to your passenger means finding a suitably supportive leaning spot for the bike, because unlike the trailer, it’s not freestanding. Fitting mudguards will save peppering your follower with spray and dirt, and you soon become aware of the need to pick three lines for your wheels, not only for cleanliness, but to reduce the chances of flats.
The 12.8kg Chariot Cross rolls remarkably smoothly, and with the suspension’s help, doesn’t bounce over big bumps. The inevitable
drag is most obvious when pulling away, and between pedal strokes once moving, increasing resistance for each revolution, not unlike a basic turbo trainer without a flywheel to smooth it
Depending on the towing bike, passenger weight, rider and terrain, it’s possible to average 14-16mph while towing. It’s stable when descending at speed and allows you to ride out of the saddle, but cornering requires some thought to save clipping the inside wheel. It’s very close to a normal riding experience, only with greater drag, and 25 miles of intense towing equates to a tough training session. With the supplied flag and lights fitted, we found drivers gave us a wider berth than on any of the other options, but its 65cm width and offset stance mean it’s less fun in urban areas.
The Chariot Cross has great advantages over conventional child seats in that the child can be reclined, protected from wind and rain, and self-contained with a supply of food and drink. In cold weather, throwing in a blanket and a toy or two, as well as regular checks, allowed us to roam for a couple of hours with little complaint. Like A Speeding Bullitt… Larry vs Harry is a Copenhagen-based cargo bike company, whose Bullitt bike boasts a dedicated niche following. At 2.45m long, the Bullitt is a rather different riding proposition to most other machines, and with 26in rear and 20in front wheels, looks like a stretched Chopper. Designed to carry loads up to 100kg, its beefy aluminium frame is impressively crafted, with a steel fork for strength, and a stable folding stand. There are two headsets, whose steerer tubes are linked by a steering arm beneath the load deck, giving an unusual feel. For anyone not wanting the £1578 framesetonly option, complete bike gearing choices are all Shimano, from seven to 30-speed or e-bike-boosting STePS powered. Ours came with 10-speed Shimano Zee transmission combining a 36-tooth chainring with 11-32 cassette, and very powerful Magura hydraulic disc brakes with 180mm/203mm rotors. The optional canopy encloses the load deck with an all-weather sleek pod, ideal for keeping passengers dry and warm. Fittings can be
Towing the Chariot is very close to a normal riding experience, only with greater drag
sourced to secure child car seats and a double, bucket-style seat will be available later this year.
It’s the only option here that requires learning a new riding technique, and setting off for the first time feels alien, as the minimal gyroscopic effect from the small front wheel tests your slow speed balance. A good shove off with your standing foot helps, but refining your riding balance via a front wheel that’s out of sight, and three feet ahead of the handlebar takes some getting used to.
Aptly named, the Bullitt can shift, once you’ve tamed your involuntary snaking. The handlebar height is quickly adjustable for different riders, and at its lowest looks pretty racy. Unfortunately, the canopy’s height means raising the bar to its highest position to clear it.
Even with the supplied flat pedals, we often cruised at 16-18mph. Descending was stable, that huge wheelbase holding lines well. With the gearing fitted, pedalling downhill became a spinning contest after 23mph. The huge Magura callipers will definitely stop a Bullitt, although braking with some turn angle, on less than grippy tarmac can lead to snowploughing – basically severe understeer – which, because of the distant front wheel, is hard to detect and catch immediately.
Although rapid acceleration and sprints aren’t possible on the 25kg Bullitt, we could ride at a good intensity most of the time. Even with low gears, we didn’t expect to climb hills with so little drama, but riding out of the saddle requires next level skills. Ride duration was limited more by rider fatigue than passenger discomfort as, cocooned up front within the canopy, they could watch the world glide by, while being able to see them reassured us and allows conversation.
Back Seat rider
Once children can pedal themselves they’ll want to be more active, but riding any reasonable distance, or on busier roads, can still be too much solo. Burley’s Piccolo trailer bike is the ideal way to cover greater distances at higher speeds, and is suitable for children from four to 10, with a maximum weight of 38.5kg.
The Piccolo’s aluminium frame rolls on a 20in wheel, with a seven-speed cassette and Microshift thumb shifter. At 8.2kg, the Piccolo
The Bullitt can shift, once you’ve tamed your involuntary snaking
will probably be lighter than its towing bike, which needs mounts for the included rack. This is key to the Piccolo’s superior ride, with a narrowed mid section for the trailer bike’s rubber-lined aluminium jaws to clamp on to. Once screwed down, it’s ready to go. With its hitch and ball bearing pivot located directly above your bike’s rear axle, the Piccolo’s handling is nearer to that of a normal bike.
In theory, the child provides some additional motive power to offset the towed weight, but that depends on their familiarity with gearing, willingness, and energy levels. The feeling of pulling a non-contributing passenger isn’t unlike touring with a heavily laden bike, so when you do get some help, it’s a bonus.
As a way to cover distances, the Piccolo is very effective. Fitting or removal takes about 10 seconds, storage is simple, it comes with a safety flag and bottle cage mount, but remember to pack a suitable inner tube.
Star Tern
Known for folding bikes, Tern has created a brilliant utility bike with the GSD, which officially stands for Get Stuff Done. Consisting of an aluminium frame with a large integrated rear rack, the GSD’s use of 20in wheels gives many advantages. Smaller wheels are incredibly strong, but the GSD’s 36mm-wide reinforced rims and Boost thru-axle hubs take things to another level, and with 62mm Schwalbe tyres, they roll smoothly over the worst paved roads.
Smaller diameter wheels allow for a lengthy 125cm wheelbase, but an overall length of only 180cm, similar to most conventional bikes. Tern’s folding knowhow means the handlepost (long stem) folds by 180 degrees just above the frame, and the telescopic seatpost drops into the frame, reducing its height enough to fit the GSD in to large estate cars.
That rear rack accepts two Thule Maxi child seats in tandem, and the options list includes a pair of 62-litre panniers, which can be used with child seats. Optional fold out motorbike-style foot pegs, or lower deck rails, and a clip-on seat pad allow larger children to perch on the back.
Even though its unladen weight is over 27kg, it’s a cinch to manoeuvre, and the central kickstand keeps the bike upright when loading or parking. It’s a heavyweight in every sense, but the Bosch Performance motor with twin battery option reduces the GSD’s 180kg load
potential to mere numbers. Its handlebar control offers four power modes – Eco, Tour, Sport and Turbo – boosting your pedalling inputs by increasing levels of intensity. Ultimate assisted riding speed is capped at an indicated 16mph, although downhill we managed 25mph, and maintained close to 20mph for a few hundred metres before gradient and fatigue slowed progress.
Fully charged, on flat terrain and in Eco mode, the GSD with dual batteries has a phenomenal range of around 150 miles. Throw in hills, greater payload and excessive use of Turbo mode and that’ll decrease. The built-in lights are great too, the front 150 lumen lamp lighting the way on country lanes.
A flat-barred bike with a motor is far from our usual riding choice, but the GSD is so accessible, so much fun and handles so well that we did far more than we expected with it. A 30-mile ride through lanes, along the canal and back via the shops to pick up that night’s dinner, all with a small person on board, isn’t an option for many bikes, but on the Tern we even climbed our nearest 500ft hill. Descending is just as stable as riding on the flat, if a tad windier in an upright position, and thankfully the immense fourcylinder Magura disc callipers and 180mm rotors are incredible anchors.
If you’re thinking there’s no way you’d get any sort of workout on a motor-assisted bike, you’d be wrong, as you still need to pedal it, and you have control over the level of motor input. By reducing the motor to Eco mode on a false flat or in a headwind, our heart rate soon reached around 90 per cent of our maximum, and maintaining the assisted maximum of 16mph became a challenge. Far from limiting our potential, the GSD expanded it. It’s not just a bike for when the kids are young, but the two-wheeled equivalent of an SUV.
The verdict
Each of these child transport options has its merits, and all are among the best of their type. What works for you will depend on budget, current bike options, who you need to take with you and the sort of riding you’d like to do. But if you embrace it, there’s no reason why spending time awheel with your children will do anything other than enhance your fitness. With luck they’ll ultimately become cyclists too, and can tow you around in future.