My summer of biking has gotten off to a great start, and many of the errands I used to make by car I now make on my bike---the grocery store, the farmer’s market, the drug store, out for a cappuccino, and even day trips to the local farm. It’s been a fairly smooth transition for me, but it’s been less easy to convert my 6-year-old daughter to this new way of life.
It’s not that she doesn’t want to join me. In fact, she loves it. She is easily carsick and generally hates the confines of her booster seat, so she is almost always happy to jump on her bike and accompany me on an afternoon on two wheels. But she’s half my size, so she gets tired more easily, rides slower, and needs to stop a lot more often than I do. Errands will either take twice as long as they would or I need to cut the number of errands I’ve planned in half.
It’s tempting to save my trips for times when I’m not with her, but I refuse to do that. I want her to appreciate the bike as a practical and fun way to get around town. So I need an alternative that will help me keep the promise I’ve made to keep the car parked and not give in to the convenience of driving for more and more trips.
Unfortunately, there aren’t that many alternatives. There’s a covered trailer that fits either one or two kids and generally up to 100 pounds that you pull along the back of the bike. My daughter is getting too big for that style of trailer, and even if she could fit, she is worries about looking babyish and refuses to sit in them. Still, they are an excellent and ubiquitous option for younger kids.
There’s the bakfiets or chariot style, which ranges from a box design in front of the bike to a rickshaw, which trails behind. (Check out Christine's experience with a bakfiets here ). These styles are amazing. You can park kids in their own spacious seats where they can sit up, lie down, cuddle up in a blanket, listen to music and do whatever they want while you shuttle them around town. It’s like a car, only better. But the price tag is definitely out of my reach, so I’ll have to wait for the prices to come down or for some good used ones to pop up on Craigslist.
The DIYer in me has all sorts of designs to make my own bike trailer, and I’ve found some help online for that. Instructables.com offers many plans for bike trailers like this one, and a biking blog has posted plans for different styles of trailers here.
As much as I love the idea of making my own with inexpensive parts, the protective mom in me does worry about putting my precious cargo in something I made. So I think I’ll leave the construction to the experts. Instead, I’ll try making my own trailer to pull something other than a person in, so don’t be surprised if you see me riding down the street pulling a piano behind my bike in a trailer of my own design.
Then there’s the tandem trailer, which is the style I will probably go with. It converts a regular bike into a tandem, with the back of the tandem at the right size for a child. It’s inexpensive and it allows the adult to control the speed and duration of a trip, so the child being pulled along can choose to pedal or not as he or she wants. The only downside that I can see is that the child is still upright on a bike, so they won’t be able to take a nap or just sit and rest like they can in a chariot-style trailer.
So I might have a few more years before I’ll be able to take the kid along on all of the jaunts I plan to make. In the meantime, I’ll keep looking and hoping that the chariot or box-style trailers will come down in price, enjoy longer trips with the family on a tandem, and continue to include my daughter on as many bike trips as I can.
-photo credit: http://www.davisbicycles.org/
I think it's so awesome that you are doing so much to teach your children about how to be ecofriendly.
Posted by: wanda | June 24, 2009 at 07:10 PM