BROOKLINEBIKER

Hi everybody,
I have question for list. I am trying to find the cheapest way to get a baby and pre-kindergarten child around by bicycle, for the purposes of transportation, recreation, my getting some exercise, and bike touring, while also permitting me to move cargo like groceries around my town. Here is some background:
• I am an enthusiastic cyclist.
• My wife is an enthusiastic driver, but not cyclist.
• My wife is pregnant and due in June 2011.
• I have a daughter who is 5 years and three months old now. She likes to bicycle on her own and especially to be pulled on an REI Afterburner. However, she only seems to last for 3-4 miles on the Afterburner before fatigue and/ or boredom set in.
• I am very eager to start using a cargo trailer or stroller that can double as a bike trailer to buy groceries and make large purchases.
• The Afterburner has been effective as a means of getting my daughter to her pre-K school.
• I would like to go to bike touring as soon as family and work circumstances permit. I would only engage in road touring.
• It is my guess that my wife would not want to bike tour but the older daughter might, though I am unsure how she would feel about being pulled around in say a Burley D’Lite for a day on the road. She gets bored in a car pretty quickly.
• I would consider bike touring apart from the family, though it is not my first choice. I would have to do that either before June or I imagine in 2012.
• We live in a congested urban area. My wife does not want any of the Chariot, Burley or Wike strollers that can double as trailers like the D’Lite or Encore. She thinks they are too big and heavy to be sufficiently mobile. She is interested in buying a jogging stroller.

At this point, I am thinking that my best option is to buy a Burley Nomad or Wike Tourite while my wife buys a jogging stroller. Of course, that means we end making two purchases instead of one. Do members of the forum see a way to buy just one item instead of a separate trailer and stroller or even multiple strollers?
Thanks!
Neil

Thulsadoom

Do what the wife wants. Better to be poor and sane than well off and yet miserable.

ebartom

If you get an xtracycle or other long tail, you'll have tons of cargo capacity for touring or groceries, and your 5 year old can ride on the rack with stoker bars. You can tow her bike if you ride to a place where she can ride safely. And there'd be room enough for 6 year old + 1 year old when it's time for the baby to have a place on your bike. Sort of like this: https://www.flickr.com/photos/56062272@N00/2646331896/ But since your age difference is greater than in that family, you can install a kid seat for the baby on the rack, or put them up front in an ibert or other front-mounted seat.

Don't force your wife into something she doesn't want to do. If you can get her more interested in riding on her own, or in a park with your older daughter, that's great, and maybe it will be a gateway into something more. The times I've tried to buy a two-for-one item, it often just doesn't work well for either purpose, and then you don't use it at all.

Suburban

My older two wouldn't ride in a trailer either. I'd go the long tail route if I were you for what it's worth. We're planning on buying one this spring and we have 3 children, ages 7, 5 and 3.

Rockfish

Sounds like a classic case of asymmetrical interest. If your wife is not that into biking, and your kids are only good for a few miles, you're only asking for misery to push it on them.
I'm in a similar spot as you - kid 1.0 is on the way and I'm "very eager" to do all kinds of bikey things with the kid, but wife is "not so eager", to say the least. I'll give you one guess who will get their way!

himespau 

The five year old seems pretty big for a trailer anyway, no?

Just curious.

I'm slowly trying to acclimate our one year old to the new trailer so I can start taking her out on rides. Haven't really gone out on very long rides in the last year as I felt bad leaving my wife alone with her but now I'm hoping that the ability to take the daughter along opens up some time for me to go out for a couple of hours again.

biking4fams

I was in the same situation also. My little one is turning 5 this year so I wanted to get him involved in biking rather then him playing his Wii all day long. Luckily I was able to get both the stroller for the wife and cargo trailer for myself. I'm just glad I did not have to shell out a lot of money for the two. This is the site I purchased the trailer and stroller from hope this helps! https://www.frugah.com/Baby-Trailers-s/43.htm and https://www.frugah.com/Bike-Trailers-s/48.htm

ebartom

Actually, in our family, the kid is often pushing the hardest for bike over car. He gets car sick easily, and just doesn't like the car. So he is always trying to convince us that we can bike somewhere, or least take the bus or walk, and often we do. It definitely got me (his mom) riding sometimes in situations where I might otherwise default to car. He's almost 5 now, and likes to ride on the back of the longtail or ride his own bike. I got comfortable on our city's public transit system when he was a baby, when he would just scream and scream and scream in the back seat.

Unfortunately his little sister is much less likely to want to go on the bike when it's cold out, but she's still pretty game.

The longtail makes parking SOOO much easier, especially at school drop-off and at places like museums. Instead of paying $20 for parking we can ride up to the front door and always park in the most convenient possible place for free.

himespau 

Yeah, parking is definitely something longtails have over trailers. Haven't figured out the trailer parking thing yet.

HardyWeinberg

That's what I was thinking. My youngest was done with the trailer by the time she started K. She turned 7 in Dec and hasn't even ridden the trail-a-bike since summer, she may be fully self-propelled by now. This summer will tell if the t-a-b is truly done.

I saw a Mom + pre-schooler on an xtracycle yesterday near my office, it could well be the easiest way to go. You can get a seat for your new one, and the older can sit behind.

Alternatively, Bike Friday tandems allow growth from smallest independent pedaler on up to adult on the same frame:

https://www.bikefriday.com/bicycles/tandem/322

PS-> We have a new-ish burley d'lite, 08 or 09, our insurance replaced our old one crushed when our garage collapsed under snow, and the new one is worthless for cargo compared to the old one. The old one, we could have kids in the seat and a 20# box of apples in the back with a flat of berries on top. With no kids, the sky was the limit for what could go into the seating area. The new one is compressed too much to angle in a full box of apples to the front, and just not enough room in the back period. So our d'lite is definitely not an heirloom item, we are going to ditch it as soon as we can get off our butts and do so.

BROOKLINEBIKER

Thanks everyone for their replies. The long tail approach is interesting. Are the Xtracycles a kit? How much would I have to change over my existing Surly Long Haul Trucker to make a king tail? Can I convert my bike back if I so desire?
Best,
Neil

ebartom

You can get a free radical kit to convert your bike to a longtail (something like this https://www.xtracycle.com/cargo-bicyc...-funwagon.html ). You might want to ask about it over on the utility cycling thread, or on roots radicals ( https://groups.yahoo.com/group/rootsradicals/ ), because you'll likely find someone who's done that exact conversion or thought about it. My xtracycle is a Specialized Globe + free radical, but I got it used, already put together. You can convert the bike back, but it's a project -- not something you would do multiple times. I would need a bike shop to do it for me.

Or you could get a Surly big dummy, which is not a kit: https://surlybikes.com/bikes/big_dummy Not a cheap solution, but a very satisfying one.

If your wife got excited about it, you could also get a longtail with a deeper step-through, like one of these: https://clevercycles.com/blog/product...go/xtracycles/
Though the cheaper way would probably be to find a used cruiser frame on craig's list and couple it with a free radical kit. Our xtracycle is a size that both my husband and I can ride it comfortably, and that is really handy. But like everyone said before, might as well wait on doing anything like this until your wife shows some interest of her own.