ahaga09

Good evening everyone,
So I am an agriculture teacher and just got the chance to move to the high school near my house. I bought a bike to use as a way to commute back and forth since it is very close now. I have a 2yr old that I drop off at preschool on my way to work and am wondering what would be the best way to transport him. I’m a larger rider at 285lbs and my concern is my weight plus my toddler’s weight on my bike. He is around 35lbs and I’m wondering if he should ride on the bike with me on a shotgun style seat or something else.
I just got a 1995 specialized hardrock ultra 19” frame and 26x2 tires

Thank you for your time and consideration

timdow

You would get better advice in the category:

Clydesdales/Athenas (200+ lb / 91+ kg)

pdlamb

If your roads are any good at all, I'd expect the Hardrock would be sturdy enough for the load.

At two years old, though, are you sure you don't want to pull him in a trailer?

SkinGriz

I loved(!) Ag class when I was in high school.

An Interesting aside. Looking back on high school.

The English teacher never had a book published.
The math teacher was not previously an actuarian or statistician.

ALL(!) the shop teachers actually worked in their field before becoming teachers. Auto shop, drafting, metal shop/weld, Ag/horticultural, wood shop… they all had some experience in their fields.

Two of the shop teachers took up teaching because they kept getting hurt racing motorcycles and teaching wasn’t as physically strenuous so they didn’t need time off to recover.

Korina

From what I understand the spokes are the weak spot; they will bend and break long before the frame develops any issues. You could put the kid in a trailer until they're old enough to ride or you get some of the weight off (unless you're built like Lou Ferrigno, then never mind). And remember, the best part about a short commute is finding ways to make it longer. Enjoy your ride!

Darth Lefty 

I think a trailer. Get a Burley or Chariot or equivalent, used. They are good quality tanks and hold their value and last. The stuff at Walmart is seriously garbage. We started with one of those and me and kid both hated it.

With one kid I had a much better time with a rear kid seat, and one of those will definitely work better on a Hardrock than one of the newer things. But they have a pretty low limit for the kid size, 40#. My single kid was a beanpole and it worked for his 3yo year. Some people are down on kid seats for safety reasons. Because it's a long way up to fall over from. I did once get a rear flat with the kid in the seat after trying and really seriously failing to bunny hop a 2x4 that I could not avoid due to traffic. We did not crash since the front was ok. My wife had a capsize on a kickstand that was pretty stupid but between his helmet and the high shoulders of the seat it was ok. For the twins it had to be a trailer for obvious reasons. We had Copilot kid seats and they were great. Since they use a Blackburn heavy duty rack, and they latch, we could have two seats between four bikes when we bought the extra racks. Topeak makes a similar thing that works with their track system

I did try a front seat once but it was a fiasco. They are really at their best with babies and toddlers on a really long bike with a big quill stem like an omafiets or beach cruiser. On a MTB, their head is in your sternum, their butt is in the way of your knees, you have to do cowboy starts

3-6 was an awkward age for biking with my kids. They were too little to ride themselves and too big for trailers and seats. It was fun to have them zooming around on push bikes but any kind of utility was not really in the cards.

You could consider a longtail or midtail, like a Big Dummy or Yuba Mundo. They have available bench seats for medium kids. I never got one of those - instead I tried a tandem kidback and none of them really went for it.

The Hardrock Ultra was a chromoly frame (I looked it up) and is not going to have any trouble with your weight. When / if the rear wheel falters just get a better replacement. Quality of inexpensive rear wheels is notorious but it doesn't take much to have something a lot better

base2 

Bakfiets with child, image search.

Darth Lefty 

Yeah but it's a big step from "will my 30yo Hardrock manage" to "I should spend a few grand on a bicycle that accomplishes only this task"

Regional consideration too. Around here it's much easier to find a Yuba, Xtracycle, Haul-a-Day, etc.

base2 

The thing is a Bakfiets is the SUV/van/minivan/pickup of the bicycle world. It does all the things. A true car replacement bike. I only suggested it as the pie-in-the-sky ideal. The long tail cargo really only hauls kids.

The OP's Rockhopper, with a new wheel, is a temporary solution until the kid bridges the gap between backseat and full-on ride himself around age 6-7. The wheel has a cost, the kid seat has a cost, the trailer has a cost, the Yuba/Extracycle has a cost. There is cost & limited utility life at every step. The Bakfiets carries kids, adults, trees from the nursery, and an SUV of groceries.

(My enthusiasm about wanting one may have colored my response.)

noquarter1

Eh, I keep hearing about needing a ton of spokes, but my road bike has 16 spokes on it and I weigh a (not so) healthy 315 (and dropping). Haven't had any problems so far. Potentially courting disaster, but so far so good.

OP, those old bikes were overbuilt. As others have mentioned, your problem will be space on the bike, not the weight.

Korina

So how's it going? Have you figured out how to transport the two of you? How do you like riding the HardRock?

plumberroy

I can tell you I was riding a similar mountain bike (Raleigh M30 and pulling a homemade trailer at times) when I was pushing 350 .
290 now

rumrunn6

I see a lot of these in our area

Viich

I used a double trailer (kids are only separated by a year and a half) a LOT when kids were younger. If I had it to do over again, I might go long-tail or cargo bike - but the cost of entry is a lot, and I didn't have as much extra $$ 10 years ago as I do now.

We did a trailer and then Burley Kazoo with hook-ups for both my wife's bike and mine - she'd go to work early, I'd get them ready & drop them off, then she'd be back in time to pick them up.

Keep an eye on spokes and such, but those bikes were designed to be used for hucking around without suspension, you are putting less force on them than their peak design, but a fairly high continuous load.
Worst case, if you have a lot of problems build a wheelset with really good rims & triple-butted spokes.

rumrunn6

also seeing a cpl electric versions of those, on a popular paved commuter bikeway, carrying a cpl kids. yes expensive, but I guess if those ppl have no car, it can be justified?

Viich

I don't know - 10 years ago the e-bikes were pretty sketchy.

Looking at the market now though - I'd definitely consider an e-assist cargo bike in place of a second car in the city. Especially in Ottawa. I can head right downtown on paths only in the summer, and in winter on a mix of winter-maintained pathways and residential roads.....

Would definitely need studded tires, and I'd probably do a trike for winter carrying kids.

noquarter1

That's what I did. Instead of getting a second car I put that money towards the admittedly expensive Tern GSD. But, it has something crazy like a 450 lb capacity and an incredibly ecosystem of accessories, so I use it instead of my car to go to the grocery store, Costco, etc all with two kids on the back.

Viich

Yea - a whole other set of concerns here though - average morning temps in the winter are 20 degrees colder than Salt Lake City...... and we actually DO get -40, where it doesn't matter whether you're using Celsius or Fahrenheit. And the ice that's here - I run studded tires from December through March.

I'd definitely have to recommend a box-bike tricycle to someone intending to actually replace a car with a cargo bike here, I think. I might use a long-tail with studded tires - but my wife definitely wouldn't.

Darth Lefty 

Ten years ago on my honeymoon in Rome I saw very few bicycles, mostly ridden by fairly strong looking youths. Mostly fairly classic looking steel townie bikes with swept handlebars, not the aluminum hybrids that were so common in Paris. Rome famously has seven hills so neither fixies nor Dutch bikes would have made any sense.

Now there’s e-bikes of all kinds everywhere. That includes the customary front suspension bikes and fat bikes and share bikes but also cargo bikes both bakfiets and long tail. Lime and Bird scooters too. The boom is real.

This is downtown, the suburbs are likely a different story