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Over a period of a 1-2 months we bought, trialled and discarded two popular ways of riding with our 1 yr old child before settling on a solution - I intend this report will guide you to avoid making the same mistakes we made. Getting back onto a bike for both Mums & Dads after the arrival of a new child is a terrific low-impact way to allow your spouse some "me time" whilst spending some quality time with your new child and it is a terrific low-impact way to get fit, enjoy the fresh air and travel further than you could on foot alone When it comes to pedaling with baby there are really only a couple of choices - either a trailer or kids bike carrier. After using a trailer a couple of times we found it's size and clumsiness restricted our riding to the widest of cycle paths, the distance of our kid from us made us nervous and also stifled interaction. We were unhappy with our kid sitting at "exhaust height" - we quickly settled on a kid bike carrier - or a bicycle mounted child carrier - to give it it's grown up name. You can purchase 3 types of carrier; The incredibly common rear-fixed seat, a front-fixed seat, usual in Europe, and, the newest, a center-fixed seat. * Rear-Attached - Lots of generic solutions - Topeak, Humax, etc etc. very common, mass produced in China. These seats really belong in the last century and it surprises me that mums & dads still purchase them, other than they tend to be cheaper. Balance is wrong, interaction with your kid doesn't exist, carrying additional items in a rucksack etc is next to impossible. Fitting a rear-fixed seat to a bike with disc-brakes can be impossible at worst and time-consuming and expensive at best and fitting a rear-fixed carrier to a bike with dual-suspension is often impossible. The only advantage, other than price, that a rear-fixed carrier may have is that it can carry a older child, often up to 22Kilos or more. Although since this is the approximate weight of a six year old, you have to wonder why they're not riding their own bike by this time! * Front-Mounted - Such manufacturers as BoBike, iBert and others, these usually attach by a single point to front of the bike. Front-fixed bike seats puts your kid in front of you, encouraging interaction, engaing your kid in the ride, reducing distractions to the rider, however with all the weight attached at the front-wheel also makes steering trickier and generally restricts maximum weight carryable to 15 kilos (~3 years old). * Center-Mounted - Only one solutions known to exist - WeeRide. This spreads the weight more evenly by attaching in two points - at the handlebars and also at the seat post, improving the pure front-fixed offering, whilst still having all the advantages of a front fixed carrier. This type of carrier will also attach to a dual-suspension or disc-brake bike. We discarded the trailer after trying it and we bought a traditional rear-mounted kid bike carrier for our 1 yr old kid a couple of years ago. After riding with it once on our bicycles, my wife said she'd never ride with our daughter again in a rear mounted seat. Our daughters nose was running, she'd unzipped her jacket and kicked off her shoes - and all this out-of-sight behind us. On top of these "care" concerns are the obvious practicalities of ease of use and balance. With a kid behind you, your balance is off, out-of-sight you're unable to react to any sudden movement. Your kid will be more restless unable to see where they are going, throwing their weight about to see around you. It's probably more dangerous - since you're concentrating on whats going on behind you - rather than watching where you're going..... Finally - ever thought about getting off a bike with a rear-mounted carrier - as you try to throw your foot over chances are you'll kick your kid in the face . And worst of all - in an accident - you can't protect them, can't put your arms around them! So we ditched it and bought a center mounted WeeRide kid bike carrier - all of these problems are fixed. Our baby can see where she’s going, we can keep an eye on her, our balance is better, we can get off simply and best of all - there's the added advantages... we're interacting - we'll sing songs, count doggies, guess colours, play I-Spy, all things we couldn't do in a rear-mounted carrier. So please before you purchase a rear-fixed carrier - think about whether all you want to do is transport your child from A-B with all the problems above - or do you want to enjoy riding with your child and interact, participate.
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For a family activity get a baby bike carrier at weeride.com.au/. Read about baby bicycle carrier.
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