New Dad here. Child Carrier or Trailer?

[KVN]

Using a trailer as a training tool is a major swing and a miss!

Keeping your kid as close to you as possible is the best advice I can give. If you have a bike that can accommodate a front carrier, do it. There's no better choice. You can actually talk with your kid as you ride, you can see what they see, and they get the best view possible. The trailer is good for napping and carrying all the extra baggage. Front seats have a weight limit of like 30lbs, so you've got a limited time to use them, but it's totally worth it.

I used the (Yepp Mini) front seat to take the kid to daycare, detached the seat and left it at the school while I finished my commute downtown. I'd reverse the process on my way home and it worked great. I bought a few headset adapters for the mount and we could quickly switch the carrier from bike to bike.

I use a trailer now that my son is 35lbs. The worst thing about it is that he always pointing to cool stuff (trucks, buildings, animals), but I can NEVER hear the kid. It's frustrating for both of us.

They'll still find a way to sleep...

[weaponsgrade]

Trailer for sure. Kids grow fast. You'll get a lot more use out of the trailer and there's room for toys and other gear. Take note of how the trailer attaches to the bike. I have a Burley and the bracket to attach the trailer to the rear dropout doesn't work with hooded style dropouts. Definitely get fenders. The rear wheel kicks up lot of debris. The first time I took my kid out, she didn't want the cover pulled down. I didn't have fenders at the time and didn't think there'd be any problem. She seemed fine when I turned around to check on her while I was riding, but when we finally stopped and I went to pull her out it looked like she had been sitting under a giant pepper grinder.

[papalok]

+1 for the yepp mini and the bigger yepp. The Chariot is dope too but less fun.
https://flic.kr/p/Hno4Ua

[gallant]

I have a Yepp seat on the back of my Yuba Cargo bike:



It's really nice to be able to have the kids close to you as opposed to in a trailer. And the Yepp seats are super solid and can fit a 1 year old. They can fit on any bike with a rear rack and in some cases you can attach it to your existing bike via the seatpost. So worth looking into. The Yepp seat can accommodate up to a 5 year old so you can use it for many years.

[soupless]

Yepp Mini rules. I'm lucky because I have a dutch bike but I barely notice the difference. It's so great having them right there and talking about what you see. They like to ring bells and mess with your shifters though. The windscreen is really nice until they get too big and it's too close. PROTIP--get a double legged kickstand if you can.

I used to work at a shop that specialized in family cycling and the Yepp stuff is so much nicer than what else is out there. Huge fan.

My daughter just outgrew her blue one, let me know if you're interested.

[CNY rider]

Originally Posted by gallant

I have a Yepp seat on the back of my Yuba Cargo bike:



It's really nice to be able to have the kids close to you as opposed to in a trailer. And the Yepp seats are super solid and can fit a 1 year old. They can fit on any bike with a rear rack and in some cases you can attach it to your existing bike via the seatpost. So worth looking into. The Yepp seat can accommodate up to a 5 year old so you can use it for many years.

We had the trailer. It got tons of use as a jogger/stroller and for XC skiing (Burley has a cool kit that puts skis on the bottom).
But damn that is one cool looking set up you have there! If I had to do it again I would want to give that a try.

[EPIC! Stratton]

How about one of these?

[roguedog]

My 2 cents are to buy soupless's yepp, get hybrid/mtn bike/not-your-go fast-a-bike with flat pedals. In year or two get a wee hoo.

Had a wee hoo and chose it over a trailer. i didn't like that they were "just back" there. With the wee hoo they can choose to sit or help pedal. They were outside with you and could interact with you. Had some fun times on the bike just going down the trail and getting some ice cream or going to the park down the trail.

Oh and I was also a bit jealous of folks who had something like gallant's set up. That looked cool and you could do errands or just bring their stuff (park toys, food, water, extra clothes, etc) with you.

[CDollarsign]

I have a burley bee. My son hates it. There is basically no support in the seat so hes slumped over. We also put a helmet on him and he looks super uncomfortable.

We bought ours almost brand new for $100 on craigslist. I would go that route since you could probably sell it for that much if they don't like it.

[kookmyers]

Originally Posted by Louis

I don't get this ^^^^. Why is the physical size of the kid an issue? (unless he's too big and doesn't fit, but that's not what you're saying)

Do really mean your son "wasn't big enough" or did you mean "wasn't old enough?"

I always thought one key issue with young kids in bike seats is whether or not they have enough neck strength to hold their head up.

Sorry....my memory sucks. His mom is saying we tried it at around 7 months! while he was able to hold his head up, he wasn't big enough for the trailer.

[Zoodles]

For just getting around in a bike friendly city the big dummy is a good set up. A trailer can be a bit cumbersome but also has built in storage and the kid can sleep.
Fwiw, I put in thousands of km training with my kid in a trailer while he slept, played, sang all between the ages of 2 and 3. We moved to a busier city and have kept doing the same but now with a trail a bike.

[icepick_trotsky]

I switched from a rear seat Co-Pilot to a garage sale Burley solo at about age 2.5. The Burley was a steal, but it would have been worth full asking price. One of the best cycling purchases I've ever made.

[benb]

I currently own a Burley Solo (bought several years ago) and a Weehoo (bought last summer).

You will never convince me those child seats mounted on the bike are safe. They're in about the worst possible places for stability and particularly the front mounted ones you're basically using your small child as an airbag if you crash. You're probably not going to be able to use the child seat in the same range of riding situations, and you're not going to be able to carry all the gear you should probably carry if you're out riding with your kid for an extended period and want to have fun. If you like to run too the child seat doesn't do anything for that, whereas a good bike trailer doubles as a running stroller. For example, you're not going to ride those trailer seats on mountain bike trails. The Burley and Weehoo both do that really well. You can't really do single track on the Burley but you can on the Weehoo.

For example.. where do you put the diaper bag and changes of clothes for your kid with the child seat? Where do you pack the picnic lunch? What do you do if it's 40 degrees out and both you and the kid are really in the mood to go for a ride? What do you do if it rains while you're out riding? If you're going to mount panniers and bags in addition to the child seat handling and fun go down the tubes even more.

I never kept track of the miles we put on the Burley but it was a lot. Longest ride with it was maybe 30 miles. Lots of ride with stops for picnic lunch on the way, and just about every ride we would make stops at playgrounds. A ride might consist of a loop that had 3 playgrounds in it where you stop and your child You have to think about how to plan out your ride but you can still get base/easy miles pulling the trailer and have a good time. And if you have any hills you're getting a serious workout doing that. You can't stay in zone 1/2 without MTB gearing if you're going up any kind of hill pulling a trailer.

If you weren't in Oregon I'd try to sell you our Burley, our son has outgrown it. But it doesn't make much sense to sell that remotely as shipping would cost a ton.

It's not appropriate for real little kids but the Weehoo is super fun other than it's heavy weight. As silly as it sounds an aluminum or CF version would be the bees knees. You can't bunny hop with it and it severely limits your ability to ride over logs but it has a pretty huge envelope of capability on gravel and in the woods. My son LOVES it.

I've found the handling and comfort exceptional with the Burley.. easy to thread narrow spaces and everything with it. The Weehoo has been more of a learning curve, it's pretty hard to for example get out of the saddle if my son is pedaling. It can make it a bit tougher on your backside.

[binouye]

We used a bike seat when the kid was small, then Burley, then Chariot, then Weehoo (now tandem). The Keppler rear seat was good for keeping the kid close by, seemed to have good support for them, but doesn't work as the kid grows heavier -- it had limited use and in retrospect we should have switched to a trailer sooner. On the other, we even managed a short tour while kid was in that seat. We briefly had a used Burley trialer, didn't like it. We got a used high-end Chariot and it was great. We should have gotten it sooner, and could have used it with a child carrier mounting for when the kid was small (although then wouldn't have been close by). The Weehoo was great for spanning the gap between trailer and tandem.
As others said, good fenders are important for a trailer or weehoo! Otherwise they catch all the spray with their face.

[benb]

Just wanted to add we never had trouble talking to our son in the Burley unless the foul weather cover was closed.. I might have trouble understanding him if we were cranking along at 15-20mph and/or it was windy but I'd still hear him enough to know to slow down so I could understand.

My son was always large and loud though.

Now he's four and he sits back there in the weehoo and screams stuff like "let's hammer" and "let's get some air".

I've rented some Burleys that sucked too FWIW, they are not all the same, the newer/nicer models are really nice.