Your experiences with hitch-bikes

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Permalink Reply by Cory on April 17, 2010 at 10:36pm

Occasional use, or as a regular vehicle?

I'm a big fan of the Trailgator.

The way I see it, this is the most versatile option. The 'bike-and-a-half' (as my 4yo calls it) sorta means your stuck with that layout. With a TrailGator, you can ride attached/unattached with just a minute or so to connect/disconnect. My view for next year is for Thing1 to ride her bike next to me while I ride Thing2 to childcare (very close to home).

Then, I'll hitch her up and we'll ride to her primary school.

Oh yeah - also recently purchased a Bobike Mini for the littler one. She loves it! (mine was from eBay - they come up time to time). So a few times a week I do have my two girls attached to my ugly old bike.

If you do want to go the full-on road-train, it's certainly been done before. But, it's pretty heavy and tricky to turn etc. If you are looking at it for a oft-used solution, perhaps a BigDummy/Ute with a kid seated on the back of that, and a trailer in the rear?

There's also CargoBikes/Bakfietsen and a variety of three-wheeled variants (Christiania and others). You start getting way up there in the price, but if it offsets a car, it'll pay for itself in no time.

Permalink Reply by Jim Coates on June 8, 2010 at 10:23pm

When my son was about 6 months I put a bobike mini on the front of a mountain bike. We rode everywhere around inner melbourne. When my daughter was 6 months, she got the bobike seat and my son, now 3, went onto a bike seat on the rack. Heavy but stable, only awkward to get both kids on. When my daughter became too big for the bobike mini, she went into the bike seat and my son went onto a bike attached by a trailgator. I had to make an attachment for the rack but it worked well for ages. The trail gator is so much better than the half bikes. You can ride places with your kids riding by themselves and then tow them home when they are tired or tow them to a safe place to ride. Such a great piece of gear.

Permalink Reply by Cory on May 20, 2011 at 4:06pm

Just thought I'd report in that we're still loving the TrailGator, over a year later.

The 'family vehicle' in all of its splendour, although since last winter it's had some chrome guards added, for obvious reasons.  This gets used once or twice a week.  Thing2 in the BoBike mini, and Thing1 on, or off ;), the TrailGator.

Loving it so much, that I decided to increase the options.  Got a new seatpost.  Used the saddle the bike came with (used once for the ride home). Got another TrailGator hitch kit.

This way, I can just swap in/out the whole saddle and seatpost with a single allen bolt.  Quick.  Easy.

It's certainly twitchier handling than the family vehicle. But, Thing1 *LOVES* being attached to Daddy's "fast bike", as she calls it.  She was loving the speed.  I didn't have the heart to tell her I hadn't put it in the big ring.

 

Permalink Reply by Cory on April 17, 2010 at 10:59pm

Should've posted this before eh? I knew I'd seen it. (Stavros used to attach a trailer to his xtracycle too).

Permalink Reply by LongLoad on April 19, 2010 at 10:33am

We are on our second Tag-a-long, on of our main considerations in purchasing the second was that the Burley we bout attaches to a pannier type rack rather than the seatpost. This has two advantages - it is more stable than our seat-post attached tag-a-long, it doesn't lean to one side constantly. It also allowed us to attach it to bikes where there was not a lot of space between the seat and top of the seat tube.
After some initial hesitation I have also attached the trailer to the back of the tag-a-long, there are a number of guys in Portland, US who do this regularly and assured me they had not had any trouble. I have ridden up to 70km in a day with both attached. Yes it is a pain on some paths with tight bollards (we have left a permanent scratch on on section of the Yarra trail), and can be a bit slow at take off, but once you're rolling is great fun. I haven't had any safety issues with this set up, especially under brakes, which was my main concern.
My favoured set up for 2 Children and one adult is the tandem + trailer or tag-a-long, but adjusting the tandem to fit the child stoker can require other adjustmentsp>

Permalink Reply by Treadly and Me on April 19, 2010 at 5:56pm

Oooh, that Burley tagalong looks good. Is there an Australian distributor who carries that?

Permalink Reply by LongLoad on April 20, 2010 at 10:13am

Last time I checked the Aus Distributor was Greenspeed, they were bringing in a lot of their trailers, but were only just bringing in one or 2 tag-a-longs.

Permalink Reply by Roxanna Ayllon on March 1, 2013 at 2:19pm

Hi to all! How do you guys attach the trail gator after a child back seat? Also, how do I attach our bike carrier on my eldest son´s back wheel. As for riding in the rain (we live in the most rainy city within Southern Chile) could you share quick tips? Thanks so much!