Child bike seats and trailers, which is best? A cyclist’s guide to parenting part 2

Summary

The most exciting moment as a parent has to be sharing your passions with your children. Getting a child onto your bike for even just a short slow ride is a standout moment in the relentlessness of wiping bottoms and removing crayon from your freshly painted walls. 

You will reach this monumental milestone somewhere around 9 months to a year old, on a day that it is actually warm and sunny. There is a lot of pressure on the first time going well, one bad experience may take months to forget. So cold and wet should be avoided until cycling is established.  

You have three main child seat options for getting a child on a bike, and they all have advantages and disadvantages: The trailer, the seat behind you and the seat between your legs, we’ll look at these in detail in this post, but first here are the basics. 

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Creative cycling – Exclusive designs by, erm… me.

Rouleur T-Shirt Designed by me, available from RedBubble

So as I write this we’re in lockdown in England. Government advice has been to exercise outside once a day, which I have saved for taking my daughter out for a walk (or roll around on the bikes) to get her to sleep as she’s only a year old. So my main cycling has been on a turbo trainer, getting sweaty in the garage in front of Youtube. So nothing interesting to write about actual cycling wise. Being a designer I have used my time to do something creative however, and as this is my blog and I make the rules I thought it appropriate to do a bit of shameless self-promotion on it.

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Pearl Izumi PI DRY – First Look + Video

I’ve managed to get my hands on, or rather my “legs in” some of the Pearl Izumi PI DRY fabric. The fabric has every single strand coated with a water repellent coating before weaving into the fabric. So the theory is that the garment can be fully breathable (as breathable as standard dry weather fabrics) whilst providing water protection, avoiding that clammy feeling of waterproof clothing and keeping the rider warm and comfortable. Continue reading

Turbine – Sports Breathing Technology – Review

I’ve been testing out Turbine, a breathing assistance device, over the past few months. You may have seen some bloke on the telly using it over the past few years, Froome or something. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? He won a yellow jumper or something. Or perhaps like me you just though he had his nose pierced and wore a ring in it? Anyway, that’s a pretty big endorsement. So whatever I say about it you’re already intrigued right?  Continue reading

Is PI Dry the holy grail of cycling kit?

Even inside out the PI Dry fabric repels water

Waterproof and breathable, the holy grail of outdoor sports clothing. It’s something that’s claimed when marketing most technical clothing, but it’s always a trade off between the two. Just how breathable or how waterproof do things need to be to be classified as just that? What we really want is something that’s as waterproof as a hardshell jacket, and as breathable as a normal cycling top. But that’s just fantasy right? Well maybe not anymore… Continue reading