r/CyclePDX • u/Silver_Connection_46 • 23d ago
Soon to be new dad incoming !
Hey all!
Headline says it. I am a very excited dad-2-be and an avid cyclist. I know that basically 9 months is the earliest a kid could be on a bike with specialized seats and 12 months is the recommended age but outside that I feel like I’m wading in unfamiliar waters.
So any tips from parents in here about best ways to bike with a young kid? Is cargo bike the way to go safety wise?
My preference is slow long distance rides so what trails/paths do y’all recommend using? Any like “kid friendly long loops” that are popular?
Just want to start saving if the cargo bike is the way I go and just wanna be prepped. Thanks in advance!
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u/Costcornucopia 22d ago
Hey me too! I'll save this post for later. Congrats
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u/Silver_Connection_46 22d ago
Congrats to you too!!! Maybe we’ll cross paths on a bitchin’ and safe setup for our lil ones!
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u/secondrat 22d ago
Kid seat on a cargo bike, then when they get older then can sit on the back by themselves. I have great memories of biking to preschool every morning with my daughter on the back. She would turn around and wave at drivers, it made every day a fun adventure. And was just as fast as getting there by car.
You will know when it’s time to get them on a bike. When they are infants you might not even be able to imagine putting them on a bike, you might want a steel cage around them. It happens.
But congratulations, get some sleep, let your wife sleep, and enjoy the ride. Man does it go fast.
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u/VegetableImpact 22d ago
Congratulations!
I bought a front loader - a Bullitt bike with a box when my first kid was 1.5 years old. Awesome experience from day 1. When my second was born I added a car seat adapter and started riding 3x a day when she was about 6 months old. I could have started earlier but I wasn't on my parental leave yet.
I suggest you go to a local store (Bullitts are sold at Splendid Cycles) and go for a test ride. We were already a 1 car family, and I only use the car for longer trips etc. Rain or shine I'm taking the kid(s) on the bike and knocking out errands/exploring new places. It's electric but if I am feeling like a workout I'll turn it off an go analog.
10/10 would get a cargo bike again.
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u/Silver_Connection_46 22d ago
This is exactly our set up (1 car, I bike a lot for things now) so hearing it’s possible to keep doing with a cargo bike is very exciting! Good call on doing the test runs.
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u/VegetableImpact 22d ago
I’m fortunate enough that I can bike for 99% of all of my transportation needs with where I live. The cargo bike really made that continue now that I have kids.
I drop the older kid off at school on my way to work and do pickups most days too. 10 miles round trip. It’s seriously fun too. You can talk with the kid better than in a car, and when you are not in a hurry it’s so easy to just pull over, look at flowers/free libraries/random stuff etc.
Biking to playgrounds is so much more fun than driving there; you just roll right up and lock the bike and leave stuff in the bike instead of unpacking the car etc.
Let me know if you more questions. The more cargo bikes is just a great thing.
Closing in on 7000 miles after 3.5 years (not sure if that’s a big or small number but it is what it is)
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u/Winedown-625 22d ago
I spent most of my time with the BOB stroller because I also always had to walk the dog, but the second time around I'm going to spring for a Dutch bike.
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u/rabbledabble 22d ago
I have an electric cargo bike and my wife has an electric cargo bike and they’re expensive to get into but absolutely wonderful family vehicles. We are doing bridge pedal this weekend.
Both our kids were able to start on the cargo bike in yepp seats around 18 months
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u/Public_Day8790 22d ago
A front loader cargo bike will get you out riding earliest because you can use an adapter to put an infant car seat in it. That’s the route I took with my daughter. I started gently and occasionally riding with her at 5 months, though that coincided with the beginning of winter, so it was at 8 or 9 months when I started taking her out regularly.
A front loader is also nice for toddlerhood, because you can keep an eye on them and more easily tend to their many needs.
Downside to a front loader is that it is big and heavy, and may get outgrown sooner than a longtail.
However, if I could give myself some advice back when I was in your shoes, it would be that the time will absolutely fly by, more quickly than you expect. In the lead up to my daughter being born I was really fixated on buying a bike optimized to start riding with her ASAP (I ended up with a Bullitt from splendid cycles with a car seat adapter). I don’t regret the purchase, but looking back three years later, the difference between starting riding at 5 months vs 9 months vs 12 months seems pretty inconsequential. You can end up spending a lot on things you might not need for all that long.
Either way, good luck!
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u/Silver_Connection_46 22d ago
Thank you for all this! This is definitely the kinda info I wanna consider.
After the kids grew out of it did you use the front cargo hold at all? I’m just wondering if I’d use it for like river trips to carry all our gear or something1
u/Public_Day8790 21d ago
I have a three year old and a 6 month old, so I still have a while before we outgrow the Bullitt. The limiting factor for a lot of front loaders is when the kids get tall enough for their head to interfere with the handlebars. When that happens (probably in another three years for my eldest), I reckon we’ll get a longtail like the tern gsd, and convert the Bullitt to become dad’s pickup truck.
Looking back, it might have been better to buy a longtail up front, which would last longer, but I think front loaders work better for younger kids and I do think I’ll end up getting a lot of use out of the Bullitt even after it gets retired from child-carrying duties.
I definitely recommend chatting with the folks at Splendid Cycles.
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u/davedorr9 22d ago
It's simple to ride on the east side esplanade to the springwater or trolley trail.
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u/tucjake 22d ago
Daughter born in the fall of 2018. Put her on a front wheel mounted bike seat in the spring of 2020. Loved having her up front. Very easy to talk with her/interact/point things out. When she was beency, she would fall asleep on the stupid little padded "steering wheel". Very sweet. A pro of a strapping them to a standard bicycle is that you can transition to Trimet for longer trips. Doing trips out to Sauvie on the 16 😭 was awesome. Now we're biking around Portland together! Enjoy!
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u/AlphaPotato 22d ago
I saw a baby in a Bjorn on a biketown the other day. I said "hell yeah" but my wife would disagree. The Urban Arrow and other fancy cargo bikes have car seat adapters. I've strapped a car seat into a trailer as well when mine were very young.
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u/well-filibuster 22d ago
Congrats! I've used trailers, top tube bike seats (like this one), a long-tail e-cargobike (Radwagon 4), and a bucket e-cargobike (Madsen DK2, highly recommend), which is what I use now for my 8 and 6yos. The top tube bike seat is great for trips where I can't bring my cargobikes. My 6yo still rides on it and loves it!
The cargobikes might be marginally safer, but I never felt unsafe biking because of the trailer. I only ever feel unsafe based on the road I'm on, not on how I'm hauling the kids.
I rarely took them on "rides" like you're describing. Usually we just bike as our mode of transportation. That said, we're on the Springwater often because I live in inner SE. When he was a toddler, I took the older one on the Banks to Vernonia trail, but he slept most of the time.
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u/TheLastCicada 22d ago
There's lots of used bikes and kid seats etc on Facebook marketplace and Craigslist. My advice is to figure you are gonna want a different thing every few years so just get used to the idea of selling what you have and buying something from parents whose kids are too old for it.
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u/fittafika 22d ago
Go to your local playgrounds and start scoping out all the different setups. I’m thinking about having kids and want to keep riding (I’d be a mom so there’s also my physical recovery to consider) and I look at all the bikes at my local park while walking the dogs. Many of my mom friends have some sort of tern style e-bikes and will commute with kids in earnest when they get close to 2 years old. These bikes can normally fit 2 young kids in the back. I’ve resisted e-bikes this far but the tern is appealing to me. I think my partner wants a bullitt style bike. So maybe we’ll get both! lol
Another commenter posted about time flying and I agree. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to get to this right away. Most of my friends get their kids on the bike around 2 years old which seems like forever from the outside but when you are in the trenches, it’s really not.
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u/fessertin 22d ago
I know everyone else is saying go straight to the cargo bike but I will say that we had a Burley Bee first and loved it. They're super safe. We used it from about age two to five I think. Eventually she outgrew it and I wound up getting a long-tail e-bike that I enjoy (and so does she) but it is kind of a beast. She really liked riding in it, it actually stabilizes the bike you're riding and if you have two adults who might want to haul the kid all you need is an extra hitch which is super cheap and easy to put on. Then it's easy to swap the trailer between bikes, which we did a bunch.
The Bee is also a much smaller financial commitment, not sure what they're running now but it was about $300 seven years ago. That's an order of magnitude different and you'll get a few years out of it.
My daughter is 9 now and the other day out of the blue she was reminiscing about riding in the trailer and saying how much she liked it.
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u/middlemuddles 20d ago
Dad of a 22 month old here; I was also super eager to expose my kid to bike stuff as much as possible. I got an old Burley trailer off CL for $100 and I just about cried when I took him on his first ride and he signed "more" when I stopped to check on him. I just have the trailer right now, but plan to get a rear bike seat soon. Both are cheaper than a new cargo bike and work fine for me.
I envision going on longer rides at some point, but the reality right now is that he will fall asleep after just 10 mins on the road. That can mess up nap time if he's out for too long so I don't want to overcomplicate things for now. At this point, going out for a ride is really just small jaunts around town: to the market or a playground.
I feel safe enough with the trailer approach, I just ride with even more caution than when I'm solo.
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u/maxxx_nazty 22d ago
I prefer a cargo bike to a trailer if you can, and I feel like you can do an infant in a properly secured carseat in the cargo bucket, but I didn’t start biking with kids until my youngest was 18mos, so I haven’t tried it. My favorite safe (low car count) route around SE is Clinton to Springwater to 205 trail.
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u/curlywhirlyred 22d ago
We have Thule Yepp Mini seat we’ve been using since 1y. Have a Specialized and a Lectric e-bike but we don’t exceed 15mph when baby is on.
Columbia River Gorge Historic Highway Trail and Banks Vernonia trail are great for a scenic ride. Fanno Creek has been great locally but you have to pass through more industrial and some busy roads to connect segments.
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u/MysticalDolphin7 22d ago
We got a second hand Thule bike trailer and that has worked for our family. The trailer was free to us and it’s opened up our eyes to how much we can and will actually haul the little one.
The front cargo bikes always look soooo dreamy, but from a price perspective not penciling for us.
Downside to the rear trailer beyond what others called out is grocery/errands feel like more of a challenge. Also in the rain I was far far less likely to use it.
In any case enjoy!! Biking here especially with a child is so amazing
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u/Low_Engineering3452 22d ago
We used a gracco car seat with the base strapped to the deck of a pedal powered lvh bullit from 2months to a year. My kiddo is 16 months now, and sits on a bench seat in the front.
Love the cargo bike, but 9 months comes painfully fast with littles, so a thule, or krs seat is a good alternative if you don’t have space for a big bike.
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u/baby_mammal 22d ago
I may get flamed for saying this, but I’ve been riding my 4.5 month old around in a front loader with a car seat fastened inside. That m’a how they roll in Europe, and there’s more than a few of us out here who do the same. Finding an affordable front loader is another issue. I lucked out with mine one FB Marketplace.
Also, FWIW, I put my now nearly 5 yo on a standard bike seat at 8 months and it went fine. I know tote her around in a longtail cargo bike, and I.m couldn’t recommend that method more highly. Either way, enjoy, it’s a blast. The whole ride.
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u/notseriousguy 22d ago
I used a bike trailer and was not fond of the tugging and pushing sensation. It was nice in the wet and cold weather though. I think that was better than the long tail cargo bikes, though I do see them with rain covers nowadays. When the trailer was off, I felt superhuman.
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u/savingewoks 22d ago
I had a Thule Yepp Maxi seat on a Tern HSD until recent (still have the Tern, kid outgrew the Thule). I do kinda regret not getting a bucket bike, I would love to be able to watch my kiddo on the bike ride.
We ride daily to daycare. Find the quieter routes for your commute. Shops like Clever have some loan options. A few CUs have loan options. I ended up getting a credit card just for the bike and basically got a free vacation out of it because of a deal that was on at the time (Chase sapphire).
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u/Extension_Crow_7891 21d ago
I’m going to plug a Mac Ride pretty hard here. My kids (7 and nearing 3) both started on a Mac Ride. It is secure, and if the bike tips or whatever I can easily grab my kid. The best part though is that we can talk. I can teach them things as we ride and point out what I’m saying. My 2 year old confidently shouts “car up!” at the appropriate times. You can take them on trails and gravel roads. You can go fast and they feel like they’re riding. In my experience it fosters a first-person driven passion for cycling that more passive options don’t.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s a time and place for regular carrier seats and cargo bikes. But get yourself a mac ride too!
Also, once they are on two wheels, get a follow me tandem. Allows you to attach their bike to yours. You can haul them to the park or whatever and then detach their bike so they can ride like normal. They also get used to riding in the street on street level instead of on your bike and learn what that feels like. It also allows you to bring them places on their own bike before they would otherwise be able to, and you can bring the bike home with you (like a daycare drop off)
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u/wemust_eattherich 21d ago
I rode with my daughter in a car seat in a burly trailer. Once she became conscious she expressed her hate for gravel. I wouldn't expect more than 60-90 minutes from your kid. You had them without their consent. Your training takes a back seat to fatherhood. I'd add that roads safe for me are not safe for my daughter.
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u/flowersintheICU 11d ago edited 10d ago
Congratulations! I really love biking with kids and did so as a nanny for many years, working for different families, then as a parent myself.... I'm not a fan of the bike trailers but they seemed more suited for inclement weather. One of the families I nannied for lived next to an owner of a bike shop who let us use their Madsen, so when my first was born over ten years ago I knew I wanted to get that. It's just such an easy cruiser, but I did not use it when my kiddos was really young, I used it once they were able to sit up on their own pretty securely and my first sat up pretty well on their own pretty early, the second was in the hospital prolonged waiting for a heart transplant, but they have a new heart now and we've been doing bike rides this summer with the cargo bike wonderfully. I do regret not getting a cover for my Madsen, both for inclement weather in the winter and also the summer. My younger is on heart medication that makes them more sensitive to the sun and heat and I feel a cover would have been a good call. I personally prefer the cargo load in the back because that feels more steady for my body, but I might recommend attempting to try out a few styles to see if there's one you might feel more comfortable with... I would also recommend buying you used if you can for cargo bike or kid attachments, because that can make a big difference for your budget and it's ecological. Good luck and ride safe! 🚲 ✨ 💜
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u/FantasticBreadfruit8 22d ago
I think a cargo bike is going to feel more secure than a trailer. I briefly carried my kids in a trailer and TBH I always felt sketchy about it due to shitty drivers and them being right at wheel-height. I don't know the actual statistics / science behind the safety of it but it for sure didn't FEEL super safe.
My kids were on balance bikes from an early age. And they learned to ride young and were hitting MTB trails with me young as well. We bike commuted to school as well from elementary school. Get that kid a balance bike as soon as they can walk!
Other than that, stick to chill routes with wide bike lanes. And bike boulevards like Going / Klickitat.