My midlife crisis vehicle

This afternoon, I picked up the trail-a-bike from the shop-- it now sports a cool rear rack, on which I'm going to try to fit my 15 year-old panniers, so the kids can still take their lunches to school-- and hooked it up to the tandem. I then rounded up the kids, and we went for a two-mile ride.

My son is on the left, my daughter's in the middle, and I'm on the right.

Basically, this thing is the size of a truck (at one point I was reminded of the opening scene in Star Wars, with the Imperial battle cruiser that FILLED the screen as it pursued Princess Leia's craft), and it handles like one too. A truck you have to push. The kids are more enthusiastic than useful contributors to the energy system of the bike. But they do a good job of staying on.

It makes my regular mountain bike seem positively diminutive.

It's curious that there's not a bigger, more varied market in bike designs. Essentially, if you want to commute with your kids, and aren't in a place where they can ride safely on their own bikes, your options are very limited: while I'm enthusiastic about the tandem/trail-a-bike combination, it is big, and not very generous in the storage department. Why aren't there, say, more sidecars for bicycles? So far as I can tell, there's only on Canadian company that makes one for children that's available in the U.S. Or other kinds of multiperson bikes?

Maybe it's just an indicator of how unimportant bicycles are to the everyday life of most Americans. In other parts of the world, of course, bike designs are far more varied: people use them like trucks, have virtual stores attached to them, or commute to work in large numbers. Denmark, a nation roughly the size of San Jose, has a huge number of high-quality commuter bike manufacturers, because huge numbers of people have city commutes, and cars are insanely expensive. Maybe we'll catch up. In the meantime, I've got my own ride.

Technorati Tags: bicycles, menlo park

Comments

[robertogreco]

Alex-

I've stumbled across your blog a couple of times now, the first time through a link to your "Journeyman" essay. I appreciate your insights on many of the topics you cover, especially education and your experience with the Peninsula School, as I am teacher at a private school.

Anyway, with regard to this post, I have been commuting by bike for over five years, and my children are now old enough to ride along with me to the supermarket, etc. Unfortunately, we find that our destinations involve routes that are unsafe for them to tag along. Here's a link to my favorite family bike solution. It's from Denmark, of course. It's also out of my price range, but with design likw this, more people might consider biking regularly.

[Alex Soojung-Kim Pang]

The Triobike IS a brilliant machine, and if the kids were younger, it would be my first choice. But one reason I've got to go with the tandem/trailer combo is that the children now refuse to be driven-- they want to pedal, too. (Or they think they want to, until it gets hard. Then they're happy to just coast.)

And at 3,000 Euros, before shipping-- that's, like, a used car.

[Jeremy Hubble]

It gets even more challenging if there are 3 kids involved. We had eyeballed the "Nihola Big" (the equivalent of a bike minivan - from Denmark, of course.) However, that could be a real challenge to move. A front carrier plus trailer worked, though only when they are small enough. I wonder if anybody has experimented with totally different geometries or power mechanisms for multi-person bikes? (How about a compact recumbent with riders on top of each other?) I suppose if there were more people devoted to family travel, then there may be more innovations.

[Paul Metz]

What type of tandem are you riding in the picture? I am looking for a tandem that will let my 7-year-old reach the pedals and still have room to connect a trail-a-bike; the co-motion periscope scout will let him reach the pedals, but then there is no room to attach the trail-a-bike. I may be going back to bike/trail-a-bike/trailer to handle both kids and let my wife ride w/o dragging a child herself, but I'd prefer a solution that allows them all to pedal if they wish. I'm in San Jose, CA, and I am reachable at nypcmjunk-general@yahoo.com