So I’m hoping to get the kids out of the house and into the hills, my eldest daughter is six years old and rides an Early Rider Belter Trail.

I’m thinking of adding a FollowMe Tandem to the back of my Surly ECR (Assuming it’ll fit) and towing her up the hills and through traffic etc.

One down..

Now, the question is what to do with number two? She’s approaching three and needs to be seated. We have a chariot that I use for school duties. One idea would be to bolt that onto the Early Rider to create a small train. I got the idea from Charles Scott: http://familyadventureguy.blogspot.com/

I’m just wondering if the Early Rider/FollowMe combo will be strong enough to tow the Chariot?

Any other ideas?

Oh, and number three is a work in progress, we’ll have to squeeze him in somewhere, along with the tent.

Kid back tandem, follow me tandem and child seat?

One on a trailgator and one on the crossbar has worked for a friend until the big one could ride alone, then the little one moved to the trailgator. If you time it right no reason why this couldn’t carry on indefinitely, each moving up one slot each time.

The Child Seat mounted behind the saddle? Could be an option, especially for short rides out.

I’m thinking of doing bigger two/three day rides out, I’d need the space behind the saddle to store stuff like the tent and sleeping bags.

Crossbar seat could be an idea… So they hold onto the bars with you? Good training that. Would really have to avoid having an over the bars moment though!

Adams Tandem trail-a-bike with chariot attached?

The shop I used to work at was occasionally graced with the presence of full on ‘Family train’ Mum and dad on tandem, 2 older kids on an Adams and then 2 more younger ones in a Chariot on the back of the trailer bike.

Quite impressive once in motion but 3 point turns must have been… interesting.

This looks pretty stable, I think I’ll check that out: http://www.stickybottle.com/latest-news/video-ever-wanted-to-bring-your-child-out-training-with-you-well-now-you-can/

FollowMe and Macride / Weeride / Loct. (Crossbar seats)

I have a Mac ride and love it but their manufacturing / delivery has been rough to say the least.. they’ve moved to a new factory so it might be better.

I would be wary about building a train.

I once tried attaching a Follow Me (with a Cnoc 14) and a rear child seat to our tandem. We had a brief roll down the road and it basically went sideways, it was barely controllable. No way would I have ridden it anywhere.

I think two articulated trailers and the additional weight of a child on your own bike would produce a similar result, and that carrying multiple children is probably only practicable with a multi-seat trailer or with a bakfiets or similar. I would imagine even the tandem trailer bike above could become alarmingly difficult in certain scenarios.

Though that’s merely conjecture and a note of caution; if other people have actually managed to get it working with no loss of control then there must be ways to get it to work adequately, for some value of “adequately” 🙂

I used a LOCT cross bar seat for when my children were young enough, then a trailer on the back worked

Ended up taking my daughter on the LOCT till she was nearly 6 (she is small) and my son until nearly 5 on it.

I think they are great cos they can actually see whats going on and you can easily talk to them

Only trouble is getting hold of them now, unless secondhand

With the train idea and towing a double seat trailer, I’d be worried about jack knifing under braking, as there’s not going to be much weight on the rear wheel of the 6yo’s bike relative to the mass in the trailer.

Or even a single. But yeah, I wouldn’t want to be the one on the Follow-Me when dad hits the anchors.

Thanks for your comments, I’m also wondering about the physics of building up a train, but then again Mr Scott did manage it, I guess I’ll have to read his book to find out.

I think I’ll give a crossbar seat a go.

I could also just tow the chariot along and if number one gets too tired put her in it and strap the bike on the back, I’ll experiment a bit, thanks! 🙂

Kiddyback tandem and tagalong. You’ll be so slow on any incline but on the downhills, well let’s just say 40 mph is not difficult!

The most smiles/mile of any bike I have ever owned. Get one before they grow up too much. You will never regret it.

It might be time for a new bike… I LOVE my cargo bike…
I’ve even had the wife and son on the back, and Bubba on the front!

A weeride type seat is lovely – you can chat and tickle the little’un..

Could ter a tag along for it too!

DrP

I suspect the train would probably work OK *until* you hit the brakes (or need to turn around in a confined space), as a trailer doesn’t affect the side-to-side balance.

Ha! Great to see I’m not the only crazy daddy out there! 😉

Spotted a fella on one of these today, he had one girl up front and was towing another behind, looks pretty good… https://hasebikes.com/95-1-Tandem-PINO-ALLROUND.html … and pretty pricey too.

Circe Helios tandem? I think they can take a small stoker as well as a child seat.

A single pivot is fine. Two pivots would not be my choice, particularly under hard braking. Also the weight is substantial. My tandem/tagalong picks up speed downhill very quickly. Uphill is basically anaerobic threshold workouts!

Btw, my two are much older and bigger than me, those are two of my nieces. Buy a kiddyback when the first is about four, you’ll get 6-10 years of use, then you can sell it for what you paid.

I always wanted a Haze Pino, well actually I wanted a Bilenky Counterpoint Opus, but they were just far too much money (still are). Circe make an affordable option now. Thorn are the go to for kiddyback. Mine was one of the last Dawes twocans made. They do come up on ebay and the tandem group facebook page. I paid about £500 new plus another £300 in modifications and a further £200 for the Burley Picollo (since sold).

And the law states that a bicycle for multiple occupants must be adapted for such. Sitting on the back of a cargo bike doesn’t count (unless you add child seats). But there is no limits to how many you can add!

kiddy back tandem is what you need, how fortuitous i have one for sale in the classifieds!!

Most we’ve managed together has been 3 – but that’s with two in a twin trailer and one seated on the weeride up front. Have been using a trailgator recently but have found them to tilt a little to one side!

I’d bite karnali’s hand off for that one. Is it a large or a small? – they came in two sizes, small has a kinked top tube.

I won’t be selling mine any year soon 😉