Advice needed please from those who cycle with children to school

[dinosaursdontwhine]

A question for you if you cycle to school with your infant school child/ren: what do you use? Rear seat? Trailer? Tagalong? Unfortunately I can't get one of those with the "boat" on the front as my bike lives in a narrow locker at the park and cycle site on Madingley Road.

I have one child to transport, who will be 4 at the start of the next school year. At the moment I only have to cycle him about 1 mile and we use a rear seat or trailer. but from September we'll be cycling approx 3 miles, into the city centre, from West Cambridge. I'm expecting him to be very tired at the end of the day (in Reception) so my worry with a tagalong, when he's mastered the balancing, is that he would fall asleep at the end of the day and fall off!

I'm planning in advance because I want to buy a new bike for myself, and there is no point buying one that will accommodate the Hamax rear seat (on a rack) if you tell me he'll be too old for it very soon.

I find the trailer a bit heavy already.... dreading to think how it will be when he is bigger and the distance is longer!

I don't cycle with kids but thought it might be worth mentioning schoolruncentre.co.uk/ in case you don't already know of it; it's just off Mill Road and you can try out their bikes etc around their little yard. I also wonder whether the wheel size of a trailer mightn't make a big difference to how hard it is to tow, along with the weight?

Rats, forgot to tick the linkify box. Actual link:

schoolruncentre.co.uk/

That's better.

Thank you very much - I'd never heard of that place. I'll be going to see them asap.

We made our reception child cycle 2 miles to and from school.

DS1 outgrew the trailer for longer trips when he was 5; he's not particularly big, so you might be OK to begin with, and I'm sure you'll get used to the extra mileage!
I think you can get seats for older children though, which might be worth researching.

Hello. BoBike do a rear seat for older kids, think it goes up to 8 years or so. Its a very simple, right angle seat, sturdy too. Kingsway cycles, cambridge were (maybe still are) listed as a distributor but when I spoke to them they said although they try, they cannot get hold of the seats. I have heard from another cambridge mum that she got hers from Chesterton bike shop by Victoria bridge. The shop owner orders them especially from europe. I may still get one too, as my youngest is too big for hamax now at 4 and half. Good luck.