How to get two children onto one bike?

[Wilbur]

I want to take my two older children to school by bike. Ds1 is nearly 6 and dd is 3.5. Ds1 has been using the trailer bike for a while and is great with it but he's not ready to cycle on the roads by himself. I've recently seen a couple of people using delivery bikes/trikes with a big box on the front to transport up to three children around. Do you think this is safe? It seems as safe as a trailer to me, unless I'm missing something, esp if one can rig up some kind of seat belts inside. Or what about a normal trailer? I think ds1 might be too big for one of these now, but perhaps I'm wrong. Would really appreciate any thoughts from the cycling crowd.

Hmm, a heavy child in a rear seat can make the whole bike tip up, though, if the bike is light. I think they all end around 20 kg/40 lbs.

Just looked on the St John Street Cycles page and they don't appear to sell them at the moment. When they first bought them out they were £999 (gulp) but that rose quite a lot fairly quickly. We do indeed have one (now outgrown) in the garage. I think second hand are usually around £800 - you see them for sale in tandem club or CTC magazines quite regularly, and I know SJC sell them second hand too as they wrote to us asking if we wanted to trade it in or sell it through them about a year or so ago (maybe that was when they stopped being able to source new ones). At the time dh couldn't bear to part with it.

Um, I have spoken to tandem fans who say the triplets (like Me'n'U2) are really unwieldy, they suggested a tandem (childback if poss) with a trailer bike is better, less "banana" effect.

AS frequent user of trailer or a childback tandem (2 seater with child on back) I can't understand how someone could say the triplet is more stable than a trailer; a trailer is heavy but doesn't affect your stability at all, whereas I feel pretty wobbly on the tandem (and the child in back weighs hardly more than a third of me).

What about a tricycle with box seat (for 2) on the back, Wilbur? You could also do what I do, ride a childback tandem with a trailer for the little one (and the school bags). I don't know what your budget is like, but you can pick up these things up 2nd hand, look after them and sell on later for not much less.

You say DS1, like there is a DS2 lurking somewhere? So a double width trailer and eventually you could transport all 3 on bike, if desired.

we had a trailer behind a tandem before the triplet and I always found the triplet easier. It handles really well going along but does have a large turning circle. I would say you need strong arms when starting off and stopping however as you have to hold the weight of everything. By stability, I didn't mean stability when stationary, but when going along where we found the triplet much less wobbly. We also jack-knifed the trailer once when the rear wheel of the tandem punctured at speed, which could never happen with the triplet.

flack - that's really interesting, I didn't realise you could attach a trailer to a tandem. I worry about being so long in traffic though, but I suppose you take it easy and make sure the way is clear. I do like the idea of the trike (although you should have seen hardcore cyclist dh's face when I suggested it, lol) - as I said orginally I have seen them with boxes full of children in the front, but not with a box seat at the back - do you know where I might be able to see one?

bumping in case flack is around

Aha - now this is what I want! Brilliant bike!

Apparently there's somewhere in N London that will rent them out for the day so you can try it out. Dh is going to look into it and see if we think it will work. Cheaper to then import from Amsterdam. They are pretty ££ but if you put it against a tank of petrol a month and a gym membership (not that I have a gym membership, but you know...) then they are positively good value for money.