Have I talked about our bike seat? No? Well, I should've, because it's awesome.
We
always knew we'd be finding some way to bike with Chip. We've given up
on the long weekend jaunts for the time being, and most of our large
stable is sitting unused in the garage, but we still want cycling to
play some part in our lives, and we wanted it to play some part in
Chip's life from as early as possible. We ended up waiting until
shortly after Chip's first birthday; most advice I've seen recommends
waiting until one, on the assumption that toddlers can sit and hold
themselves well by that stage, plus we weren't exactly flush after
Christmas, especially with the big first birthday also on the horizon.
We did a little bit of research ourselves, but we are
fortunate to have a number of Bike Expert friends, including a few with
roughly Chip-sized small people in their lives. Chatting with them and a
couple of online searches convinced us that we wanted:
- a seat, not a trailer; and
- mounted on the front, not back, handlebars.
This
left us with two frontrunners- the Weeride Kangaroo, and the
Ibert. Most of the people we spoke to couldn't really give us
much reason to go for one or the other, other than the Weeride was
better if your child was likely to drop off while out riding (HA!).
Since our friends liked their ibert, and it came in a snazzy green, we
went with the ibert.
We started off by attaching the seat to Phil's mountain
bike. I was still a tad nervous about riding with the baby, and we
were hoping to go down to the forest to christen the seat as soon as we
could! . We found that the various criticisms
we'd seen of the seat in online reviews were pretty apt- basically,
steering takes a second or two to get used to, and it tends to require
you to ride just a weeny bit bowlegged. But, given our intentions as
far as family rides go, these things are no big deal- we're not gnarly
enough to take Chip on the kinds of trails that would require steep
uphills and technical skillz.
After a few family rides, we moved the seat to Penelope, my town bike.
I'm home with the boy two days a week and he was starting to ask for
bike rides (by saying "BIKE, BIKE" or by fetching helmets) every
afternoon I had him. I originally wanted to use my mountain bike, as
Penelope is rather heavy and clumsy, but Phil persuaded me and I'm glad I
listened to him. There's a lot more room for Chip's legs under the
handlebars, and no need for me to adjust my legs much at all.
Chip and I probably go for a ride on 80% of our
together days, usually in the mid-afternoon, and I'm guessing for about
40 minutes to an hour at a time. We both prefer the bike over the
stroller (though it's not as good a workout for me); Chip because he
likes going that bit faster and sitting that bit higher (I think)
and me because it's so very much easier to interact with him. I can
hear him talk and see him sign "more"; I can reach snacks/water in my
basket and I can talk to him about what we see, where we're going, and
road safety (I do this while jogging too, but we're much closer on the
bike). I feel safe knowing where he is and what he's doing at all
times. The downsides are that we get stuck in traffic/at intersections a
little more, which really seems to get up Chip's nose (for this reason,
use of the bike for errands has been minimal), and that Chip thinks he
should be the one holding the handlebars and I disagree!
All in all, the ibert has been a great purchase and I'd happily recommend it to anyone looking to bike with their little one.
