Child Bike trailers. Shaken baby?

[Mr Blister]

I have a 4 month old baby and have just bought myself/ her a Burley D'lite trailer and a weber Infant Seat and new born headholder thingy.

I have looked all over the internet and really cant find anything which suggests whether or not it is actually safe to use it! the webber seat is recommended for children up to 9 months and so is clearly designed for newborns. I'm not worried about the neck thing as she seems to have a fairly strong neck and as I am only cycling on cycle paths I am not using a helmet so as not to pt additional strain on her neck.

I recently had a touring holiday in Holland and babies in/ on bicycles was a common sight over there but I have never seen a sub 1 year baby in/ on a bicycle in the UK.

Any thoughts / advice?

Thanks in advance.

[meic]

My daughter started at 6 weeks, with some rather large mileages and fairly often on rough surfaces.

She was in a cheap expanded polystyrene car baby cradle/seat.
I folded the backrest in the trailer away and the chair went on the nylon seat of my ancient Burley D'lite.

Then I got some nylon straps and suspended the seat from the aluminium tube above the seat.
The weight was then shared between the nylon seat below and the straps the carseat dangled from.
I figured that this would smooth out shocks fairly well.

As she got old enough to show visible emotions it was obvious that she really enjoyed the rough bits of the ride!
As a six week old she had me cycling around in circles at every rest stop while everyone else socialised.
If I stopped she started to cry, so it cant have been bothering her to get bounced around.

[meic]

From a different angle,

My daughter is a perfectly healthy, fit happy individual BUT if for some reason other than the trailer rides she had developed a defect. I would not be convinced it wasnt due to that and others would be convinced that it was!!

[Vorpal]

Don't worry about it! Enjoy cycling with your little one. The vibration in a bike trailer is no worse than in push buggies and things. They might get some slightly bigger bumps, but the pneumatic tyres, cloth seats and things also do more to dampen them. And the road surface is usually better than the pavements.

Use the webber until your little one can sit up. Both my children cycled from young ages, though we didn't have a trailer yet when my oldest started cycling, so she was big enough for a child seat, then (9 months?). I don't remember exactly when littlest started riding in the trailer, but he wasn't older than 6 months. We gave up our second car when littlest was 6 months old, so he went most places in the bike trailer after that. When we went to the zoo, it was a 25ish mile round trip. He usually slept the whole way!

There have been other threads on this, and related, topics...

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=50101

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36495

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=47636

[Mr Blister]

I took her for a gentle 6 mile ride yesterday, she slept most of the way and giggled the rest so I'm fairly happy that she cant have been too unhappy!If the weather stays like this it will only be very occasional rides this summer anyway!

[Vorpal]

The passenger(s) in a bicycle trailer are very well protected from the elements. I found that in winter weather, I had to put blankets under my children, rather than over them. Otherwise, condensation from the temperature difference would make the seat damp.

Of course if mum or dad isn't willing to go out in horrible weather...

[eileithyia]

My son was in the suspended nylon integral seat as supplied with the trailer we used.. I adapted to lie flatter and, as the space underneath, was space due being suspended... I padded it out with some old pillows... he often slept for much of his journeys inc some seriousl rough stuff.

[[XAP]Bob]

Kids aren't significantly weaker here than in the netherlands, adults are.

I've towed my little ones around since they could sit up - I never needed to tow them younger than that, but would have used one of the german slings.
Think about the number of joggers out and about with the "jogging buggies"

[PT1029]

Worth checking instructions re tyre pressures. I vaguely recall (from working in a bike shop years ago) somewhere in Burly (or Chariot) instructions (not prominantly) it mentioned keep tyre pressures low (30psi?) to prevent it tipping over on uneven surfaces.

Burley make them well. I saw a Burley child trailer at a trade show some years ago. It caught my eye as it looked a tad scuffed (not what you would expect on a trade stand). The blurb mentioned that the trailer (no child on board) had been returned for inspection after it had been hit broadside on on a roundabout by a car doing 30mph. The trailer looked undamaged. Burley gave them a new one so they could exhibit the old one.

[meic]

My trailer hasnt shown the slightest hint of turning over and I ride with quite silly tyre pressures in it at times, 60-70psi. My daughter quite enjoys the sensation.

However you have two tyres holding a very small weight, so the trailer is quite adequately served by 30psi in any size tyre with its normal load of around 20Kg. This makes about 15kg per wheel which is almost nothing.

Also no need to worry about grip on the tyres, they just follow and need little grip.
I suppose though that if you push the limits of its weight capacity and load it with a high CofG then funny things could happen.

The big handicap is that you have to find a suitable bit of road surface for three separate tyre tracks. The bike's wheels are the important ones which should be kept on the prime tarmac but on narrow lanes that isnt possible and the bike has to ride on the gravel pile between the car tracks, which is "bad news".

[Vorpal]

I keep mine at about 40 psi, but I don't think it would make much difference. A surface would have to be really rough to tip a trailer. The only time mine has ever been in danger of tipping has been due to going up the kerb with one wheel. It didn't tip, but it was a near thing. I think if I'd had weight (i.e. a child) in it, it would have been more stable.

[[XAP]Bob]

I have tipped my trailer. It was unloaded and I clipped a speedbump with one wheel at speed. Oops.

[Smudge]

Have a read of this from Friedel ... she is a very knowledgeable tourer

http://travellingtwo.com/12466

[hamster]

Both my sons rode in the trailer when small. You really only need tiny tyre pressures - inflate enough so the tyre isn't looking flat - it will probably be only 10psi. That way you get the maximum shock absorption from the tyre.
The load on each wheel is probably only 15lbs or so, so at 15psi that's still only a 1 sq inch contact patch on the road and the tyre barely looks distorted - the same as a road tyre with an adult on it (say 70psi and 70lbs weight per wheel).

I found that a car seat 'bucket' worked best - I bought an old one and built it into the trailer. If the baby is well-reclined, then the neck loading is minimised and sleeping is more comfortable.

[Vorpal]

Have a read of this from Friedel ... she is a very knowledgeable tourer

http://travellingtwo.com/12466

She may be a very knowledgeable tourer, and in fact, I think there is some good advice, there. But also remember that this is written from an American perspective. I am a US American, and I think that Americans over-react to potential dangers, especially when it comes to children. The travellingtwo website includes the following:

We wanted to be sure, however, so we asked 3 paediatricians, several nurses, 2 midwives, a children’s physiotherapist, several keen cycling parents and a few people working in the bike manufacturing industry for their opinion.

There was no particular concern about taking a young baby on a bicycle, starting from about 6 weeks old, with these caveats:

•The baby should be in a car seat mounted in a bakfiets, or in a high quality trailer.
•Routes should be chosen to avoid cobblestones and other rough surfaces.
•Speed should be moderate.
In addition:

•Hold off on longer trips. Our doctor recommended waiting 3 months before doing any long bike trips, to make sure the baby’s back develops properly. Note: she was not overly worried about vibrations to his brain; an oft-cited fear when parents talk about the effects of cycling too early. She said it was okay to start with short trips at an earlier age as long as we picked smooth bike paths and not bumpy cobblestones.
•Don’t put a helmet on a very young baby. If the helmet doesn’t fit properly or if the baby isn’t strong enough to hold up his head with the weight of the helmet, the helmet will do more harm than good.
•A lot depends on your local conditions. Do you have a good bicycle trailer that absorbs shocks? How are the cycling facilities? Is the baby happy being on the bike?

It never occurred to me to ask my GP if my child was ready for cycling, and don't think parents from the Netherlands would consider doing so, unless the child had some special needs.

Also, their blog indicates that they sometimes walked the bike to avoid jostling the baby too much. Unless the surface was *really* rough, I think that's a bit OTT.

Obviously, these are things that each parent has to determine for his / her self. But keep in mind that they've already rebelled against the first-worst thinking prevalent in the US to take a baby cycling. There may be some overly cautious planning to follow that.