Cycling with a 9 month old & bike attachment for older child

[Jdsk]

When not towing the trail gator folds down and clips to your frame, so it's possible to leave it attached to your bike all the time, although it would add a fair bit of weight. From memory, i think you could remove the main bar and just leave the bracket attached to your seatpost if you wanted to remove the trailgator and just put it back on days you were towing the bike.

Edited: I was thinking of another device. Haven't used a Trail-Gator.

Jonathan

[Jupestar]

When my daughter was young we used a Trail Gator. They seem to be still available (http://trail-gator.com/). It's really designed for towing with the child on the bike, but you could tow an empty bike with it. You might get comments about someone having fallen off though!

When not towing the trail gator folds down and clips to your frame, so it's possible to leave it attached to your bike all the time, although it would add a fair bit of weight. From memory, i think you could remove the main bar and just leave the bracket attached to your seatpost if you wanted to remove the trailgator and just put it back on days you were towing the bike.

It claims to be for max 20" wheels, but if you're only using it to tow an empty bike I suspect you'd be able to get a bit larger on it. I imagine the restriction is related to safe towing weight for a child. The actual connection to the child bike has some adjustment (shims) to allow different bike sizes to be towed with the front wheel a small amount above the road.

I used this often to tow a empty bike, but no problem with child on or off. They are a bit finicky to get the intial set up right, it needed to be tight. tight, tight or it had a tendancy to develop a lean. But once set up, it clips to the frame and is easily detachable. I wouldn't have gone on long tours towing him on it, but as a get out of jail for when tools get downed and transporting a bike, it was and will be again excellent.

I also used a super robust bike to attach it to, and stress tested the set up without the child, i used sandbags on his bike unbalanced, off road.. before i let him on it.

[RickH]

My 2p worth

The cheapest option to try, if you don't need an option where the child can be towed on the bike, is just to strap the front wheel of the child's bike to one side of the pannier rack (with some padding if necessary but I found the front tyre was padding enough) & tow the empty bike that way. I've found the empty bike can be a bit bouncy but not excessively so.

Maybe I've only seen poorly set up examples, but I've yet to see a trail gator setup where the towed bike is not leaning sideways at a considerable angle.

A better model, but less common, seems to be the Trail Angel (Halford link - it was the first that came up in my search). That seems to be better laterally braced & the ones I've seen appeared to be running true.

The gold standard (& a price to match) appears to be the Follow Me which leaves a pannier rack completely unobstructed, including the top. And it can be used without a rack too.

[Vorpal]

I didn't like the trail gator with a child on it, but I'm sure it would be good for towing an empty bike.

[pranam_c_s]

Hello

Greetings. My first post in the group. I apologize if it is not in the right section.

I drop my kid to school but someone else picks him up. I want to be able to drag his bike back home. I tried towbuddy towbar and it cracked on day one. My kid has a 24'' bike.

any suggestions on what to buy or any other ideas to tow a bike with a bike ?

Regards
Pranam

[Vorpal]

Hello

Greetings. My first post in the group. I apologize if it is not in the right section.

I drop my kid to school but someone else picks him up. I want to be able to drag his bike back home. I tried towbuddy towbar and it cracked on day one. My kid has a 24'' bike.

any suggestions on what to buy or any other ideas to tow a bike with a bike ?

Regards
Pranam

Welcome! I merged your post with another on a related topic. You may find what you need here, or in one of the other threads linked above. If not, feel free to post further & we will do our best to answer your questions.

[Jdsk]

I drop my kid to school but someone else picks him up. I want to be able to drag his bike back home. I tried towbuddy towbar and it cracked on day one. My kid has a 24'' bike.

any suggestions on what to buy or any other ideas to tow a bike with a bike ?

Welcome.

I'm impressed with our FollowMe Tandem but I don't think that I've ever ridden it without a child on...



For this purpose we used a tandem with our children and my daughter currently uses a two-seated tandem trailer trike.

Jonathan