I’ve got a 10 month old that I’d like to take with me this summer on some rides. Though at this point I don’t have a beater bike. Looking to maybe get something put together from an old road bike and make it a single speed and use that. However, until then I will have to use my Felt S32. I’m sure i’ll get crap for it, but when I train on it I use my aero helmet (because it’s the only one I have and I like it anyhow), but how ridiculous would this look/ has this looked when you’ve done it yourselves?
Doesn’t the S32 have horizontal droupouts for the skewer? Not gonna be able to tow it then. If you run too the Chariot is awesome. Road gearing can be a bitch if you are in a hilly area.
x2 for getting a backup bike. I’ve towed trailers on a few different mountain bikes and road bikes and no matter how careful I was, I’d always get a scratch or a ding from the trailer or the connection hardware. And, its nice not having to unhook the setup every time you want to use your bike on a regular ride.
But, I don’t quite agree that pulling the kid isn’t training. Its can be hard work and time on your bike. Not a substitute for all out effort, but a way to squeeze in a little more time.
And, spend some money on a second helmet. If not for yourself, then do it for the sake of other triathletes and cyclists in your town.
My advice would be to pick up a beater mtb for ~100 somewhere with platform pedals, and to not think of rides towing the trailer as training.
This is what I did as well. $100 and I don’t worry about it getting scratched or dinged up. Plus, when the kids start riding on their own, they’re not going to be riding on roads but rougher surfaces that your tri bike won’t do so well on. Finally, when you get on your tri bike after riding around on the beater for a while, it will feel like the best, fastest bike ever made.
I think any speed above 12kmph is dangerous for your little one.
Get a beater bike and pls separate training time from family time. I understand that as triathletes we’d like to squeeze every second out of our day to train.
I pull my dog in a trailer, mostly on a road bike, but sometimes on a single speed. If you have any kind of hills in your area, I would recommend some gears. I really struggle on some hills with one speed, and my dog gives me a look of disappoval when he doesn’t have a decent enough breeze.
As others have mentioned, it depends on your dropout. I used to pull my kid in a trailer on my road racing bike. I usually just went out to flat extra safe roads to do it. She had fun in the back while I got an awesome workout. No bike dings for me as I had a skewer connection based trailer mount.
and to not think of rides towing the trailer as training.
i’m curious why you say this. I used to do fairly frequent training rides with my kids in tow. usually it was only 45-60’…but i’d be going pretty hard. admittedly i live in a pretty good neighborhood for that…and i also went to bike paths. i also had the equipment that cannot be named on my bike (rhymes with cowerpranks)…which made it absolutely horrendous going up any hill.
The reason I say not to think of it as training is not that you can’t get a training effect from riding this way, but that you don’t have a lot of control over how the ride is going to go. Maybe your kids will fall asleep or sit there contentedly, but it’s also highly possible that you are going to have to stop a bunch of times for various reasons, or that going fast enough to get a workout in will be less than prudent while towing a trailer with kids in it either due to road conditions or vehicle or pedestrian traffic.
I did it a few times on my TT bike (Giant TCR TT). I normally pulled him on my MTB, but a couple of times I didn’t have the MTB available. It’s not really a big deal; the only issue I had was I didn’t tighten the QR enough the first time and the trailer misaligned my wheel since it has horizontal dropouts. After tightening, no other issues. I wouldn’t really recommend it though, a mountain bike is much easier to maneuver and the brakes are better. I was riding on the MUT and trying to dodge pedestrians and avoid dogs with narrow TT bars and side pull brakes is a chore. Oh, and prepare yourself for snide comments from guys group riding on tri bikes and a few roadies. My son was 3 when I did this, so the trailer and him was ~65lbs.