My wife Mary and I have been ordinary cyclists for about ten years. By that I mean whenever it’s practical to get somewhere by bike instead of car, we do it. Sometimes, even if it’s impractical. Most of those years we lived in Bloomington, which does much to facilitate ordinary cycling. We commuted by bike, shopped by bike, and took bike rides for fun. We explored country roads outside of Bloomington and rode to Brown County State Park to camp. Sometimes we traveled with our bikes too. For our honeymoon we spent a week riding (and ferrying) our bikes around islands in Hawaii, camping on beaches for $5 a night.
In the spring of 2008 we learned that Mary was pregnant. Mary’s pregnancy didn’t impede her riding much. When she could no longer comfortably mount her road bike we bought an old Puch mixte with a step-through frame. She rode the mixte into late November, a few weeks before our son S was born. And soon after he was born, we each resumed some routine biking, while the other was home with him.
Meanwhile, we began to think of ways to bike with S. Official recommendations (from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute) are not to ride with children younger than twelve months, and there are some data to support these. Mary and I took these recommendations with a grain of salt, and when S was six months old, I began to periodically test his helmet-wearing abilities around the house. By eight months of age we felt that he could hold his head—and the helmet—up reasonably well. We had bought a used Burley trailer off Craigslist during Mary’s second trimester, and we were eager to try it out. So late in the summer of 2009, against the official recommendations, we took S for his first, brief trailer ride—to Uptown for brunch with friends. He loved it—especially the parts, near our house, where we allowed him to take his helmet off. For our remaining year in Bloomington we biked with S frequently, and by the time we moved to Indianapolis in 2010, he’d spent far more time in the bike trailer than he had in a car.
At some point we decided that we wanted to have a bicycle child seat too. We considered both front-mounted and rear-mounted seats, and decided we liked the front-mounted seats better. We bought a Yepp Mini which, like most front-mounted seats, puts the child just behind the handlebar, straddling the stem and headset.
There’s much debate about the safety of bike trailers and seats, individually and comparatively. The intuition of many parents I know, some of whom are ordinary cyclists like us, is that trailers have poor visibility due to their low profiles. Manufacturers have tried to address these concerns by including tall, brightly colored safety flags with their trailers, but really those don’t change the profile of the trailer very much. Nevertheless there is some data to suggest that trailers are slightly safer than infant seats. The sample size is pretty small (49 injuries over the 9-year study, 6 involving trailers) and the authors cannot conclusively say that trailers are safer. The data were taken from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, whose database is available to the public and quite interesting to peruse. I spent a few hours looking at it, and it was difficult to assess the absolute risk involved in using a bicycle trailer or infant seat. What was clear, though, was that accidents involving baby-biking were far, far rarer than accidents involving nearly any ordinary household implement (vacuum cleaners, radios, and even pillows).
Truthfully I’ve never felt unsafe riding with S. Of course these are anecdotal observations, but I find that drivers give me more attention, more courtesy, and a wider berth, when they see I have a child with me. Initially I had some worries, but these were fleeting and easy enough to vanquish with excess caution. Occasionally I felt that having S in the seat made the bike harder to control, and sometimes I worried that I might clip a car or a curb with the trailer, which requires a wider path than the bike. I always knew, though, that S’s helmet was on securely, and that even a three foot fall from the Yepp was unlikely to injure him very badly. With the trailer I crossed intersections very carefully, and avoided difficult intersections altogether. And after a bit of practice, both conveyances felt completely safe. The trailer is great for a long ride where your child might sleep, or if you need some extra cargo space, e.g. on a trip to the grocery store or farmer’s market. The front-mounted seat is a wonderful way to ride with your child too—it gives him or her a great view of the road and allows you to talk.
We have spent much of the last year trying to decide where to move. We’ve traveled to various cities across the country, interviewing and exploring. One of the first questions I ask prospective employers and coworkers is what the bike culture is like. The strange answers—and blank, uncomfortable stares—I have received in response reminded me repeatedly that we had been spoiled in Bloomington. The plentiful bike routes and trails, and maybe more significantly the constant presence of other cyclists on the roads, make Bloomington an ideal place to raise a biking family.
Some links:
Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute’s page on biking with kids:
http://www.bhsi.org/little1s.htm
Study on safety of trailers and seats:
http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/154/4/351?
maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=trailers&searchid=11046933861
47_392&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&journalcode=archpedi
CPSC database:
https://www.cpsc.gov/cgibin/NEISSQuery/home.aspx
Advice on trailers and seats:
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/bike-trailers/buying-guide.htm
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~fine/opinions/childcarriers.html
Front-mounted seats:
http://www.rei.com/product/815610/yepp-mini-front-bicycle-child-carrier
http://www.rei.com/product/831288/ibert-safe-t-seat-child-carrier
http://www.co-rider.com/co-rider.com/index.html
Trailers:
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~fine/opinions/trailerguide.html
http://www.burley.com/home/bur/listitems_55/comparison.html
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