Touring with family - Bike advice needed

Cycle-touring, Expeditions, Adventures, Major cycle routes NOT LeJoG (see other special board)
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Ed81
Posts: 6
Joined: 27 Aug 2012, 9:37pm

Touring with family - Bike advice needed

Post by Ed81 »

Hi All and thanks for reading.

Next summer my wife and I are planning a cycle tour of Iceland (asking for advice about this in a later post). We are taking our children who by then will be 4 and 18 months. We are not touring novices by any stretch but wanted to canvas opinions on the best bikes for the job.

My wife has a Hewitt Cheviot that served very well on last year's 1000 km tour of the Croatia even while 5 months pregnant. I rode a Salsa Vaya, which with 4 panniers, camping kit and towing a trailer felt distinctly flexible, especially on rough roads.

Our options as I see them:

1. Buy a second child trailer to carry the 18 month old and attempt to distribute load more evenly between my wife's bikes and my own. Downside is that my wife would have to carry more and my daughter would see less.

2. Buy a heavy duty touring bike (e.g. Tout Terrain silkroad) and fit a bike seat for my daughter as well as panniers etc. to carry the kit. Downside: Wife would still have to carry more as there is a space issue on the bike but daughter would see more.

3. Buy a cargo bike such as the Yuba Mundo or a Surly big dummy to carry my daughter and a large chunk of the kit. Downside is the weight of the bike (but with a 20Kg child and touring kit it might be less of a problem) and a lack of weather protection for my daughter in the wind and rain.

4. A tandem with kiddy cranks so she can ride and a child seat for her to use when bored / tired.

I know that this is not an exhaustive list of possibilities but hoped it would help to spark a discussion of possible options, especially the ones that I have overlooked.
eileithyia
Posts: 8399
Joined: 31 Jan 2007, 6:46pm
Location: Horwich Which is Lancs :-)

Re: Touring with family - Bike advice needed

Post by eileithyia »

See other reply... We used a bike seat, but by the time Andrew was touring at 3-4 he was pedalling a kiddie cranked tandem. But remember children in a seat are closer to you and have some protection from the elements, once on the tandem they are potentially more exposed to the elements and are not pedalling effectively enough to generate their own body heat. Iceland can expanses of little in the way of facilities, so you may have to carry for food more than one day at time, and plan some short days, but there may not be too many playgrounds, only the ones nature supplies.
With regard to a trailer, we had some largish fords to cross, at least one was the width of a motorway with bits of sand bank in it..... We had to zig zag from one to another.

If you have a reasonable length of time, I assume you maybe teachers and have school holidays, remember these go into August, summer is ending by then and I know of one friend who had a first snow storm of the winter arrive in August.
I stand and rejoice everytime I see a woman ride by on a wheel the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood. HG Wells
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RickH
Posts: 5832
Joined: 5 Mar 2012, 6:39pm
Location: Horwich, Lancs.

Re: Touring with family - Bike advice needed

Post by RickH »

The Circe Helios is a versatile machine as it will transform between a normal tandem (plus optional child seat) & a cargo bike that will take 2 child seats or 1 plus luggage. The small frame means that a c 4 1/2 year old can pedal as stoker with no adaptation beyond fitting crank shorteners.

An example - last Tuesday I did "Ride the Lights" at Blackpool with the eldest 2 grandchildren - 6 year old pedalling, 3 year old in seat. Home about 11pm. Probably no more than 10 minutes work & it was ready to be off out for a 2 grown ups ride first thing the next morning.

I've found that because it is shorter than a normal tandem, mainly because of the small wheels, I have no problem taking it on trains (it goes on a return train trip most weeks at the moment via a combination of some or all of Northern Rail, Arriva Wales, Merseyrail & Virgin).

I've not (yet) toured with ours but, if you look at the website, they have travelled far and wide.

Rick.
Former member of the Cult of the Polystyrene Head Carbuncle.
TonyR
Posts: 5390
Joined: 31 Aug 2008, 12:51pm

Re: Touring with family - Bike advice needed

Post by TonyR »

4 months and 18 months or 4 years and 18 months?
frstep
Posts: 6
Joined: 4 Sep 2013, 1:42pm
Location: Wales

Re: Touring with family - Bike advice needed

Post by frstep »

We toured in France (Brittany) this summer with our (then) 18mth old and 3.5 year old kids: Mostly the kids were on our Yuba Mundo, but we also had a road bike pulling a 2-seat trailer (Burley Bee). Both bikes had tow hitches, so could swap the trailer over to the Yuba (lower gears for big hills) and if the 3.5 year old wanted to sleep, he could go in the trailer.

Yes, the Yuba is heavy, but when loaded with 25kg of kids plus various bits of camping gear, it's not a big issue. Good touring tyres are vital though. We plan to go camping next year with the same setup.
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