Our experiences of bike trailers.

By Julii This info may be useful to someone else, really it's just the notes I used when trying to decide for ourselves. We had 3 children, age 5 yrs, 3 yrs & 8 months, when I was writing these notes up. This information may not be correct!!! It's just a summary of what I think to be the case.

CTC Review of the Chariot Cougar 2

05 Apr 2010

CTC members Ali and Darrell High sent in a review of the Chariot Cougar 2 to the CTC's Cycle magazine, and were very positive about it: Our ...

An Alternative to the Cougar

12 Oct 2006

We were in Norwich recently and came across a familiar-looking child trailer. Sure enough it was a Chariot, but was actually the Captain model ...

Watch your skewer!

02 Sep 2006

We had a real problem with the chariot hitch on this mountain bike. The bike has forward-facing dropouts, and the wheel would frequently pop ...

How Fed-Ex tried to overcharge us

27 Sep 2005

Here's an exerpt of our correspondence with Federal Express after they tried to hit us with a £180 bill for Excise and VAT (and Fed-Ex ...

Our Evaluations, Decision and Experiences

04 Jul 2004

Having done no research at the time, we bought a Koolstop (Caboose) trailer 2nd hand in March 2001 to transport our 16 month old, and expected ...

Age of child when you can use a trailer

04 Jul 2004

Not least because of the helmet stipulation (see below) manufacturers say that their trailers therefore generally aren't suitable until the child ...

Child Bike Trailer Conversion Kits

04 Jul 2004

Some trailers, especially the more expensive ones, have accessories to go with the trailer to make it into a jogging stroller/pushchair, a stroller ...

Child Trailer Safety

04 Jul 2004

Burley has a tremendous reputation as very safe; many stories abound of Burley trailers being hit by cars, flying up through the air, landing ...

Flooring for the Child Trailer

04 Jul 2004

Solid or fabric. Solid is said to be more durable (the canvas floor on our Koolstop, see below, started going after about 4 years) but solid ...

Hitches: 3 ways to attach the trailer to the bike

04 Jul 2004

Chainstay (on the frame near the back wheel axle). A chainstay hitch (Koolstop do one) can have the advantage that any bike can tow the trailer ...

Luggage capacity of a Child Trailer

04 Jul 2004

Burley & Wike both brag about this, Chariot is often slated for it being on the low side.

Where To Buy a Child Trailer

04 Jul 2004

As for the trailers on offer, these are the ones we are aware of, roughly in order from cheapest to most expensive:

Lidl - only available ...

Whether to wear a helmet

04 Jul 2004

Trailer manufacturers will tell you that your child must wear a helmet in the trailer. Helmet wearing is considered so important that some of ...


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About the author

My name is John Swindells and I'm a keen recreational cyclist with a preference for long one-day rides. I've also previously dabbled in time trialling and cyclo-cross. See more of what I get up to on Strava!

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