Bike curious

[j4]

I will do a proper update soon, honest (& might even get round to reading other people's journals & commenting on them!) but right now I have a question which is a bit more time-critical and I'd be really grateful for answers from people who know about bikes...

So, now that Imogen is nearly 6 months old (!) it will hopefully not be too long before I can put her in some kind of bike seat & actually start cycling regularly again, hurrah hurrah. A colleague has offered me a standard sit-up-on-the-back child bike seat for free (so I will probably say yes to that anyway) but I still feel that what I'd really like is a Bakfiets-style cargo bike. The problem is that a) they are frightfully expensive, and b) nowhere in Oxford stocks them, so all the bike shops I've talked to have basically said "you don't want to buy one of those" & have instead tried to try to talk me into buying a bike seat that will fit on my normal bike (ie the sort of seat they actually sell).

HOWEVER, a cycling-mad colleague sent me a link to this cargo bike on eBay, in Oxford, for what looks like a very reasonable price (compared to the new cargo bikes I have seen online), and I am tempted. I am going to go and have a look at it tomorrow (Tuesday) and what I really want to know is: what should I be looking for to determine whether it's actually a sensible thing to buy? The description mentions "patches of rust on the frame" (they look quite trivial from the photos) -- what's the best way to check if these are a serious problem, & what work would need to be done to fix them or stop them deteriorating any further? (NB I'm not really concerned about cosmetic stuff, I just need to be able to reassure myself that it's safe.) Is it likely to be a problem getting parts for it if it's an odd make of bike?

To be honest the key question may turn out to be "is the bike actually short enough for a tiny person like me to ride it?", but I can figure that out when I see it.

Any other advice re babies-on-bikes is also welcome (unless it's "argh don't do it", but I know you're all more sensible than that. :-) Thank you in advance, kind people!

Comments

[shermarama]

Would a trailer be an option? Over here there are specific kinderkars and you do see a fair number of them, though not as many as bakfietseses (plural, whatever.) I've also seen a kinderkar being used separately as a pram, which depending on where you're going could be useful. Then again there's the whole safety problem with trailers in the UK because cars don't expect bikes to have them. But I can't say, having seen lots of people stomping on the pedals to lumber up to speed on a bakfiets, that I've ever thought they looked worth all the work to me.

[venta.livejournal.com]

A colleague of mine regularly uses a trailer to tow his two children (now approx 18months and 4 years) to nursery. I think he's been doing it since child 2 was around a year old.

j4, if you're at all interested in the trailer as an option, I can enquire for details (when said colleague stops having a disgusting cold and brings himself back to the office).

[juliet]

My highly anecdotal experience of towing a non-child-holding trailer in the UK is that *because* cars are surprised to see them you get tons of space. (This may of course be affected by my tendency to be towing random piles of pointy stuff causing Fear For Paintwork.) This reminds me of the argument that recumbent riders make about the safety of recumbents, which is contested by other folk, so, yeah, YMM&PDV etc etc.

I haven't ridden a Bakfiets, but I have tried out a couple of cargo bikes, and they ride a lot heavier & slower than even a robust-&-loaded regular bike (e.g. my tourer with 15+ kg of camping kit). So I'd second the thought about perhaps needing more/lower gears (best bet probably just to try riding it around a bit & see how you get on, if it looks otherwise tolerable).

htfb says sensible things about brakes. If there are biggish patches of rust you might want to prod at them a bit to see if they're superficial or otherwise, but I don't have much experience of that to advise further. If it does have regular gears (as opposed to hub gears), take a look to see whether they're heavily worn & will need replacing soon (worn gears look a bit like sharks' teeth, rather than being evenly pointy like new gears). Check that the steering is still smooth ([cough] & doesn't have a bump in it like, er, my fixie does right now, in which case it's New Headset Time), and shove the bars backwards and forwards a bit to see if they're loose (may indicate elderly/worn headset).

An ex-cycling-instructor colleague of mine had her daughter travelling by bike from when she was around 6mo (she's now about a year), so if you're looking for recent experience I can put you in touch with her.

Good luck with finding a happy cycling solution for you & Imogen!

[j4.livejournal.com]

All helpful - thank you!

I might take you up on the offer of talking to your cycling colleague, if you're sure she wouldn't mind advising a stranger over email -- feel free to give her my email address (gmail better than chiark these days, same username) but please stress that she's under no obligation to be a baby-cycling consultant for free for someone she doesn't even know!

[j4.livejournal.com]

Trailers always seem less safe to me -- they're low down & not-very-visible, they're not firmly attached to the bike, & it's hard to see the baby inside while riding along. This may be an irrational prejudice against them, but I don't think I'd be happy with it. The trailer-as-buggy thing does seem quite handy if you like buggies, but I prefer carrying her in the sling so I'd probably just keep the trailer as a trailer.

A friend in Oxford does have one (& seems happy with it) so I could try his, but, hm, not really convinced.

Not so worried about the hard work of pedalling as I'm used to a heavy-ish bike, I generally stay in a very high gear, & I've got strong legs. :) OTOH it may turn out to be even harder than I'm expecting!