Nailed it!


On a serious note cycling with kids is mentally as well as physically more taxing.

Also having more weight although it didn't affect the handling negatively meant not only greater physical effort to keep the bike moving but more discomfort in the hands/@rse from the bike on rough towpaths.

TLS to the extreme, you forgot mini smith

voodoo_simon wrote:TLS to the extreme, you forgot mini smith

They're my step-kids but yeah my allocated child for the weekend was on his own bike at this point. Which was great because frankly Trail-gators are rubbish.

I suppose when you've got kids in tow, TMS becomes the order of the day

ctznsmith wrote:

voodoo_simon wrote:TLS to the extreme, you forgot mini smith

Which was great because frankly Trail-gators are rubbish.

Wassup?

I hear folks complain about them but I did all sorts including Stanes trail centres with both my kids and thought they were vaguely exciting.

Curious to see if can help

Just that they rely on connection points being bastard tight to the point of almost crushing what they're connected to. Plus it managed to rotate my seat post despite the seat clamp being tight too!

If anything is slightly out of alignment you wnd up with the towed bike being at jaunty angle.

The 'follow me' design looks much better (but I admit is way more expensive).

ctznsmith wrote:Just that they rely on connection points being bastard tight to the point of almost crushing what they're connected to. Plus it managed to rotate my seat post despite the seat clamp being tight too!

If anything is slightly out of alignment you wind up with the towed bike being at jaunty angle.

The 'follow me' design looks much better (but I admit is way more expensive).

Fair play, the bikes I clamped it to certainly suffered form needing to be "bastard-tight". Never had a seatpost twist but I guess that's luck of the draw / friction.

The jaunty angle thing is what I often hear and that's usually because stuff is too loose. Doesn't sound like that's your problem

Those follow-me things look great but a heck of a lot of metal (bulk), weight and (no surprise) cost. I found the trail-gator hard to beat for price and ease (not light though!), especially compared to the one-wheel jobs.

Hey ho, I have no easy fix - at least the kids grow fairly fast and the need for this stuff disappears, eventually

I remember those days!

Kids + TLS does not compute! Teddies, Capol, pens & paper, large sleeping bag, etc, etc, etc


Daughter was 7 here I think. Perfectly capable of riding but not able to cover the distance hence the tow bar. We'd been 'touring' with it from age 5 but this was the last trip as I was starting to loose my patience. Didn't help that she is quite tall for her age.

I started with a trail gater but had the same experience as you and very quickly gave up on it. Looked at a follow-me but too expensive so in the end we used a trail angel with some success. Not perfect and they are quite heavy but work much better, managed 4 days and 84 miles fully loaded (daughter riding and being towed) without much issue.

It does get easier...

A year later and 86 miles over 4 days but still sh*te loads of stuff!

The biggest issue I have now is the frustration of mismatched ability, especially if you need to crack on (e.g. had a mechanical and need to get somewhere). Not much you can do about that, just have to remember to chill and enjoy the experiences together (often easier said than done!)

Sorry to go off on a tangent here, but is bastard tight a technical term?
Is it the same as "rag it in" or "twit it out"?
Kinda like those.

Artie Fufkin wrote:Sorry to go off on a tangent here, but is bastard tight a technical term?
Is it the same as "rag it in" or "twit it out"?
Kinda like those.

It's a well known engineering term, much like 'its f****d'
Engineers have a language all their own, mostly vulgar