So it's mostly a record of his badassity, not mine . . . but anyhoo. :P
I bought one of these for 100$ last week:
It came in the mail and I was wildly disappointed. It weighted about 27 lbs, the rear wheel wouldn't spin when pushing it with my hand without a lot of force, the cranks were extremely hard to turn, the attachment that secures it to the seatpost wouldn't move freely, the pedals were a bit too far for my son's feet to reach, the handlebars required that he hold his hands up way too high. Ugh. So, I brought it into our basement and stripped the whole thing down.
Eventually I had it in working order:
- took off the flag, fenders, chain guard, stem, handlebars, seatpost, saddle
- took the rear wheel out, and completely disassembled the hub (it had been adjusted way too tight and there was no grease in it
- took the bottom bracket apart and greased/reassembled it (again, came way too tight and with no grease)
- took apart the bit that secures the trailer to the bike, applied threadlock to it, and then adjusted it looser so that it swivels properly
- rifled through my spare parts bin and replaced saddle with a more comfortable one that sits a bit lower, replaced the seatpost with a lighter one that's easier to adjust, replaced handlebars with a light pair of aluminum drop bars, replaced the stem with a lighter aluminum quill stem.
- wrapped the drop bars in some used bar tape lying around the garage
In all, we dropped about five lbs off the weight of the attachment, got everything working perfectly from a mechanical standpoint, and adjusted it all so that my son could pedal properly and reach the bars comfortably.
My four year old had a blast pedaling along behind me, and I could actually feel him helping on some of the hills and flat stretches. It's actually much faster than cycling with the bike trailer (I think because the trailer catches more wind and is less aerodynamic). When he moves it kinda throws me off balance a bit, so I can't stand while climbing and have to hold the bars a bit more firmly than I normally would . . . but all in all it's a lot of fun. Our son was pretty wiped out by the end of it too, and he had a great sleep last night. Hopefully we can work our way up to some 50+ km bike rides this summer.
