Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Resolve to: Ride with your small children

If you plan to spend more time with family and get fit in 2011, there is no better way to achieve both those resolutions than by bike-riding with your kids!

One option is to take your toddler age 1 to 4 years old along for the ride with the iBert Safe-T-Seat, an American-made, front-mounted baby carrier that provides an alternative to trailers and traditional rear-mounted child seats. With your child seated up front in the iBert, you can enjoy easier interaction with your little one and your child enjoys a better view of the ride. Other benefits: Easier and safer loading and unloading, plus no more worries about dirt, dust, rocks, or water being thrown in your child's face during the ride.

Click here to see a vast photo gallery of parents riding everything from cruisers to road bikes to mountain bikes mounted with iBert Safe-T-Seats, then come in to your local Century Cycles to check the iBert out for yourself or for any new parents you know -- it also makes a great gift for a baby shower, baby's first birthday, or Mother's/Father's Day!

2 comments:

  1. Personal opinion: (Sorry, CC, but this is NOT complimentary to this seat.)
    I was offered a similar home-made unit long ago to carry my kids on my bike. After some thought, I never ever used it for one basic reason. Imagine you are riding along as pictured in the ad. But, something causes you to crash into something (take your pick, a telephone pole along the sidewalk, a car pulls out in front of you, a tree, an oncoming rider, a brick wall, etc). What is your body going to do to the youngster in front of you? Pin that child between your body and the handlebars/stem combo! Not a pleasant thought at any speed!

    On top of that concern, I wonder also about steering constraints imposed by having that seat in front of you.

    Richard DeLombard

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for your thoughts, Dick. We've always promoted the bike trailer as the safest option for taking your kids along for the ride. If the bike should happen to go down, the trailer is more likely to stay upright, and even if it doesn't, the child is protected by the trailer's roll cage.

    It is every parent's individual responsibility to choose the best option for them based on their needs, safety concerns, and budget. Of course, I have to point out that statistically, ANY of these options are safer than putting your kids in an automobile, but millions of people do that every day without a second thought.

    As to the handling issue, the iBert seat has been tested by a couple of our staff, and they report that it's not nearly as bad as they expected. Any extra attachment on a bike is going to affect handling, whether it's a child seat, handlebar bag, rear cargo rack, or trailer. You've gotta take it easy at first until you get used to the adjustments you need to make to your riding style to compensate.

    ReplyDelete