Tandems Might Be Perfect For You

Despite having a cargobike box to plop our kids into, seeing them rolling away on their own two wheels is the most satisfying part of our family riding. Unfortunately, sometimes in the hurry of the day or the tension of city traffic, daily trips can't always be done with all riders on their own bikes. And the bigger kids sometimes feel cramped in the cargo box, especially with the rain cover. A tandem, a bicycle built for two (or three, or more) is our favorite solution because it allows you to ride close to your kids yet still gives them the chance to pedal a bike.  The kids feel more empowered, the parents don't always have to do all the pedaling, and everybody is safer together in traffic. It's no secret that we love tandems.

1972 Schwinn Deluxe Twinn

If you are carrying one bigger kid (with or without a toddler who fits in a rack seat), tandems are a really affordable option.  Older tandems are relatively cheap in Chicago at the bike co-ops and tend to be easy to find. An old American one- to five-speed tandem like a Schwinn Twinn usually goes for about $200 to $350 at these places, lesser brands even less. That can be a tenth of the price of a fancy cargo bike.  You can nearly always find them at A Nearly New Shop and at Working Bikes. Sometimes these shops have tandems in storage and you just have to ask - tandems take a lot of room on the display floor. Classified ads and internet sites are also good places to look.

Many of these were built for two adults, but you can often put a lower, unsprung seat on the back to let your maybe-about-7-or-8-year-old kid's feet reach the pedals. With these, as with most tandems, your kid's feet move the whole time.

In a higher price class, we just saw a fancier lightweight KHS Tandemania Sport at Working Bikes for $675, which is like a 21 speed mountain bike with city tires and two riders.

Tandems can grow well with you and your child as he or she moves through different stages. With something as simple as a foot long piece of wood and a metal clamp you can make a footrest for a toddler who is still too small to reach the pedals but big enough to hold on well. Swept back handlebars in the back are easy to rig as well.

pedal extenders or pedal blocks

For a slightly bigger kid you can either use an extra crankset that clamps to the frame higher up and attaches to the existing chain with its own little additional loop, or you can often use pedal extenders, which are like slices of 1x4 lumber held to both sides of the regular pedals with a rubber cover.
These are simple and cheap but reduce your cornering clearance a little. Keep in mind that no matter what you do the child is unlikely to be very interested in taking on most of the pedaling - the footrest is not much worse in terms of your need to pedal than the fancy child crankset. You may also be able to put on a shorter set of cranks to make it fit. Using these tricks, tandems can be adapted to allow a pretty young child to ride under (partly) their own power in traffic.

lots of trailer "tandems" in the used heap at Working Bikes

Tandems tend to be easier to control in city traffic than a ridealong trailer-like "tandem" on your regular bike. You have control over the whole bike in shorter turns and in tricky situations. On a real tandem the child is part of a real bike and not dangling on a secondary vehicle clipped on behind you. These trailer things go for $25 to $45 or so used at Working Bikes.

Tandems are easy to rig with a good rack to carry things with panniers, or if you are careful perhaps you can install both panniers and a child's bike seat over them (such as Yepp or similar; our Bobike Maxi works but the Bobike Junior doesn't). 

This blue one in particular is our favorite tandem, the Onderwater, which is a lot different. It carries the grown up and 3 kids (one in the back rack seat) and allows the one in front to pedal, and the grown up is the one who steers and brakes and changes gears. The kids don't have to look at your back but you are still the one watching for traffic. The kid has a ratchet on the crank so he or she doesn't need to turn the pedals all the time. 

Tandemtransporters - orange XL and black regular

This one also allows you to take off all the kid-related stuff when they get bigger and substitute a big cargo box. It's heavy but doesn't bend as you ride it, a problem we've discovered in other brands. Ours still looks like new since everything is stainless and the powder coat is very durable. JC Lind can order them in Chicago and Rolling Orange in New York sometimes has them in stock. They carry the two-kids-pedaling XL version too which can carry 4 kids. We tried one for a day and it went really comfortably, though the one we rented only had attachments for 2 kids total.

Kidztandem is a similar brand, made in Asia with lighter tubing and without a chain cover.

Onderwater Tandemtransporter

Bike Friday tandem

Bike Friday makes an assortment of tandems and multi-person tandems that can be disassembled into normal suitcases for air travel -- you can call them to talk about the options since they build them custom. These are pretty neat but you need to have a use for them.

The secret best thing about riding with your kids so close on a tandem: Really wonderful conversations to be had while pedaling along, looking at the sights as you go by together.