Ride to the Zoo, and a comparison with a kiddy trailer

K and I took the cargobike for a spin through Brunswick to the Zoo at Royal Park. It was our first ride in a few weeks, except for a spin around to the pub for dinner earlier in the week.

We met up with M and his daughter, S, who have a more traditional (in Australia) kiddy trailer set-up. It was interesting to ride with M and compare how the different bikes handled the terrain.

One great advantage of the trailer is that it converts to a pram, so when we got to the zoo, M simply unhitched it and pushed it in. I carried K in her Ergo, though she could have ridden in the trailer-as-pram with S. When K is a bit bigger we will be able to free up some of the capsule space and potentially carry a bigger backpack or umbrella stroller, if that's necessary.

On our departure from the zoo, the babies were both asleep, and I said to M, "that's cool-- you can just hitch the trailer back up and leave S asleep!" but M pointed out that that was not the case, as S still needed to have her helmet put on, which would wake her. (We don't put a helmet on K at this point as she is too small. We figure the capsule really acts as a full-body helmet for her).

The other difference I noticed between the bikes was that the cargobike was far easier to manouvre around bollards, parked cars and up and down kerbs. M was slower picking his way through these obstacles of inner-suburbia, needing to ensure both of the trailer wheels were able to get smoothly onto and off of footpaths, and were clear of obstacles on the shared paths.





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