Child Bike Seats

Hauling the laundry basket up and down stairs and chasing around a toddler-wannabe certainly qualify as exercise. Still, if you get the feeling it's not enough, a bicycle-mounted child seat or a bicycle trailer can help you cover some ground in the name of fitness and fresh air without having to hire a babysitter.

Bicycle-mounted seats are mounted behind or in front of a cyclist's seat and can transport one child age 1 to 5 or so. In both seats, the child faces forward. They're potentially less safe than trailers, which have two bicycle-type wheels and a long hitching arm that fastens to a bicycle from behind and rides low to the ground. In an accident, a child would fall about three feet from a mounted bike seat, compared with a fall of about a half a foot from a trailer. With the added weight of a little passenger at the back or front, a bicycle with a mounted seat might be harder to handle, which can be unnerving or just annoying, depending on your cycling experience. Getting on and off a bike with a baby in a mounted seat can also be difficult.

Trailers attach to the rear axle or frame of a bike, and can carry children from age 1 through 6 or so. They provide some protection to passengers since children are seated, strapped in, and usually enclosed in a zippered compartment. Trailers have a rigid frame enclosed in durable fabric, which offers some protection for young passengers if the unit rolls over. But children still must wear a bike helmet. As we mentioned, because a trailer is closer to the ground, it's potentially safer than a bicycle-mounted seat in a fall. Some designs have a hitching arm that allows the bike to fall without affecting the trailer.

[via ConsumerReports.org]

I did a lot of research when I wanted to take my toddler daughter out on our bike path rides, and here are the top solutions I came across.