A parent's review of the Burley Picclo Trailer Bike and how we still use this quality tag-along.
What seems like a eternity ago, we were presented with a small gift in the
way of a baby boy. Our leisurely bike rides on a Saturday afternoon
were to be a thing of the past and Dad (and Mum) would be a solo rider for
the foreseeable future. Well, that is probably the thought that goes through
most cyclists' minds when there first little bundle of joy arrives! Unless
you are extremely keen family cyclists, until the little ones can support
their own head there is no way to get out and about with a baby on two wheels.
Once they are old enough you can put them in a trailer, if you have the legs
for one, and then a little later into a baby seat.
All the time your pride and joy is in a trailer or a baby seat you have total control (enjoy the moment) of your charge/charges. Eventually though they will want to break free and ride their own bike. The problem comes with busy roads, tired little legs and time schedules. Trying to keep safe with a little one on Britain's roads is a living nightmare. Drivers in the UK are generally all in a rush and delaying their journey by thirty seconds while you herd your little two wheelers to the side of the road is just too much to bear for most car users. As well as negotiating the traffic, your youngsters do not have the same time demands on their lives as mum and dad and the need to get to a place, finish the ride, be back in time for when the other one gets off the bus is always present and without stating the obvious, they just can't ride as far as you can and nor should they.
Thankfully, there is a solution to your family cycling dilemma and that is the trailer bike or tag-along. Attaching one of these to the back of your bike means that you regain control over what is happening out on the road. When I say control that is the key to trailer bikes and tag-alongs as they are not all the same.
Trailer bikes come in two basic varieties:
1. Those that attach to the seat stem
2. Those that attach by another method, generally to a specific rack
The Burley Piccolo falls into category two and this is its unique selling point. If you can imagine riding along a narrow lane and your four year old on the tag-along decides to let go of the handle bars and swing round on their saddle to have a look at mum who is talking to you but behind you. If you have a trailer bike that attaches to the seat stem, the gyroscopic forces that are generated by small girl/boy suddenly shifting their centre of gravity, causes an undemanded wobble, or what the aviation industry would call a Pilot Induced Oscillation except that in this case the pilot has had no input! This happens because all the out of balance forces are acting right in the place you don't really want them to. Imagine you were cycling along and I gave you a great big shove right on the saddle - you would swerve and veer for sure.
The Burley Piccolo gets round this by mounting the towing arm straight on to a special rack enabling it to join your bike directly over the rear axle. If your passenger wobbles around now, the forces have little effect due to the where the universal joint is mounted. To give you an idea how easy it is to ride with the Piccolo, my wife had never even ridden with panniers on the back of her bike yet she was quickly confident enough to cycle with our four year old son five miles to nursery and back on relatively busy roads.
The overall quality of this trailer bike is superb as you would expect if you have seen any of Burley's other products in particular their child trailers. The tag-along even comes with twist grip gears although it is deficient in mudguard provision. We found a clip on type guard that would fit though. What is quite surprising is how much your "stoker" can contribute to your pedaling effort. If they get stuck in it can be like being on a tandem although we definitely erred on the side of safety when the speed started to build. The only real fault with this trailer bike is that the warning flag mounts on the wrong side as these are obviously for the American or European markets. This aside, the Burley Piccolo has been an excellent investment for us and our second son is about to start using after it having a brief break. Some suppliers will give you a second rack as part of the deal meaning that either of you can share the load!
One last thing about trailer bikes in general; if you are worried about traffic we have found that the size and novelty of the combo makes drivers give you an extra wide berth when they wouldn't have otherwise. If you ride with one in France you will get lots of attention but that is another story.
