Burley Bee kids bike trailer review

August 2nd, 2020
bikes, trailer
With the coronavirus we haven't been taking buses or taxis, which had mostly limited us to walking distance with our kids. [1] Expanding to bicycling distance would help a lot, so we decided to get a bicycle trailer.

I did a bunch of reading on various forums, and it looked like the Burley Bee was the best fit for us. It holds two children, with a combined weight of 100 lb, while being relatively light and sturdy. It has a rain cover, in case we get caught out in bad weather, and it doesn't convert into a stroller. No suspension, aside from the tires and the give in the fabric, but the kids haven't complained. There's a good amount of storage space in the back of the trailer. The safety flag is included.

It comes with one bicycle hitch, but it's a very simple part so I bought additional ones so that me, my wife, and our au pair could each have a hitch on our bicycles. The hitch goes onto the rear axle, on the left hand side, and is about 3/16" thick.

We've been using it for about 6 weeks now, and we haven't had any problems. The kids are happy with it, it's easy to bike with, and it generally seems well designed.

(When we decided we wanted to buy one, in late May I think, Amazon, the other big online stores, and our local bike stores were sold out. I did some looking, though, and found a non-local bike store that had some in stock and was happy to ship. At this point, however, it seems to be back in stock at the manufacturer and on Amazon.)


[1] We considered getting a car, but addition to being a lot more expensive, we have two housemates with cars that we can occasionally borrow. With covid their cars have mostly been sitting at home, so getting a third seemed excessive. But for something within a ~30min bike ride of the house a car seems like overkill, and it's not worth the coordination with the car owner / using a favor.

Referenced in:

Comment via: facebook

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy

Look! A therapy technique people don't already know!

via Thing of Things May 14, 2025

Workshop House case study

Lauren Hoffman interviewed me about Workshop House and wrote this post about a community I’m working on building in DC.

via Home April 30, 2025

Impact, agency, and taste

understand + work backwards from the root goal • don’t rely too much on permission or encouragement • make success inevitable • find your angle • think real hard • reflect on your thinking

via benkuhn.net April 19, 2025

more     (via openring)