One of the real tricks to doing this properly is holding the baby carrier securely but not rigidly. It must absorb shocks and vibrations to prevent them being transmitted into the baby.

I think for the parent very conscious of the factors involved and willing to adjust their riding style the Onderwater Tandem can make a fine baby carrier. And then it’s really handy later on when the kids can pedal along.

Check it out:
http://francescycles.com/galleries/cargo/#3123111045

I’m guessing you got your bike at Dutch Bike Chicago? It always warms my heart to hear from happy WorkCycles riders!

Chicago seems to be quietly becoming the top cycling city in the US while Portland and New York make a bigger fuss about it.

That picture with the baby seat is so funny to me. It looks like when I recently strapped my nephew’s car seat to my front rack to return it to my sister. I was only transporting the car seat, no child, of course. I thought, drivers are going to think I’m crazy, but what they don’t know is that I could be a Dutch super mum

Here’s a picture of the set up: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3363/3227896932_6d243330bf.jpg?v=0

As you suggest the long wheelbase, vertically compliant frame, low position and distance from the front wheel make an enormous difference in the smoothness of the ride experienced by the baby. Assuming one rides with moderation and a soft front tire the shocks transmitted don’t appear any worse than those in Pascal’s Bugaboo carriage (with suspension on the wheels). Trailers, on the other hand, bounce around considerably and with the baby directly between the wheels, will certainly transmit much more shock.

Richard and I rode the Taga at Eurobike. It was very well executed considering it’s complexity and the designers were working on some attractive accessories. But it didn’t seem like something one would enjoy riding for more than a kilometer of so. II would regard it more as a big stroller that rode decently in bike mode than a bicycle to be compared on equal terms to something like the bakfiets.nl cargobike.

New FR8 variations? There are a number in the works and we’re not sure which ones will be great enough to warrant production. One could extrapolate from the article above that safely carrying a baby plus older child with a smaller footprint than a bakfiets is something we’d like to enable. Exactly what form that’ll take is still a question mark. We’re also working on three-wheelers but there are already so many on the market that we have to figure out exactly what we’re adding to the equation. The only new version that’s definite is a lighter, “city bike” variant, probably called “Fast FR8″.

Other issues that I’m trying to find a real evidence basis for is the whole head/neck stability issue. You read a lot in the safety literature about how infants do not have appropriate musculature to support their relatively large heads, and thus cannot mitigate jostling and impact forces the way we can. There is also vague concern about unrecognized repeated minor head injury from shaking and subtle impacts, as well as stresses on their necks. They of course, cannot communicate specific discomforts the ways toddlers can, so it’s hard to know if those are being missed. But I suspect we’re in the realm of expert opinion rather than actual studies here (I’ll keep looking).

The bakfiets solution is currently the only one I’d feel even semi-comfortable with trying (even that violates all sorts of American Academy of Pediatrics and other US injury prevention recommendations – admittedly, a conservative bunch when it comes to cycling). My friends used a Chariot Sidecarrier (http://chariotcarriers.com/english/html/sidecarrier.php) and infant sling (\not intended to be used while cycling\: http://chariotcarriers.com/english/html/accessories.php?accID=2), and liked it. Other eager parents in the US use similar infant slings in rear trailers, which worries me in terms of a lot of jostling (placement right over the axle) and not-infrequent tipovers. The upcoming Taga stroller/trike might be something I’d try with an infant (are you thinking about carrying this?).

I’ll be very curious to see what you’re working on with a new FR8 variant. I drooled puddles in the Clever Cycles showroom this fall when I saw the gloriously orange FR8 with the big rack and front stand. In the meantime, since we’re bakfiets-less, I’ll wait until he’s at least 9-12mo and use our Bobike Mini seat, unless I jury-rig a rear-facing car seat low down in the Madsen Cycles bucket first. But even then I’ll probably wait until he’s 6mo, as much as that pains me.

I understand wanting to keep FR8 development under wraps for now, but it’d be fun to follow along with your prototyping in this blog …

We’re still working (slowly) on a better solution. It’ll require another type of bike, though, thus you might see a new variant of the FR8 on the market next year.

There is a photo somewhere of my (now 14 year old) daughter sitting happily in a bike basket when she was a couple of months old. We didn’t really transport her that way though, which is just as well as I think social services in the UK would have descended on us and taken her away if we had. If they had, she’d probably have grown up without cycling, and be heading towards obesity due to travelling everywhere by car.