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*kelbrian* awesome bike!

lovelylinzlovelylinz
in Eco-Friendly Family
Tell me about your bike!  I saw it in your siggy and you have me interested.  I want to use my bike more, but can't figure out how that would work with 2 LOs.  Something like yours may work though.
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Re: *kelbrian* awesome bike!

  • kelbriankelbrian

    Hey!  I love my bike. I found out about it through a friend in the neighborhood. She started a trend - our neighborhood now has four Madsen bikes now, I think :)

    It can fit four kids in the bucket. There are two removable seats that velcro in and four seat belts. Weight limit? 600 pounds! I easily am able to go grocery shopping for the week with my kiddo in tow. This past weekend I fit her as well as four grocery bags and a comforter set for her bed.

    It rides so smoothly. A friend of mine was really skeptical of me saying that and took it for a spin this past weekend. She was so surprised at how well it handled and how much she loved riding it! 

    Cost: $1500 for the black color that I have (that includes $150 shipping). Bike comes to your house fully assembled and tuned. Another option is to have it delivered to a local bike shop, which takes $50 off of the shipping. 

    We don't own a car and this has been wonderful for us. We used a Chariot Cougar when she was smaller and that worked really well as well. I do miss being able to just unhook the Chariot and take it into stores and such, as it could be switched into a strolling mode (jogging, hiking and skiing modes as well). There's a double version of that, just to throw another option out there for you. Burley and Croozer are also good brands, but I only have personal experience with Chariot. 

    You wouldn't be able to use it with your itty bitty for quite a while. The blog TotCycle does have an infant seat hack that they started using when their baby was closer to six months. I don't know that I'd be comfortable with that, though. The recommended age is one year because the spinal cord and neck muscles are better developed and more apt to sustain the jostling and bumps that come with biking.

    Let me know if you have any questions at all!

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  • njh514njh514 member

    Totally butting in here, but I love that bike as well. I showed my husband when you posted. We started saving up for a cargo bike a couple months back. We'll likely go with a Surly, as the local shop sells a lot of Surly bikes and have really great things to say about them. One guy built his own deck with kid seats for his 2 kids. Pretty amazing. BUT - I'm also going to look into the Madesn. Our youngest is 4 months so by the time we have enough money saved to get the cargo bike she'll be old enough to ride. The link you posted makes me really want to get the cargo bike now and jimmy a system for the baby but I know I should wait.

    I love this board so much. When people around us think we're crazy, I come on here and see others that have done whatever it is that we're being called crazy for. LOVE it. Thanks for letting me butt in.

     

    ETA (link): Shifting Gears. This is a local guy and I love what he does. I'm pretty sure we're hoping to get a kid contraption something like this. 

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  • kelbriankelbrian
    imagenjh514:

    Totally butting in here, but I love that bike as well. I showed my husband when you posted. We started saving up for a cargo bike a couple months back. We'll likely go with a Surly, as the local shop sells a lot of Surly bikes and have really great things to say about them. One guy built his own deck with kid seats for his 2 kids. Pretty amazing. BUT - I'm also going to look into the Madesn. Our youngest is 4 months so by the time we have enough money saved to get the cargo bike she'll be old enough to ride. The link you posted makes me really want to get the cargo bike now and jimmy a system for the baby but I know I should wait.

    I love this board so much. When people around us think we're crazy, I come on here and see others that have done whatever it is that we're being called crazy for. LOVE it. Thanks for letting me butt in.

     

    ETA (link): Shifting Gears. This is a local guy and I love what he does. I'm pretty sure we're hoping to get a kid contraption something like this. 

    I haven't seen a Surly in action around here, just XtraCycles and Yuba Mundos (which is what we were also considering). The seats look really neat, though, and it's great that you can get it through a local shop. 

    Quite honestly, I'd probably bike with a baby under a year if we lived in a city like Amsterdam or Copenhagen where the bike lanes aren't full of potholes and where motorists don't treat cyclists like crap. I'd also do it if we lived in a more rural area. But here in Chicago, there is just too much damage to the roads, too much traffic, etc. Some friends of mine have the Dutch front-riding cargo bikes and have used their infant seats in them, but it just makes me incredibly nervous.

    I love love love my Madsen so much, though :) Can't say enough great things about it! I do effing HATE their customer service, though. I have had issues with them.

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