[blindkid] Bicycling & Other Fun Activities

[Richard Holloway]

Eric,

I don’t know if I posted a picture of it or not, but we bought one of the four-person quads like you had mentioned as well— similar to some of the rental designs with two rows of two seats.  (Yes, my wife is vary patient and understanding about my cycling passion!) The Quad-cycle design (ours is a "Rhoades Car") is fun, but unlike the in-line setups, they are really heavy (like a couple-hundred pounds or more), and extra-hard to haul. More than that, the most frustrating part (at least around here) is they are so wide, that you can’t take them on most bike paths— not even the retired railroad lines which have been converted to riding trails can be used, because they put up posts to keep cars off the paths at road crossings. These quads and some of the side-by side tandems (often called “social tandems”) won’t clear these posts, so check where you want to ride before you order one! I suspect you’d be more likely to get a side-by-side system working on suburban, or rural neighborhood streets, though they may fit on  broader paths near some beaches, but you want enough path width that you aren’t running oncoming cyclists off the path as they approach you too… 

If I had it to do over, I’d probably just rent a pedal car now and then, but I was all excited, and anxious to have a family bike, and I got the Rhoades before I had ever heard of tandem tadpole trikes. Tandem tadpole designs are absolutely my favorite solution for tandem pleasure riding!

Some of our triple and quad in-line rigs are 18 or 20 feet long (our Rhoades Car is only about 10 feel long), but my in-line designs have all been narrow enough that we can ride them on most any paved bike path we encounter- just something else to keep in mind before you buy, and while you can buy the tandems and the trailers ready-to-ride, you will probably have to do some fabrication to attach the trailers to tow with a tadpole cycle, because most trailers are intended to mount to a seat-post (not a part of a recumbent cycle!), though the fabrication isn’t terribly complicated...

One other big issue with kids is that some of these bikes are sold with the fact that they can be disassembled to transport easily as a big selling point. That might be just fine for adult solutions, but when kids are waiting to ride at the trailhead, we have found it is FAR better to go to the trouble of trailering the bikes in read-to-ride. Expecting kids, super-full of excitement and anxious to get underway, to be able to sit and wait while you bolt a bike together is probably not realistic for families with young children, and after the ride is done, nobody really likes waiting to head home or off to eat either.

There are car-top carriers for tandem (conventional) bikes, but the tandem tadpole trikes are much longer because bodies are stretched out more while riding, (That also makes them incredibly comfortable to ride on!) Because of this, the tandems are nearly 12 feet long assembled, so again, transportation can be complicated. One of these days, I will manage to rig a car top carrier for at least one tandem tadpole, but the best solution we’ve had so far has always been some sort of a trailer.

If all of that makes it sound like a hassle, let me close by saying if I had it all to do over again, I would not hesitate to re-buy a pair of recumbent (tadpole) tandems and a few trailer setups to meet out needs. I absolutely LOVE riding them!

Good luck finding a setup that works really well for you...

>> Also, at a number of beaches I have seen a number of style of 4 person
>> buggy bikes for rent – that looks like a fun family activity (you can
>> google that too).