Warm Fuzzies...and a Review of the Burley Encore

Recently, I was lucky enough to have one of those incredibly fortunate moments where I realized that my life is turning out to be the way that I'd always imagined that it could be. It all happened when I was looking at these:


That would be my husband's bike (front) and my bike (to the rear) towing a trailer filled with a picnic lunch, a diaper bag, and, if you can believe it, a pop-up tent for baby nappage. I was looking at this scene from the passenger deck of a ferry to Kelley's Island where I was off to spend a hot and sunny summer day with my family biking around the island, playing on the beach, hiking on the trails, picnicking in the park, and lounging in the shade.

I looked next to me at the Hubster who wear wearing a backpack full of toddler and I thought, "Damn."

I immediately though back to a hiking trip I took with my sisters in Acadia National Park in Maine. We'd just finished a rather grueling climb and were about to reach a gorgeous overlook when I saw this adorable family. The man was wearing his baby in a hiking pack and the woman led the way with their Golden Retriever and I remember thinking, "how the hell did they even get UP here" right before thinking, "I want my life to be like that."

Fast forward six years and here I am, standing next to a cute, toddler wearing guy, towing said toddler around on my bike, doing those things that I always assumed that the crunchy, fit, granola-eating family in Maine did on their weekends. Hell, I've even got the Subaru station wagon.

Since then, I've been attempting to do a better job at incorporating my bike riding into my every day life rather than making it such an "event" (as in: let's call of off work, ride our bikes 25 miles, take a 6 mile walk, and bike 25 miles home!). Bike riding has always been something I've planned to do, not something I've done to, say, run errands or get from point A to point B (not since I was a kid, anway). I figured, hell, I bought this $400 bicycle trailer, I live in the city and I don't need to drive anywhere, let's try this thing out on a regular Saturday morning!

So try it out I did, and I must say, this Burley Encore bicycle trailer kind of sucks.

See, I bought the trailer in March from a local bicycle shop, excited as all hell to spend my summer biking with the Nugget. Since then, the trailer has been nothing but a thorn in my side. After taking it to the bike shop and raising holy hell, they ordered some parts from Burley to "fix" the trailer, adjusted the fit of the trailer for my son, and made sure his helmet fit properly.

See, the bicycle shop refused the take the trailer back. Both the bicycle shop and Burley insisted that "nobody had ever made [my complaint] about this [piece of shit] trailer before." A cursory search of the internet proves otherwise, but let this string of photos make my case for me.

Here we are, at the beginning of our ride. Barrett is positioned in the middle of the two-child trailer (we bought the two-seater "just in case") as per the owners manual (which, by the way, the bicycle shop never gave us, or else I would have realized that I was missing so many parts). You'll notice that he began the ride with his Giro bicycle helmet on his little blonde head.


But look what happens only minutes into each ride. Barrett, though buckled in tightly, begins his long, slow slide to one side or the other of the trailer. What's worse, the "hammock" design of the trailer seat means that Barrett is in a reclined position. Because he wears a helmet, the hammock seat pushes his head forward in the seat, causing the helmet to block him from seeing anything, which results in him tugging on the helmet with all of his might to get the helmet out of his face. Observe:



This kid is so miserable that neither he or I can tolerate it much longer. I take off his helmet. Look at how this poor kid is sitting.

I decide, then, to try him seated to one side of the trailer, rather than right in the middle. I hoped that this would help him to sit up properly in his seat without falling to the side. Though the light in these pictures is awful, you can see that he looks to be sitting much more comfortably.



...but sure enough, I have to pull over three blocks over because the helmet is pushed over his face by the back of the trailer and he can't see. When he tries to push it back, the chin strap under his neck digs into his throat and pinches him. This poor kid is miserable.


Sure, you can fill a heck of a lot of goodies in the back... Here I've got a loaf of bread and hamburger buns from Breadsmith, Barrett's diaper bag, and hidden from view under the diaper bag, a large soft-sided cooler filled with cold groceries from Nature's Bin (organic grapes, tempeh, yogurt, and edamame) along with another bag of non-perishables (granola and puffed spelt).

And eventually, without his helmet, Barrett can relax enough to do this:


But really, this thing was so not worth $400. In order to have a happy, comfortable ride, Barrett has to ride without a helmet. I love to ride my bike, but not enough to risk my kid's life in order to do it.

We're going to try a toddler skate helmet. My sincere hope is that, given the helmet's different shape, it won't get pushed down over his eyes like this Giro bike helmet. If that doesn't work, I'm just not sure what my options are... Rickshaw, maybe?