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Hi,
Just bought a trailer for the kiddie (2 year old), so we can go for local rides. Was a bit excited, so got up early and took her out for a spin around the street.
I noticed that her helmet (decathlon) was being pushed over her eyes by the upright nature of the seat back. It's basically a net seat.
I'm wondering what solutions you have come up with to this. I'm thinking of trying out two.
1. Cut up a camping roll mat so that it comes up to her shoulders, then put this behind her attached via velcro to the seat. This should leave a small gap between the back of her helmet and the back of the seat.
2. Get a more rounded jump style of helmet.
Any help much appreciated.
In spite of her having to hold the helmet up to see, she loved the ride around the street, so I'd like to persevere but make it more comfortable.
Thanks
My solution is to not bother with the helmet.
Find her a better fitting helmet. If it doesn't fit properly then it;s not going to work properly.
(Also lets see if this gets to 12 pages 🙂 )
I've never owned a kiddie trailer, just a kiddie seat, so I'm perfectly qualified to give advice here
IIRC, a lot of kiddie trailers are not designed with helmet wearing as a pre-requisite, and by their very nature have a "roll cage" to protect the little 'un. So before you go modifying the trailer, consider going sans helmet.
If you're having this probelem everyone else who owns the same trailer wil be having it as well.
Thanks for the quick feedback. The instructions with the trailer state that a helmet should be worn at all times, so I'd hope there's a comfortable way of wearing one.
I wouldn't ride my bike without a helmet these days (too many crashes), so I'd not take her out without one.
I'll take her to the LBS tomorrow to see if we can get a better fitting one.
We just go without helmets. I only use the trailer in parkland tho so no real danger of an accident.
I'd second the suggestions of a decent fitting helmet, I just bought our little princess a Giro lid from CRC, only £17. It fits and she loves it because its pink and girlie. In fact she loves it so much she's wandering around the house in it.
This is a vast improvement over the previous lid that was just too big and bulky for her, so she hated wearing it.
Roll cage isn't sufficient to stop a head smacking a rock in a roll, I don't think.
The kiddie helmets we have (Specialized and Abus) have very rounded low profile rears for this very reason, like a BMX style grown up lid. They seem to fit nicely in our Chariot which has a mesh back also.
Always had mine wearing a helmet in the trailer, if only to instil the thought process of: bike ride = put your helmet on
+1 for re-checking whether the helmet fits properly in the first place - mine ended up with different helmets in Decathlon from the ones their ages would have suggested.
Hoppy jr doesn't wear a helmet in ours as there is a roll cage. We've done Degla and coed y blue routes in it like this but tbh I tend to back off a bit in the tighter stuff. If you followed the instructions you can't go very quick in a straight line and pretty much should track stand round corners.
My kids have worn helmets in our child seat but now don't in our trailer.... (but for my local loop with them, I'm off road in less than 500 yards)
In presuming that traffic isn't your worry... Trailers are really stable, you will have done something very wrong to have tipped it over.
I'm happy for them to go without and they still like wearing the helmets when they are on thier little bikes, scooters or in fact just running around the garden.
I wouldn't ride my bike without a helmet these days (too many crashes), so I'd not take her out without one.
A proper roll-over safety cage is surely more effective than a lump of polystyrene. I can't really see what added safety benefit there is.
We don't put one on in the trailer because of the whole roll cage thing. And I've rolled it with kid in it so can testify that they were fine (if not very happy with daddy!).
As for rock intrusion, I'm not sure I'd want to be riding with a trailer where there was much chance of this happening, of course your radness might vary....
My kids heads are about 6" from the fabric sides of the trailer. There's plenty of wobble room for one of them to smack their head on the floor, even if there weren't any rocks, kerbs, tree stumps etc.
A proper roll-over safety cage is surely more effective than a lump of polystyrene
It's not either or. Bike trailers are hardly motorsport levels of protection. It's just thin alu tubing and wide open areas of fabric.
Thanks everyone for the wide ranging responses. I'm going to try to see if I can get a helmet that fits both my daughter and the trailer. I have had some good examples on here and have seen some promising ones online, so will see how that goes.
Nope - no helmets worn inside our trailer either.
+1, my kids do not wear a helmet in the trailer, the same as I don't wear one in the car
Another without helmets here. We are usually off road though.
Helmets make them hot and uncomfortable (so whingy).
giro helmets are ace..
No helmets here, on or off road. No trailer injuries yet in well over 1000 miles (possibly coming up to 2000 now I think about it). Haven't come anywhere near crashing it ever, I don't ride it offroad anywhere near as recklessly as if I was riding alone.
We started off with the baby sling, and I can't see how you'd fit one into that comfortably.
She's fine wearing her bike hat on her bike now for anything from pottering in the garden to riding the bmx track, and I can safely say that the helmet appears to work for the kind of crashes she has had (a couple of high speed faceplants).
Joe
No helmets in our trailer either except when there were two of them in and we were offroad in case heads bashed even though the instruction manual recommended it.
Ordered a helmet for Monkey Jnr (nearly 2yrs) a few weeks ago and we couldn't even get it on his head despite all the measurements stacking up. Walked into LBS and tried on the competitor's equivalent - fitted perfectly and with 2-3yrs 'room' to grow.
Have a Croozer and he has no problem with helmet/vision. Plenty of scope to look up, down and side to side without any crooking or discomfort. The only challenge I have is finding a way to keep his head up when he nods off. Have tried toweling and an inflatable flight pillow but neither work that well. Anyone found any solutions?