New to UK: Infant seats...

Hello all,

First off, I am not a cyclist myself, but my wife is Chinese and that thinks life without a bicycle
is like life without her left leg! We have recently moved to the UK from Beijing and now have a 3
month old daughter.

Basically we want to fit an infant seat so that she can ditch the pushchair whenever she wants to
leave the house with the baby during the day. (Every mother in China has one........)

The questions are: Is this legal in the UK? If so, are there any restrictions / requirements for
carrying an infant?

If you can help, please feel free to reply directly to my email as I'm sure the group does not want
such trivial postings cluttering up their message downloads.

Many thanks in advance for your help.

Angus & Zhu Cong Ping (and Siobhan)

 

On Thu, 20 Mar 2003 21:55:18 +0000 (UTC), "Angus" <[email protected]> wrote:

>Hello all,
>
>First off, I am not a cyclist myself, but my wife is Chinese and that thinks life without a bicycle
>is like life without her left leg! We have recently moved to the UK from Beijing and now have a 3
>month old daughter.
>
>Basically we want to fit an infant seat so that she can ditch the pushchair whenever she wants to
>leave the house with the baby during the day. (Every mother in China has one........)
>
>The questions are: Is this legal in the UK?

Yes.

>If so, are there any restrictions / requirements for carrying an infant?

I don't think there are any legal restrictions but common sense suggests that your daughter should
be capable of holding her head up. It's 10 years since we had one that young in the house, so I
couldn't say where a 3 month old is on the development milestone thing.

Any decent bike shop. There are some good designs around these days - Rhode Gear Shuttle and Limo
(?) get good reviews. Four point harness, easy detatchability from the host bike, solid construction
and so on.

>
>If you can help, please feel free to reply directly to my email as I'm sure the group does not want
>such trivial postings cluttering up their message downloads.

That's what newsgroups are for. And it's not a trivial posting on two counts (1) it's about cycling
(2) it's about getting your daughter cycling.

Tim
--

fast and gripping, non pompous, glossy and credible.

 

On Thu, 20 Mar 2003 22:21:33 +0000, Tim Hall <[email protected]> wrote:

>
>Any decent bike shop. There are some good designs around these days - Rhode Gear Shuttle and Limo
>(?) get good reviews. Four point harness, easy detatchability from the host bike, solid
>construction and so on.

I don't have children, so know bugger all about the pros and cons of different seats for them, but
noticed today that EBC have one in their latest special offers with a tenner off:

http://www.edinburgh-bicycle.co.uk/catalogue/specialoffers.cfm

Not actually sure if this is a good price or not but I'm sure you can do some shopping around.

Bob
--
Mail address is spam trapped To reply by email remove the beverage

 

>Hello all,
>
>First off, I am not a cyclist myself, but my wife is Chinese and that thinks life without a bicycle
>is like life without her left leg! We have recently moved to the UK from Beijing and now have a 3
>month old daughter.
>

Congratulations! May your daughter have a long, happy, healthy and prosperous life. I hope your wife
settles into UK life and makes lots of friends.

>Basically we want to fit an infant seat so that she can ditch the pushchair whenever she wants to
>leave the house with the baby during the day. (Every mother in China has one........)
>
>The questions are: Is this legal in the UK?

Yes.

>If so, are there any restrictions / requirements for carrying an infant?

Not sure about legal requirements, but basically the infant needs to be capable of holding his/her
head up on own.

Halfords ... local bike shops ... Argos ... they are quite widely available.

>
>If you can help, please feel free to reply directly to my email as I'm sure the group does not want
>such trivial postings cluttering up their message downloads.

Nothing trivial about posting This is, on the whole, a friendly bunch on the newsgroup and if you
are interested in cycling I'm sure you'll be made welcome


As well as considering a child seat, consider a trailer see http://www.burley.com/

When my son was a wee one (he's now 14) I used a child seat mounted behind my saddle as a mode of
transport for him - it was great and I had no problems with it or with him in it, but if I could
have afforded it at the time, I think I would have preferred a trailer such as those done by
Burley. Back in the dim and distant aeons when my son was wee, the trailers were harder to come by
than they are now.

>
>Many thanks in advance for your help.

Most welcome.

>
>Angus & Zhu Cong Ping (and Siobhan)

Cheers, helen s

~~~~~~~~~~
Flush out that intestinal parasite and/or the waste product before sending a reply!

Any speeliong mistake$ aR the resiult of my cats sitting on the keyboaRRRDdd
~~~~~~~~~~

 

"Angus" <[email protected]> writes:

> Hello all,
>
> First off, I am not a cyclist myself, but my wife is Chinese and that thinks life without a
> bicycle is like life without her left leg! We have recently moved to the UK from Beijing and now
> have a 3 month old daughter.
>
> Basically we want to fit an infant seat so that she can ditch the pushchair whenever she wants to
> leave the house with the baby during the day. (Every mother in China has one........)
>
> The questions are: Is this legal in the UK? If so, are there any restrictions / requirements for
> carrying an infant?

There are no specifc legal requirements or such seats. There is legislation regarding the carrying
of passengers on bikes - basically the bike must be "properly adapted" for so doing. Child seats are
generally fine.

Having said that a 3 month old is probably too small to use most of the seats on the market - babies
need to be able to properly support their own heads for seats where they're sitting upright; which
is not normally the case at three months.

I used to use a car baby seat fixed into a cycle trailer when my kids were that small.

 

Angus wrote:
> If you can help, please feel free to reply directly to my email as I'm sure the group does not
> want such trivial postings cluttering up their message downloads.

Hi Angus. Your questions are more important and less trivial than most of the stuff that gets posted
here! Better information is obtained when replies are posted in public because points can be
discussed and corrected, and it saves people going to the trouble of researching and replying when
all their points have already been made by someone else.

Sorry I can't help with child seats.

~PB

 

[posted and mailed]

"Angus" <[email protected]> wrote in news:[email protected]:
> Basically we want to fit an infant seat so that she can ditch the pushchair whenever she wants to
> leave the house with the baby during the day. (Every mother in China has one........)

I have a 21 month old and have been taking her on our bikes on and off since she was about 4 months.
Initially we used the Dutch Babybike:

http://www1.tip.nl/~t005974/babybike.html

This seems to have changed a bit since I bought one. It's not cheap (you might be able to get a
second hand one - mine might be for sale, but I'll have to see what condition it is in first).

After that we've used the Rhode Gear Limo, e.g:

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/product_detail.asp?ProdID=4000000058

Another option is a trailer. I've not used one, but there are plenty of people on this
newsgroup who have.

> The questions are: Is this legal in the UK? If so, are there any restrictions / requirements for
> carrying an

See the links above. Harlow has, I think, just the big Halfords on Edinburgh Way for bikes and
accessories now.

Toby

PS. I'll give your wife a wave if I see her - I'm usually cycling through Harlow early morning and
late afternoon on my way to and from work.

 

Something I forgot - if you are thinking of getting the wee one a helmet to wear, have a look at the
Hampshire County Council online road safety shop website - it has a specifically designed infant &
toddler helmet available

http://www.shopcreator.com/mall/RoadSafetyOnline/products/product-74149.stm

Only £5.00

Best wishes, helen s

~~~~~~~~~~
Flush out that intestinal parasite and/or the waste product before sending a reply!

Any speeliong mistake$ aR the resiult of my cats sitting on the keyboaRRRDdd
~~~~~~~~~~

 

"Angus" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...

> Basically we want to fit an infant seat so that she can ditch the pushchair whenever she wants to
> leave the house with the baby during the day. (Every mother in China has one........)

Angus, you might also want to consider a trailer for Siobhan. Have a look at a previous thread in
this newsgroup by following this link:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?Q267517E3

... which should give you the same result as following this one:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&threadm=28a434a0.0302060219.4dce4b0e%40po-
sting.google.com&rnum=4&prev=/groups%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3Dlang_en%26ie%3DISO-8859-1%26q%3Dtrailer%2Bchi-
ld%26meta%3Dgroup%253Duk.rec.cycling

--
Dave...

 

Paul Rudin <[email protected]> wrote
> Having said that a 3 month old is probably too small to use most of the seats on the market -
> babies need to be able to properly support their own heads for seats where they're sitting
> upright; which is not normally the case at three months.
>
> I used to use a car baby seat fixed into a cycle trailer when my kids were that small.

Yes indeed. Our Ellen (now 10 days old) has a Burley child trailer waiting for her in the garage,
and a car seat in the car. When I'm able to cycle (they suggest waiting at least 6 weeks after a
Cesarean to ride a bike, also the carpal tunnel syndrome that stopped me from riding my bike three
weeks before Ellen was due is still with me) the baby car seat will be strapped into the trailer and
we'll go for short rides with her.

-Myra

 

Toby Barrett <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...

> After that we've used the Rhode Gear Limo, e.g:
>
> http://www.wiggle.co.uk/product_detail.asp?ProdID=4000000058
>
I managed to buy one of these secondhand for GBP20 and they are excellent. Easy to fit / remove (I
take it off my bike for my daily commute) and REALLY sturdy. You can tell the difference between
these and GBP20 to GBP45 seats. My 2.5 year old loves but now she insists on wearing her pink helmet
on her trike

Al