Riding your bike is a great way to spend time with your children if you have the right accessories. Chris Carter from the Bicycle Sport Shop shows Daddy Troy what to look for when buying a bike trailer. These trailers now come with cupholders, camelbacks and roll cages. Chris follows it up with a review of the trailer bike and bike seat. When selecting a biking accessory don't forget about sun, wind and rain protection for your children. DadLabs Ep. 248 Gear Daddy.

Here we are today with Chris Carter from the Bicycle Sports Shop. Chris tell us about bike trailers.

Chris: Sure, this bike trailer is designed by Trek - this design has cushy seats, it also has a 5-point harness.

Daddy Troy: It's color coded too to know where to push in order for it to come out like that.

Chris: Exactly correct. And its easy as well to latch and unlatch, this comes out, so when your child spills their bicycle in training ride snack, and it goes over the seat - then this is washable.

The floorboard of this is a very thick nylon material, it has a cup holder. The other too that I usually recommend when somebody's buying one of these is a camel back.

Daddy Troy: A camel back is the thing that you put on your back that you can sip water out of.

Chris: That's correct, or drops it in the storage area - your son or daughter has the camel back tube right here. If they're holding their bottle and they drop their bottle on the floor, now you have to stop, dismount, get off the bike, unzip you know...

Daddy Troy: That's from a true dad right there! Oh those are little pull-rings that you can pull and tighten and this is a two-seater?

Chris: This is a two-seater.

Daddy Troy: Okay, can you get them in one-seater models as well?

Chris: We do have one-seater models - this one is up to 100lbs.

Daddy Troy: 100lbs for 100 and 100? Or 50 and 50?

Chris: 100 total.

Daddy Troy: Total - so it could be 60 40?

Chris: Yeah

Daddy Troy: So Chris, one of the problems that I'm having with my particular trailer is that the kid's helmets, do the kids wear a helmet when they are riding in this?
Chris: They should yes.

Daddy Troy: Okay and so where my kids are wearing a helmet, their helmet hits the back of the one I've got - which is not as nice as this one, and they look down all the time and they are not enjoying the ride as much. Is that an issue on this one? When your kids ride?

Chris: This is a low-back seat, and this mesh pocket back here - is created for that depth of the helmet.

Daddy Troy: Great! Super! And this is made out of aluminum it looks like?

Chris: That's aluminum.

Daddy Troy: It's really light, when you're the dad or mom pedaling with your kids - its lighter as well.

Chris: My wife and I, actually just did a ride. We had the tandem, and then we had the kid trailer off the back.

Daddy Troy: So it was you and your wife on the bike and then the trailer on the back? Wow that's a site to see.

Chris: It was a blast

Daddy Troy: That's really cool.

Chris: But these are really nice. The roll cage - they're hard to tip.

Daddy Troy: So how does it hook up to your bike? Can you show me? Is there a little piece that we hook in?

Chris: Sure. This actually goes on the rear of the bike - the trailer comes with a special skewer that's longer than your normal skewer.

Daddy Troy: It sticks out a little bit?

Chris: Right, and you can just leave this on your bike - it's a nice feature. You undo the trailer if you want to leave it in your garage if you want to run down to the store. It's a rotation, so if you fall down - the trailer does not fall down.

Daddy Troy: The bike goes over, you go over, but the trailer stays horizontal?

Chris: Right they are okay.

Daddy Troy: Right, is there a wheel that you can use on some of them that you can use as a jogging? And then it becomes a 3-wheel stroller type-jogging stroller.

Chris: A jogging stroller correct.

Daddy Troy: Am I going to be able to fit it into the back of my Prius? And we have two more products that you want to look at and show me. Okay this bike's missing a wheel - what's that?

Chris: It's okay; we call this a trailer bike.

Daddy Troy: A trailer bike okay, and this hooks onto your bike?

Chris: That attaches to your back-seat post, so now your child can sit and pedal behind you, and they get the freedom and enjoyment of riding their own bike, but keeping up at your pace.

Daddy Troy: And when they don't want to peddle, it's got a free wheel - we're all good.

Chris: So here's the baby seat

Daddy Troy: That hooks onto the top part of the bike okay.

Chris: That fits onto the top part of the bike. When you're buying one of these - typically we recommend the trailer, because with the bike seat, if you fall down - they fall down. If you are going to get one of these, it's really important to have the roll bar with the front - this one comes out from the side to protect.

Daddy Troy: Okay so you really want to look at the sun, wind and rain protection on these trailers. In a cold climate, the wind and the rain can make for a really unpleasant experience for kids, and in a hot climate - you really want to keep the sun off their bodies. But the sun protectors sometimes actually inhibit the amount of wind that can go by them and even get hotter.

Another warning, these things are fairly pricey, but they also have a really go re-sale value or you can give it to a friend as a pregnancy gift - to make a really great gift once your kids have grown out of it. And finally, think about using this as a way of decreasing your carbon footprint - take a trip over to the corner store, if you live in a suburban neighborhood use it to ride over to your friend's houses, to go play with the kids.

A big shout out to the guys at the Bicycle Sports Shop for helping us out today. We’ll see you next time at dadlabs.com.