TYKE TOTER Kids Ride Tyketoter The Original Front-Mount Child Bike Seat - Portable Tool-Free Quick-Release Attachment for Age 2-5

I got involved in front mounted children's bicycle seats almost four years ago when I started bicycle commuting. I liked the first seat I used well enough. It was a Bike Tutor, which is now called the Co-Rider. It worked well for me, but I would occasionally scrape my shins against the metal leg rests. When my older son grew out of it, I didn't bother keeping it. This year my youngest son is finally big enough for a front-mounted seat and so we started looking around again. I thought about getting a Co-Rider, but read enough negative reviews that I was leery about it. We ended up trying the Wee Ride Kangaroo seat, but I hated it because the back rest was in my way. I sent it back immediately. We thought about the iBert seat, as it is really popular and I saw it used a lot back when we lived in the city, but I didn't really like the idea of the weight of the seat being on the steering.This seat has been exactly what I was looking for. It was a million times easier to mount than either of the first two seats I was looking at. There is no back rest or full leg rests to jar any part of my body against. The handle bars are great and keep my son's hands in a place that is comfortable for him and away from my gears, breaks, and bike computer. He does occasionally reach up and try to play with them, but it is easy enough to correct and hasn't been a big issues, and my kid is the type of kid who is into EVERYTHING. I put a bike bell on the handles and he loves to ring it when we are out passing people on the trail.We don't do any serious hard core riding: our rides average 7-10 miles at speeds averaging 10mph - sometimes as high as 16, sometimes as low as 7 or 8. My bike is a Fisher Tiburon with a women's step through. It's a hybrid bike that does well on roads and less well out on the dirt, but I do ride it on dirt roads often. I have felt very safe with my son on it while road cycling and trail cycling. As a hybrid, my bike does have a partial suspension seat with first couple inches of the post being square and the lower section being tubular, so I did have to raise my seat a bit higher than I was used to in order to accommodate the seat. The seat fits well otherwise, but there was a learning curve to getting on and off the bike and stopping at intersections without being able to simply put my feet down or sliding off the seat in the front. I was most anxious about this, and I was disappointed that the manufacturer doesn't make any recommendations more specific than "use the curb". A YouTube video would have been most helpful. That was months ago, though, and I am an old pro at it by now.I have not had any problems with the foot pegs sliding down, as others have reported. However, my son is only about 22 pounds and two years old and well below the manufacturer's maximum weight suggestion. The main bar itself is firmly attached to the bike and doesn't move. I check it every time we go out and it is always firmly in place. The seat itself has just a light foam padding on it, and the foam on the handlebars is the cheap kind that you see on kids' scooters or bikes: not designed to last long. So far it is holding up well for us, though.My son loves going for bike rides. I had trouble getting him to put his helmet on the first time, but once he had been out on the bike and had learned to associate helmet with bike ride the problem disappeared. The seat looks uncomfortable to me, but for the most part my son doesn't act as though it bothers him. Our average ride is about an hour long, but he does get bored if I don't let him off to play at some point. We usually take a break about 3/4 of the way through our loop and stop at a park to play. I have done the full hour without stopping, but not often. This seat is designed for kids to have a full interactive/participatory experience, which means that you do have to have your kid's full cooperation. They hold themselves in place and ride along with you. If they are throwing a tantrum or falling asleep you can't simply soldier on as you might with a full seat or a trailer: you have to stop and deal with the problem and talk your kid into cooperating. So that's something to take into consideration.I ride my bike solo all the time and I don't have to take the Tyke Toter off: I barely even know it's there. With the other seats I tried I could ride by myself, but they were so bulky that I didn't like to do it, which is why the Bike Tutor came off the second my son wasn't riding on it regularly anymore. They were also more difficult to take on and off. I don't have to take the Tyke Toter off, but if I did it would be a very simple thing to do.Finally, I felt like the seat post mount solved a major problem of front-mounted seats. It's simple design is brilliant in a lot of ways. However, I had hoped to be able to carry both of my kids on my bike: one on the mounted seat and the other on the third wheel. Unfortunately because of the way my seat post is designed I can't really handle more than one seat post mount at once. It might be a possibility for a more traditional seat post that is all tubular and has no suspension. My husband's post is a partial suspension as well, so I can't say for sure.I gave this product 5 stars because I haven't been able to find a better child bike seat, at least not in the US market. While I do feel that the seat and handlebar foam could be improved upon, the improvements are very minimal and will probably occur as this product evolves over time... which it is sure to do, as it is a great product. I'm very happy with mine, and so is my two year old.

I just got this and installed it yesterday. Setup was extremely simple and the bar is solid, stable, and in place in about 20 seconds once you make sure how to attach it with the quick release onto the seat post. It took maybe 1 minute to put the foot rest in place and run the straps under the brake line... My only wish / complaint with the product is that I'd like a bigger size. My kid is not tiny, but a 23 month old boy who probably weighs 28 lbs / 13 kg. I am a 6 foot tall male with a 19 or 21" mountain bike... so it seems from the user photos that the sizing of the bar is perfect if you are 5'7" with a girls bike, but for me the seat would be much more ideal if the bar was 2-3 inches longer so the kid was out in front a bit more... and if the kids bar was maybe an inch or so further out in front of him that would also be a bonus (he sits like holding the reins of a horse rather than having the leverage of the handlebars out in front like on a bike). I get that the customization of this sort of product could be really complicated and it would have been hard for me to predict (unless I measured) exactly what was ideal for me and my bike. As it is, it is really, really cool but it is also hard for me to reach my handle bars without pushing my kid forward because he is a bit too close in front of me and with my bike there would be room for him to be as much as 4-5 inches further in front of me... I am quite thin so that is not the issue, but I keep pushing his helmet down over his eyes with my chest when I reach to really take a good grip on the handle bars of my bike, plus I cannot get on the bike with him in place unless I am standing over my seat (generally I like to keep it high enough that I normally get on in front of the seat step on a peddle and sit down but really am at the tip of my toes to stand over the seat). Anyhow, overall I think the construction, simplicity and design are great. Please let me know if you come up with a slightly larger size for a slightly taller guy... As it is I still think it is cooler than the back seat and safer than letting him just sit on my center bar and hold my handle bars (which we actually did the other day and he loved it)... we rode with this in place for 30 minutes the day I put it on, and from start to finish my kid had a great time.