I had a second daughter and with her impending arrival came the question of how to safely transport not one, but two of those cute little things. For many people this probably means getting a second car seat, but we no longer own a car and even if we did it would be pretty useless to me since I don’t have a driver’s license. I prefer to use a bike or public transport and on the rare occasion that we really do need a car to go somewhere, we rent one.
For my oldest daughter I used a bike trailer, but the one we have only fits one child and a larger one that could accommodate two children doesn’t fit through our backyard gate or in our shed. With my growing belly I also started to struggle facing headwinds while cycling home from work.
The solution to both problems was to get the Urban Arrow electric cargo bike. The baby can sit in her maxi cosi car seat that fits in a specific adaptor for this bike and her sister can sit on the bench strapped in a seat belt. I now laugh at headwinds and am still amazed at how much quicker you get somewhere when you cycle 20-25 kph instead of 15.
Yes, I did take pictures for a sun cover on a rainy day…
You can get a very nice rain cover for this bike, but with the great summer weather we had last summer I worried that my tiny baby would be a bit too much exposed to the sun in her maxi cosi. So, solving the first two problems created a new one. Not being easily deterred by such problems I quickly started brainstorming ways to create a sun cover.
The requirements
- Good protection from the sun
- Easy to install and remove, if it takes 10 minutes each time it won’t be used
- Easy to take the maxi cosi out of the bike as I will often have to take it with me when I reach my destination
- The cover should not make it more difficult to seat the toddler on the bench
- There should still be a clear view on the baby when I am cycling so I can keep an eye on her
- The baby should still get enough fresh air, I could just throw a big blanket over the entire maxi cosi to cover everything but children really need air to breath…
How it was made
I had a stretch fabric blanket with UPF 50 rating that seemed like a good starting point and from there I sort of made this cover up as I went along using stuff that we already had on hand.
Sun cover attached to maxi cosi handles using velcro straps. Sun cover is folded to the back which is how I carry it without removing the cover.
I added some Velcro straps to attach one side of the blanket to the maxi cosi handle. While the maxi cosi was placed inside the bike I determined where to make two button holes in each of the corners on the opposite site to attach the blanket to the bars located inside the rain cover. To attach the blanket to the bars I used some linky toys. To create a bit more coverage on the sides I measured how much fabric I needed to add and attached a double layer of jersey. It being a sun cover I thought the ice cream print was very appropriate. I could have added a longer piece to get even more coverage, but the baby’s older sister does enjoy looking around while we are cycling and I didn’t want to limit her view too much.
sun cover anatomy
So, does it work? Yes, I’ve been very pleased with how this turned out. The baby stayed mostly out of the sun while we were cycling. Only when the sun came from very specific angles it reached her, but her face was always in the shadow.
Linky toy hooped through two buttonholes and around pole inside rain cover. Most creative use of this toy yet?
Now that it is winter the sun cover is not really necessary anymore but I am certainly going to use it again when spring arrives.
An electric bike! The perfect way not to get hot and sweaty inside your wet weather gear when it rains! I love the Urban Arrow, a perfect solution. Is the visibility OK at the front? The Husband and I are looking at converting our bikes at some stage, but the kits are still very expensive. We’d like to be able to charge them using our solar system, instead of burning fossil fuels to get to the nearest big town 15kms away, and the speed they can go would make even the hottest day bearable.
I like your sunshade solution, too – a lot of the equivalent child bike carriers in this country have reflective outer covers and tinted PVC windows because our sun is so strong.
Yes, I love my bike! I even take this one when I don’t have to transport children. The visibility is absolutely fine, you sit high enough to see over the cover and have a good overview of what’s coming ahead.
Yeah, I can’t imagine what it would be like to bike in Australia’s heat… We had a couple of days that it reached 40C this summer. Seriously crazy for The Netherlands, but I expect it will unfortunately become more normal… Not fun with a baby around I can tell you.
Ingenious!
Thank you!
Wondering if something like this would work for two toddlers, 4 and 1.5? Or how have you dealt with the sun once baby outgrew her car seat?
Hmmm, it would be more challenging to make it work for toddlers because I used the car seat to attach one end of the cover. Now that my children are older I apply sunscreen to their skin and put on hats (and sunglasses, but they are more inclined to take those off). Urban arrow now also sells a sun cover for the bike. Very similar to how the raincover works but designed to keep the sun out and it offers more ventilation options than the rain cover. That wasn’t available yet when I bought my bike (I guess more parents were worried about the sun!).
If you wanted to make it work for older children I can think of 2 options. 1) Make the extra sun cover longer and make some holes in it so you can attach it to the front of the bike (same spot to which the rain cover is attached) or to the rods of the rain cover. The challenge there would be to prevent the extra cover from sagging in the middle because the rods that you attach the other end to are only exposed in the location that I used to attach my cover so the fabric has to bridge quite some distance from one end to the other and needs to be taut. 2) stick fabric to the inside of the raincover using velcro. Use a velcro that has a sticky side on the raincover side because you don’t want to stitch it on as the cover would then no longer be waterproof. The sticky velcro should also be able to withstand some heat as you don’t want the glue to come loose in the weather that you need the sun cover the most.
Good luck!