Back in 1989 when our first daughter was one year old, I started biking with her in a conventional baby seat behind me. She hated it. I don't know what she didn't like - not being able to see, wind in her face, being up high and leaning in corners, what? I don't know. I never liked having her weight up high on the back of the bike and, worse, it made it impossible for me to swing my leg over the back to mount/dismount. You really need a full step-through frame to use a baby seat safely.

So I started looking at bike trailers. There were many configurations to choose from back then. A friend of mine had a roto-molded plastic trailer that carried two kids in tandem facing forward. It attached to the seat post and had no protection for the passengers. Just an open tub so to speak. I also saw many people using the Cannondale trailer that had the kids facing backwards, side by side. The high back was fairly good protection from junk flying off the rear wheel. I didn't care much for either style.

I found a Burley at our local bike shop and immediately liked what I saw. At the time it was the lightest, best tracking trailer out there. I bought one. Our daughter loved it, as did I.

It was light and pulled like a dream - tracked straight as a die even when she was rocking sideways in the seat. It had a full coverage screen top to keep flying junk from the wheels from hitting her in the face. We put many miles on that rig.

At the time, the Burley was the only fully enclosed trailer I could find. I liked that as our daughter could take her stuffed animals with her and I didn't have to worry about her ejecting them along the way. There were places to keep drinks and snacks, her blanket, our picnic lunch, all the good stuff.

Also, the Burley had two safety features that none of the others had. It was the only trailer I found that was actually a roll-cage. The aluminum-tubing frame included a top frame loop that acted as a roll bar. And the hitch, which attached by the rear axle, had a spring section that allowed the bike to go down flat on the ground without taking the trailer over with it.

I later found another trailer that was fairly similar to the Burley. It was called Champion or Challenger or something like that. Can't remember. At the time, it was the only reasonable alternative to the Burley.

If you search for bike trailers now, they all look like a Burley. Everybody has dumped their old designs and copied the Burley. And the prices now! Wow. Most of them are in the $500 range. Yow!

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