Boy gets a Chariot.

You don’t have to be a biking parent to get a pretty heavy case of gear envy over the Chariot – that much is plain to see from the number of aging hipsters who tool around Missoula using Chariots to cart their pets to the park and the number of young hipsters who use them to pick up their CSA veggie allotments. We have a Chariot Cougar 1 and it’s probably the slickest piece of gear I own – and one of the most expensive.

(On the Great Northern rails to trails ride in the Flathead Valley)

In fact, of all the gear we have, this has probably done more than any other to transform ‘family life’. We got ours in April and since then have put well over 1,000 miles on it. It was used for a nine days of bike touring in the San Juan Islands and Vancouver Island, and has been on bike tours in Idaho and Montana, not to mention used daily for bumps around town. Now that Cooper is in daycare, I’m averaging 18 miles a day with it as I carry him through cross-town traffic back and forth to Origins, home, and work.

While there are a handful of child-specific bike trailers on the market, Chariot is by far the techiest of the bunch. Unlike many others, with the Chariot you don’t buy the unit; instead, you get the frame and then build-as-you-go, choosing from back wheels, stroller wheels, jogger wheels, strobe lights, ski attachment, ski harness, infant seat, stroller bar, disc brakes, cup holder … well, you get the picture. An arm with a rubber mount at the end attaches to a bike, and that is the main way we use ours. Exterior styling is nice, and the Chariot is the best looking on the road. The inside, meanwhile (and I realize I sound like a BMW commercial) is well appointed. Cooper sits in a Recaro-style seat with a five-point harness and a beefy wrap-around head rest. There are two pockets and two vents. The front has a fold-away sun shade, and a mesh door that has a roll-down clear plastic screen. While most families won’t need another stroller, the stroller the Chariot makes is about the most bad-ass thing there is; you have to use one to see what I mean.

(In Sidney, British Columbia)

The multi-use platform is one of the Chariot’s main features. We store our stroller wheels on the unit full-time (there is a special place for them), and that means we can, for example, bike downtown, then unhook the unit from the bike, turn the wheels around, and walk to the park, through the market, or into a store. Since the whole things folds pretty well, it can go in the Avalon trunk without too much difficulty. On the road it tracks well, and since there is a cool strut-and-shock suspension, Cooper gets along without a lot of bouncing. While I wouldn’t traverse the summit of Sheep Mountain pulling one, it’s pretty durable, and I can run off curbs and bump down forest roads with ease. Besides the storage on the inside, there is a huge mesh pocket on the back and a large weather-proof pannier off the rear.

After a lot of riding, I do have a few qualms. The bike attachment has a backup strap that runs around the bike frame and back to the arm; it attaches to the arm using a very cheap clip that I suspect will be a real pain once we get ice and snow. Meanwhile, the arm has a backup pin that gets inserted through the arm and into the frame; due to the bulge of the cockpit it’s a real pain to get in there. (Incidentally, Chariot issued a recall of this arm late in the spring; I requested a replacement part months ago but have yet to receive it.)

(Orcas Island, Washington)

While Chariot packs a lot of features into the 26-pound bike unit, 26 pounds is still a lot to tug around. Plus, I keep a patch kit, pump, two tubes, sunblock, and water in it at all times, and when I’m taking Cooper to day care there are also diapers, bottles, cereal, spare clothes, and more. There are usually a few toys in there for him to play with, and lately there’s been a blanket and spare jacket, too. Plus the kid himself. In other words, you will never not know you are pulling it. Biking with a loaded Chariot is akin to pedaling up a neverending hill, or riding with your brakes on. A daily ride of 18 miles with a Chariot is probably more like 24 without.

(Start of the Route of the Hiawatha, Idaho-Montana border)

Luckily, a very nice friend of Laura’s gave her his barely-used two-year-old model. Kitted out, what we have would ring in at nearly $1,000 (and we don’t have the skis and harness – that’s nearly $300 more). While this is a lot of high-end gear for $1,000, $1,000 is about what I paid for my mountain bike some 20 years ago. I still have the bike, but at best the Chariot will get used for another four or five years, making the per-year cost fairly extraordinary.

Anyway, this one’s being put to good use.