If you’re thinking about carrying your kids by cargo bike, it’s easy to get swept up in the idyllic nature of the whole thing. Joyful rides, sunshine, smiles — what’s not to love?

Protection From the Great Outdoors

Rain & Cold — I will not lie, accessories for your (already expensive) cargo bike are pricey and they add up quickly. You may feel reluctant to add on many hundreds of dollars to customize your bike, and that is totally understandable. If you’re thinking about what to prioritize for accessories (besides having safe places for your children to sit), I would focus on weather protection.

Box bikes and trike companies usually have rain tents specific to their bikes. Though their designs aren’t perfect (on the message boards everyone has a gripe here and there), they get the job done and are, in my opinion, 100% worth it. In the winter we call our enclosed box the greenhouse. It’s amazing how warm the kids stay when you can cut the wind and get a little solar heat. On a box bike it’s also easy to add a small blanket for extra warmth. We also use reusable warmers that go in the microwave on especially cold days.

One thing that’s great about outfitting the bike, as opposed to your child, is how much easier it is to get on/off the bike. It would be a lot more to manage if I had to dress my child for rain, have them handle a rainy bike ride, and then deal with all of their rain gear once we get to school. When the bike is prepared for rain my kid gets to school in their normal clothes and are usually the driest one there because they avoided the walk from the car to the school door.

Weather protection on a longtail can be a little more challenging. Some companies offer accessories to create fullly to semi-covered tails on their bikes. Tern’s Stormshield/Stormbox combo is close to perfection! And you can use these accessories on other bikes too. Folks have successfully used the same combo (with some tweaks) on the Aventon Abound and I retrofitted the Stormbox to fit on a Yuba Spicy Curry. Yuba’s Poptop is poorly designed, but the frame for it is excellent and I was able to do some DIY amendments to improve its functionality. Rad sells the Conestoga canopy which folks have also successfully used on other brands of bikes. Ask around in Cargo Bike social groups to see if someone has experience with the accessory you’re interested in if you’re hoping to use it on another brand of bike.

That being said, plenty of folks manage comfort without weather proofing their bikes. You can outfit your child in the right gear, or look at blanketing (lots of folks have given high praise to these blankets). I’ve also read about using an old winter jacket, putting it on a child in a seat backwards and tying the arms around the back of the seat. Stroller buntings may also work.

There are many options out there, but I do strongly advocate for full coverage with a rain cover — it will help eliminate barriers to riding your bike in all weather and will get you and your family to use your bike more often.

Sun — Sun protection is also an important consideration for keeping the complaints to a minimum. Some folks leave their rain accessories on year round and roll up the windows for the summer sun. I used the Yuba Pop Top frame and attached fabric to the top and this worked splendidly.

Last summer I experimented with equestrian visors for the box bike — they were so-so. These ones are a one-size-fits-all deal and they sometimes slipped upward when the brim caught the wind.

Beyond keeping passengers comfortable, consider using shade to keep the bike out of the sun when you’re parked. I stretch an old crib sheet across the bike in the summer to keep the seats and metal bars cooler in between outings.

Comfortable Seating

Perhaps one of the bigger surprises about cargo bikes is that they’re pretty bumpy — for passengers and riders. There are some things to do to adjust comfort level for rider and passengers (riding on a lower tire pressure, reducing speed in particularly bumpy areas), but you will all feel the bumps.

In my family, my kids appreciate a heads up before a big bump. I’ll holler bump just before hitting a big one if I didn’t have time to slow down beforehand. It doesn’t make it more comfortable for them, but they tend to be less annoyed at me when I give them a heads up.

Having comfortable cushioning for their bottoms and backs is also very helpful. I made my own for the trike layering yoga mats with some open cell foam that was used to ship the bicycle.

I’ve never had a kid who napped on the bike but there are seats that recline. Folks also get creative with DIY nap-friendly solutions. Travel pillows, pool noodles, or speciality cushions are all options

Passengers on longtails, especially ones sitting directly on the bench, can handle the bumps a bit better since they can absorb a bit of the shock with their legs.

Within Reach

Having a space to store a few kid essentials that’s within their reach can be really helpful at keeping kids happy on rides. This is the speaker we have for audio stories and music. Our speaker is our most heavily utilized kid accessory — they really love listening while we cruise around town. I leave the speaker in the bike all the time — it’s cheap enough that I won’t be crushed if it’s stolen, it’s also robust enough that we’ve been using it for 2+ years without issue.

Storage on a longtail is a little trickier. I used kid bike handlebar bags for water bottles and snacks. This worked so-so, but you can certainly use carribener clips to store some goodies from the monkey bars (Yuba’s version of the bars that wrap about the passenger seating area). These are the bags we used. I can’t give them a wholehearted recommendation, but they were better than nothing. There is a removable divider in the bag — I ended up sewing that in place to give it more structure.

Besides music some other items we have brought along to make the rides more fun/comfortable are books, sunglasses, snacks, water bottles, bubbles (when I’m feeling adventurous), stuffies, and sticker books. Keep in mind that my kids really only had access to a speaker and their water on the long tail (sometimes they’d look through a book too). The frequency of dropping stuff, especially beloved toys, was just too great.

Bathroom plans

Up until my kids were about 5ish, we traveled with a portable potty. On the trike, I stored this in a wet bag under the seat. On the longtail I hung a bag from the rear of the bike off the monkey bars. When your kids are little, it’s pretty essential to have a bathroom plan, preferably one that you can carry onboard. We used a potette, which worked well. During the early days of COVID when you couldn’t pop in a bathroom, I also carried along one of these for me (practice at home first! There’s a learning curve).

These are some of the ways the kids have stayed comfortable on our bikes over the years. Good luck on your future adventures and please share your strategies in the comments.