Video Transcript for Thule RideAlong Child Bike Seat Comprehensive Review

Hello, neighbor, this is Curt with etrailer, and today I've got Steak Bite strapped into the back in the Thule RideAlong 2 child bike seat. This is a great seat. It's got a lot of the safety features you'd expect, plus some pretty thoughtful features when it comes to your child's comfort as well. Now before we get into a lot of those features, let's talk first about what type of bike you're going to need in order to use the RideAlong 2. Firstly, it is going to be mounted on your frame on the down tube here. So this isn't going to be a very good option if you have a carbon fiber bike just because of that framing right there.

The second thing you're going to need is 10 inches of clear space on your down tube here, preferably up toward the top. So that can run into an issue with some ladies' bikes. Some ladies' bikes, the down tubes down here in the middle of it. It would be very hard sometimes to get that cleared up space. But you need about 10 inches worth to do it, particularly here, because we want to get it kind of high up and out of the way of your wheel back here.

So as far as where this gets positioned on the down tube, that'll have a lot to do with your seat and how big of wheels you have. As far as some of the safety features and what maybe makes this different from the previous RideAlong edition is that they have some different straps here and some different straps there for your kid's feet. The cool thing though is that they made these able to be operated very simply using just one hand, because it can be difficult to balance the bike and get all this stuff worked out. So it's very easy to work these with one hand. The other great thing about them is going to be the adjustability.

If we come around to the back here, we can see that we can adjust our wheel cups quite a ways. We've got them all the way in the up position right now. And then it's going to work the same way with your shoulder straps. Now this is already a little bit big for our buddy here. So if I take him out and show you how this works, you just flip this up.

It'll slide up and down, like the foot straps do. The idea is you want this to where these are directly behind the top of your kid's shoulders. Not above your kid's shoulders or below, but right at the top of it. And then the straps can be adjusted right here just by pulling on the nylon, just a typical nylon buckle. Anchors in right there. And really, it is easy for an adult to push this and pinch this in and get it out. I don't see that being as easy for a small child to be able to do that. And we've also got these rubber pads here, just to add a little bit of comfort for your kid while he's in the back. The thing about this three-point system that you got to keep in mind though is, generally speaking, unless you want to leave it really, really loose, in a lot of cases, you're probably going to need to put your child in the seat and strap him in. And then at that point, put the strap over his head and then put the helmet on. It might be that these don't really fit over the helmet of your child just because of the way it kind of comes to this Y-shape down here at the bottom. So just keep that in mind. But it's actually pretty easy to get this on and off of here as well, which we'll see shortly. So we covered some nuances with the shoulder straps here, the foot straps are very necessary, because really, if your kid's feet are just kind of dangling, they might be kicking you or something like that while you're riding, or as they get a little older and their legs get a little longer, you want to make sure that they don't get their feet caught in here anywhere and pinched by the tires. Now on to some of the more comfortable features for your kid. So one thing is, is that they made this seat fairly flexible. Pretty much all child seats have some flexibility to them when it comes to bikes. That's so your kid doesn't get jostled around every time you hit a bump. Acts as a bit of a shock absorption in that way. We also have this nice pad under the seat and in the back. It is moisture-wicking. So if you're out on those hot days, it is going to help keep your kid cool, as well as the armrests. There are a lot of kids' seats that kind of pin their arms in. With these, they have something to kind of hold onto. They can get their arms spread out away from their body and it'll help them cool down as well. The adjustability factor on this is frankly, in my opinion, pretty amazing. One of the big things about it is that it does recline. So we've got a latch under here. We could tilt this back. There are five preset positions, and get it tilted all the way back, like you see right here. So we've all the parents out there have done it before where they put the kid in the car to take a drive, get him to go to sleep. If you're a cyclist, now that's something you could do too. Just recline it all the way, go for a nice evening ride, let that kid fall asleep in comfort. Now you also have the option of sliding the seat forward or backward on the cradle. We've got this little tab right here. If I just push that down, you see I have the ability to slide it closer and further away. Now getting the seat on and off of your bike is really easy as well. The seat is locked in here to this bracket. So, you know, if you do park it somewhere with the seat on it, no one's going to be able to come along and steal your RideAlong 2. We are going to go ahead and just simply unlock it. And once we do that, we could pull back on this little latch right here, and the RideAlong 2 is just going to slide right out of place. So very, very easy to get in and out of there. And when you do take it out, they actually are pretty conveniently give you this little loop here. So if you have a peg or a nail in the garage, you can hang it up on the wall and keep it off of the floor. And when it does come time to take the kid out on a bike ride, all you got to do is just slide this right back down into place. And unlatch that, make sure it's all the way in. Once you get it all the way in, go ahead and lock it up, load up the kid, hit the trail. And when it comes to mounting it in your bike, it's a really, really easy process. This all came pretty much assembled as it is. There was very little you have to do with it. This is the main portion that you're going to have to install though. And this is held on by four different bolts. You get the Allen key to help tighten them down. There is a torque spec in your instructions, so make sure that you get them tightened down to that torque spec. And you also want to be conscious of the bolt length that you use. So you get four shorter bolts and four longer bolts. If you put in the shorter bolt and you get good clearance in the back, fantastic, just use that. If you have a thicker frame and you need the longer bolt to go, then you would, that's when you would use the longer bolt. Don't use the longer bolt if it's unnecessary though. You don't want to put the back end of that bolt in a position where it might puncture your tire. Just kind of recap some of the things that I really, really like about the RideAlong 2. Firstly is the adjustability of the straps, not just tightening them down, but being able to safely raise and lower them to the shoulder is a really big bonus. A lot of bike seats like this only have two, maybe three adjustments to do it. You've got, I think, 9 or 10 different adjustment levels back here that you can really help your kid grow into it. The other thing is the footrests have the same deal. So being able to adjust them all the way up this high, down that low, and having all those little incremental levels in order to do it, you can really fine-tune this to fit your kid perfectly. And because it does adjust so small, this is actually a child seat that can accommodate those smaller 12-month-olds. I also want to talk a little bit about how this feels on the back of your bike. Now we didn't have a 30 or 40-pound kid with us today to really kind of test that out. But even empty, you can notice a difference in the weight behind you. And you're really going to particularly notice that if you try to pedal hard to where the bike is kind of swaying back and forth, that is only going to be, you know, accentuated even more when you have this extra weight up here, particularly being as high up as it is. So this is going to be something you want to be conscious of. You are going to feel it. So just be careful when you're taking your turns, or, you know, doing any herky-jerky motions while you're trying to pedal really, really hard for any reason. The other thing you want to be conscious of too is if your bike has a kickstand. With that extra weight on it, even empty, sometimes the kickstand doesn't want to keep the bike upright, which is why it's so crucial of Thule to have the foresight to make sure that all the buckles and straps on here can be operated with one hand safely, so you can hold your bike upright and make sure it stays put while you get your child out. So that was a look at the Thule RideAlong 2 child bike seat. I'm Curt with etrailer, along with Steak Bite. Thanks for stopping by.