it should be noted that you need to cut the metal strip on the bracket that fits the child’s bike to size. At least in our incarnation of the trailer, you are essentially bending a metal strip around the downtube and tighten it by turning a screw.

While not 100% wobble-free, the FollowMe Tandem is the most stable and most natural ride of all the tag along style towing options.Our almost-3-year-old has just learned to pedal a bike and thinks the FollowMe is the best thing since… Baby Shark? Two days later, a new bolt arrived in the post, free of charge, and my FollowMe Tandem was back in action. Around the time I started looking at alternatives and while we were away in The Netherlands, I noticed some people with what looked like an additional rack attached to their bikes, hanging behind the back wheel.

The FollowMe Tandem allows you to adapt to different situations to ensure a great family cycling experience. The poorly designed manual suggests they need to talk to their swedish buddies at Ikea because what they really need is a one picture installation diagram, not an excessive manual in all languages that is so detailed, you can't figure out what the objective is. I don’t remember seeing this myself, though it is quite a big manual and I was probably more concerned with getting the FollowMe Tandem fitted at the time. Secondly, there is a little strap and spring hook included that you may want to run through your saddle. Since my eldest was able to ride his first pedal bike (Islabikes Cnoc 14), we’ve been using a Trail-Gator to attach his bikes to ours.

the enclosed instruction manual is not as good as it could be and the black and white photos are of poor quality in places and too small.

A quick test proved that it’s almost impossible to start from a stationery position when the child’s brakes are applied (though he was riding an Islabike, which has serious braking capabilities). Niggles aside, they do the job and let us attempt longer rides knowing that if the kids get tired, they can have a tow.I predict that over the next couple of years the FollowMe will become a standard investment for parents who have a passion for cycling. Unless you’re an octopus, trying to maintain the balance of two bikes and a FollowMe Tandem is no mean feat.

Especially for Benni, our 5-year-old son, who really wants to ride his own bike already, it can be a tough challenge: He obviously cannot ride as fast as my wife and I can and doesn’t have the persistence yet to endure a 20-mile long ride all by himself. On the face of it, the FollowMe Tandem is eye wateringly expensive for a piece of metal to connect two bikes together! It was easy for my bike man to fit – and then easy for me to use – mind you i need to have the bikes leaning on something else to attach and detach her bike.The FollowMe has got a small turning circle, and with more experience I’d be confident to negotiate the barriers I pushed around this time. If you’re going to the trouble of towing your child on their own bike (vs a “half” tag along bike), it better be easy to allow them to ride solo, or hook them up for that “just in case” scenario.