I don’t like driving. I much prefer cycling as a mode of transportation.

Until now I’ve been cycling with Adrian in a child seat mounted on the rear of my bike. He’s getting too big for it, in all sorts of ways: his legs don’t quite fit in the seat, his weight makes my bike top heavy, and I also think he’s simply too old to be carted around like a baby.

But he isn’t very confident or comfortable on his own bike yet, and there is no chance he’d cycle any longer distance without an adult holding a hand on him and providing moral and physical support.

So we need a new technical solution. This is a Trail Angel: a tow bar to connect his bike to mine.

Reviews say the Trail Angel is more stable and less wobbly than the TrailGator, but perhaps not quite as stable as the FollowMe (which on the other hand is horrendously expensive). But when we try it, it starts leaning to one side quite fast. I don’t know what we’re doing wrong: we’ve tightened all screws almost to their breaking point, we’ve put rubber between steel parts to make them less likely to slip, and still after even a short trip the whole thing is crooked and leaning. And of course as soon as it’s not perfectly straight, Adrian’s weight makes it list more and more. I think we’re giving up on this thing.