mac-ride Review

I have been riding bike for several years now. Riding has become a family hobby of ours. We go at least once a week as a family. Parents, kids, and grandparents. One of the best accessories for family rides is the mac-ride.

The mac-ride is an extra seat that connects to your bike and allows your child to ride on your bike with you. It is for kids aged 2-5 years. We used ours for two full years of riding. This will not be the end all be all bike accessory for all families. I would say it would depend on your skill as a rider and what you want to achieve out of family rides. We've tried the trailer, pull behind, and other bike seats. This was a pleasant solution for mountain biking. I was able to avoid any severe crashes while using it. But we did have a few minor crashes. So I can not say how well this would work in a "bad" crash. But hopefully you are never in a bad one with your child riding along.

Trailers are a great solution for multiple kids and a single parent trying to get around town. Heavy and unwieldy for off road riding. The pull behind works well but the child has to be more independent than our daughter when she started riding with me. It was fairly impressive with a few gummy snacks how far we could ride. No  cross country records but a couple hours out on the bikes together.

Some of the downfalls I ran into was the inability to secure your child. When our daughter got upset and was done riding it was time to be done. I did not like how she could pull her feet out and barely be secured. I would have to hand onto a squirming 2 year old while trying to also navigate. Made for a few difficult rides. I understand the design but it is something to be aware of and learn to handle.

Now my daughter has grown to big for her mac-ride. I do miss sharing the bike with her it did make for some fun conversations and more interesting rides. Lots of other riders enjoyed seeing her out on the bike with me. My daughter started to get to big and I didn't have comfortable space on the bike with her. She also learned to ride her own bike so we got her a bike of her own. An awesome first mountain bike.

For us the 200 dollar price tag was well worth it. It kept us riding as a family and hopefully instilled a love of riding in my daughter. The negatives were minor and just things we had to learn.