Posts Tagged ‘Convertible’
Photo Credit: myzigo.com (X2 featured)
Last year, we reported on Taga’s very cool and Transformer-like bike-stroller, which continues to fascinate (the company is undergoing a change in management, temporarily taking it off the market – see more here). Today, we learned about a key competitor to Taga in this convertible bike space: Zigo®, with flagship product the Zigo® Leader(TM) Carrier Bicycle System.
The Zigo Leader differs from Taga in the basic mechanical proposition. Taga features a one-piece bike-stroller chassis, where you essentially own one piece of equipment which can be deployed in a bicycle-carrier OR stroller configuration with all the same pieces intact. Leader is more of a snap-on system, which means you may lose spur of the moment flexibility (where to store the bike part if your route calls for spontaneous strolling?) but also gain single bike mode, which could be great for urban lifestyles.
Strolling mode with Taga looks a bit like Bumbleride meets shopping cart… Strolling mode with Leader is more equivalent to pushing your Chariot or Burley when detached from the bike. Overall, Taga’s aesthetic is high end/head turning, making a point of being indoor-appropriate. Leader comes out of a more active sport tradition, and looks most at home attached to the bicycle.
Priced just shy of $1,400, the Zigo Leader would appeal to folks who want options in family bicycle transport but don’t have space for a full-sized bike + traditional carrier (e.g. Chariot or Burley). The wow-cool factor isn’t as high as Taga, but there’s definitely a lot of practical-chic caché.
With Taga unavailable for the time being, Zigo has an opportunity to gain traction with the hip urban family biking crowd. The company also offers a distinct stroller/jogger/bike carrier product, branded the “Mango.” (See excellent notes on Mango from the company in the Comments section of this post.) To compete as a true stand-alone with BOB and other active stroller/joggers like Phil N’Teds, we suggest an aesthetic tweak – less of a trailer feel – it can still say “active” but it needs to look like it belongs on the sidewalk as well as the street.
Anyway – exciting to see some U.S. competition in this space! We’ll be watching…
Photo Credit: sunshinekidsbaby.com
Add a kid, add a car seat. Contemplate a minivan. Which parent *hasn’t* been there? Some families are okay with the minivan step, considering it a welcome rite of passage – essential gear for a well-equipped family. Others stop at two, solely out of concern for their locomotive style.
Good news: Parents can fearlessly go for three and still drive a Prius with a little help from Diono’s superb Radian SL line of car seats. Radian is slim enough to fit three across the back seat of most 4-door vehicles, using a padded steel alloy frame for strength and safety instead of typical bulky foam and plastic.
The “SL” in the moniker refers to Diono’s SuperLATCH technology – the beefiest lower latch tethers on the market. There are seats in the Radian line rated to 65 and 80 lbs – all simply installed with the SuperLATCH tethers. We have the Radian XTSL, and found the tether system both simple to install and convincingly strong and stable.
Of note, Radian is a convertible car seat, with impressive rear-facing weight limits for children 5-45 lbs, and forward-facing from 20-80 lbs (or 65 lbs for the base model). While many parents prefer the convenience of a bucket seat, there is infant padding provided to ensure a cushy ride for baby #3!
HealthyStuff.org tested the 2008 Radian 80SL with a low toxicity result of just 0.2 – a superb score, especially compared with the popular Britax Marathon (1.4 – medium – lead!) and Graco Nautilus (2.2 – medium – bromine),
Radian 65SL is currently available for $229.99 online through Diono; Radian 80SL for $269.99; and Radian XTSL for $299.99. We recommend either 80SL or XTSL – the main difference is a more prominent headrest on XTSL. Both are rated all the way up to 80 lbs, and have a similarly sporty look.
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UPDATE: On Thursday, September 1, 2011, Sunshine Kids officially changed its name in the U.S. and Canada to Diono – pronounced (dee-ohh-noe). We have updated the name in the text above, but alt text and links may still refer to Sunshine Kids for some time. If you happen to find any links broken and not automatically redirected due to naming, please let us know.
Taga For Two: Paddycake Wagon
Posted on: July 23, 2010
The innovative Taga convertible bicycle/stroller just got even more exciting – they’ve added a new second seat/cargo option, covered wagon-style.
Children sit facing each other, as in the fantastic wood-paneled station wagons of yesteryear. This seems to be Taga’s further answer to the popular Bakfiet, which carries multiple children (and other cargo) in a deep wooden bucket at the front wheel (but does not convert to a stroller). The double wooden seat carries up to 82 combined pounds in bike mode – 52 in the “rear” seat and 30 up front facing the parent. Also comes with a convertible sun & rain canopy with integrated pocket for personal items.
For those catching up, Taga is a lightweight vehicle that combines a stroller and a carrier bike and can easily be converted between the modes. See our original Taga post here, and visit the web site or Taga Facebook page for more details.
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Update 8/8/2011: Rumor has it, Taga has suspended operations and is awaiting new investment/buyout…read more here.
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Photo Credit: Taga Facebook Fan Page
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