Thanks for the feedback on the shifter - I eventually replaced the
shifter wth a twist-style one (unfortunately still too hard for little
hands to change to lower gears but that'll come much sooner than it
would have with the un-useable original rubbish).

I also made crank shorteners from a pair of old cranks - much better for
a 4 1/2 yr old.

A new problem is the hitch, and leaning, specifically: when the lead
bike leans to enter a corner, the trailing bike leans the same way, but
once in the corner the trailing bike is now slightly sideways on and
leans out of the corner !! Not helpful for the learning process!

[I've since googled for it and perhaps it's a well known issue...ho hum
but for those that don't know...It happens because the vertical pivot on
the hitch is parallel with the seatpost which of course slopes
backwards, quite a lot on my MTB. Not the brightest of designs - if the
pivot had simply been welded at an average seatpost-lean-angle it would
be better, or even better something with adjustable angle, like the
adjustable handebar things].

So, to cut to the chase, has anyone altered one of these hitchs to work
more sanely? If so how did you go about it?

(I'm considering re-welding the clamp such that the vertical pivot
really is vertical. But I'm wondering if I should replace the hitch
altogether with something better - it's already developed slop after
little use - presumably a function of the short length and crudeness of
the pivots. However, I don’t want to have to fabricate the whole thing
myself).

rgds all,

graham.


ps - yes, i know I should have just bought the piccolo! The problem was
that it doesn't fold, though in retrospect that was a simpler problem to
work round!