Italtrike review: The coolest ride at the park

The folks at All Modern Baby were kind enough (brave enough?) to ask if we'd like to review a product from their company. I traded a few emails with them saying that the girls are rough, tough, twin destructo machines, and they kept reassuring me that they really, really did want to hear what we thought. Alrighty...

So I let the girls browse through the online catalog of furniture (which includes those incredible rounded modern cribs in the Stokke Sleepi collection), fun toys that you wouldn't find in standard toy stores, strollers from Maclaren and Bugaboo, and beautiful bedding and decor. After much deliberation, the girls picked this neato ergonomic trike called the Italtrike. Cool! The package arrived a few days later. Can you even guess how excited the girls were?





TubaDad had LOTS of help assembling the bike (you can feel my sarcasm, right?). He persevered despite the hundreds of darting little fingers, and in pretty short order the bike was ready to roll. Setup was actually really easy, in part because TubaDad is a whiz at that type of thing, but also because the bike was made very well and assembly was quite intuitive. (TubaDad is one of those folks who won't read directions unless he has too. Sigh...)

Both girls were dying for a shot at the trike, but somehow little Ree got first crack at it. Doesn't she look proud?


Ro was next, and, of course, wanted her seatbelt firmly fastened. That girl is a nut about safety. (No idea who she learned that from.)


She went round and round—so fast! Until her pesky sister grabbed hold and demanded a turn.


The girls have been riding the heck out of that trike ever since, and we even took it to the park this weekend. Ro immediately commandeered "the good bike" and left her sister in the dust:


She loved the speed, the smooth ride, and of course dropping her sister on the open road.


Ree was actually pretty happy to let Ro have the Italtrike. I think she likes the security of being a little lower and slower on her old bike right now (she hasn't been super brave lately).


It was cute to see how many looks and smiles our intrepid riders got when they parked against a little tree.


And the brake on the Italtrike came in very handy quite a few times. This picture was taken just as Ro jammed on the brake and stopped while Ree flew into the side of my car. Oops.


Which brings me to the things I like about the Italtrike:
The brake is perfect for preventing head-on sister crashes (well most of them, anyways), the bike is eye catching and just plain fun to look at (it comes in orange too), the wheels are nice and big and give a really smooth ride, the pedals power the back wheels via a chain so the bike is pushed rather than pulled (nice boost of power), and the sunshade knocks out the worst of the rays.

And the things that could be improved:
The black squishy seat cover shrank in the sun so it left a small, gluey rim around the seat (because of this, Ro said the seat needs to be softer and it sticks to her skin when she's riding in just a bathing suit). The sunshade could be a little tougher—I know, I know, this is probably a twinado thing, but our girls reach out and try to use it as a handle when one twin is riding by, and it whips back and forth and is going to either hit one of them in the face or be ripped off.

My conclusion: Love it. Fun, really well-made, and twinado-tough. Wish I had another one in orange to stave off the to-the-death sister fights that will eventually come.

Ro's conclusion: Um, I yike it. It goes fast. Cause the pedals are easier. I yike how it has a seatbelt that goes all the way 'round you, cause I don't fall off. The brake is good. Cause it makes me slow if I'm going to crash into the wall. I wish it was pink.

Ree's conclusion: Um, it's kind of weird that it gots a attached seat belt. And how did Daddy make it? I don't yike going really fast, I just yike going a yittle bit fast. I yike da sunshade and I yike da brake. I wish it could be yellow.