Long about the middle of the winter Pedal Pushers took delivery on a product which we have been very excited to try out and review. When the box showed up on our doorstep we excitedly assembled, photographed and put down our thoughts about a very promising piece of biking equipment. The Burley Design Cooperative's D'lite actually assembled very easily except for a slight misfit of a pin through a hole. But, once assembled the little trailer (not so little in capacity) looked great! But then winter stalled and we waited and waited and waited until we could wait no more!

On a moderately decent day a few weeks back, Lee and I actually managed to hook this little trailer up to our Burley Tandem, filled it with our granddaughter Olivia and rode around a few side streets in Baldwin. There is a small learning curve associated with the handling and clearance differences of a bike versus a bike with trailer, but they were quickly mastered. Then Dan and I took it out for a quick maneuverability test at the end of the block, but that was about all mother nature saw fit to give us as a chance to do any product testing! The D'lite's manual actually recommends against too much cold weather usage particularly in terms of little passengers.

Then Sunday Bloomed gorgeous, and although I had a billion spring related homeowner things to do, I actually came up with an excuse to get on a bike and do some product testing at the same time! It was time for the dreaded bottle return struggle! I had actually wanted to take Olivia for a ride, but she was down with a little fever so the bottle run would have to suffice. "Hey," I figured, I can go ahead and hook up the Burley D'lite to my Cannondale MTB and fill it up with returnable bottles and cans and pedal over to Waldbaums! I'll take a couple of pictures and have some fun, in spite of developing a case of sticky bottle return hands.

Well the accompanying photos pretty much tell you the story. The trailer held a surprisingly large quantity of stuff, and the weight of the substantial volume of glass bottles lent to some interesting handling characteristics. On my road bike and the Burley, the rigid suspension had pretty much eliminated any potential for porpoise like bobbing. But, the rather soft front fork of the Cannondale made the entire consist very reminiscent of my old trailer hauling days with the camper on the back of the old Plymouth. You could really tell you were towing a trailer, not that the effort was anything hard, but the handling was different.

Far from being annoying or disquieting, the action was actually a lot of fun. Anyway, we will be taking the Burley D'lite out for a full test shortly so look forward to the complete article within the next month! Where we will be delivering loads of details and impressions! In fact come join us on the next "Ride To Friendship" where you can see the D'lite up close and personal!

For details and specs you can check out Burley's site. And, Oh Yeah, the returnables netted me $8.10!

For more info on Burley Trailers you can go to:
Burley Nomad Review and
A d'liteful Adventure