Child trailers come in all shapes and sizes, but the basic layout doesn’t vary much, with the majority being more or less based on early US examples, such as the Winchester. That means 20-inch wheels, a tubular frame of steel or aluminium, according to price, and a yellow and/or blue fabric cover.
The Leggero Twist, from Swiss manufacturer Brüggli, comprehensively breaks the mould.The Twist is built on a plastic shell, with a combination of steel and aluminium tubes forming a strong chassis and roll cage. For rainy days, a ventilated plastic cover clips over the top and sides, but in normal use there’s just an opaque flyscreen with open sides.
Although unusually tall, at 95cm overall, the Twist has a reasonably low seat height of 27cm and wide track of 84cm – a ratio of around three to one, making stability about average.While we’re toying with dimensions, the interior is 60cm wide, and provides some 63cm of headroom. It’s one of the roomiest designs we’ve seen and a comfortable ride for a pair of four-year-olds.The makers suggest that two five-year-olds can be carried, and for once, we’d say that was a reasonable claim.
Alexander, who knows a thing or two about trailers, was impressed with the fact that you climb in the side and sit in the Twist, rather than having a cover pulled down around you.Visibility is good too – the size and large windows making most child trailers look distinctly claustrophobic. Occupants are restrained by a pair of three-point harnesses, with a spare centre buckle, enabling a larger single child to sit cuckoo-like in the middle.The impression is of a substantial safety cage – plastic shell below, and roll bars above.
…engineers will blanch in terror… the wheels are secured by one frail little allen bolt…
All this size and sophistication adds weight, but at 14kg the Twist is no heavier than average (for some reason, Brüggli claims a weight of 15kg, but our scales never lie).Where it loses out to most other designs is that folding involves at least 15 minutes wielding an Allen key, and for the space saved it’s barely worth the effort, so you need a lot of room to store it.
The tyres are yet another 37-406mm design called Mountain Tread, and they look just as one might expect. All we can say about their performance is that a tread-free centre section helps to keep noise down, they seem to roll fairly well, and they can be inflated to 70psi should conditions demand it.
Styling
This Allen bolt can drop out, allowing the wheel to come loose
It’s probably fair to say that the Leggero Twist is the most attractive trailer we’ve seen. In styling terms, it could be straight off the Terrence Conran drawing board (and may be so for all we know).The Twist comes in a variety of fruity opalescent colours, including blue, orange, lime green and yellow, with the sculpted curves of the plastic shell, the safety flag and even the go-faster hub caps colour coordinated.The effect is very striking.
Although a neat styling exercise, the hub caps have no more effect on the drag coefficient at 15mph than the go-faster colour scheme, and being secured by three little plastic widgets, they’re a devil of a job to get on and off.You shouldn’t need to do this too often because the bearing centre bolt is accessible through a little hole, and this single bolt removes the whole wheel assembly, making tyre repairs easy from behind.
Goggles are optional, but without sidescreens heads and fingers must be kept inside - the wheel is very close
Engineers will blanch in terror at the thought, but the wheels really are secured with one frail little Allen bolt, and there’s no safety catch, locking compound or lock washer. On our loan bike – bought by mail order and assembled at home – one of the bolts had escaped in a few tens of miles, allowing the wheel to drop down but not quite off, thank goodness.We’d suggest Leggero looks seriously at a redesign here – either a quick-release hub cap, or a safety system securing the centre bolt.
Talking of safety, the hitch is only so-so. Like numerous cheapo jobbies, the Becco hitch involves clamping two steel plates around the rear triangle of your bike frame, so odd-shaped folders need not apply.The trailer attaches via a plastic thingy that engages with a similar shaped thingy attached to one of the plates.There’s a safety strip too, but it’s a bit slow to remove and refit. Against the world-beating Burley axle-mount we’re familiar with, it’s all rather cumbersome, but safe enough. Wealthy types can purchase the Twist with the more sophisticated Weber system, and that’s so good it needs no safety strap. Or so the manufacturers tell us.
Conclusion
When we first saw the Leggero Twist a few years ago, it cost the best part of £400 – much as one might expect. Leggero also produces the Cuatro, a single-child version that sells in Europe for E740 or £525. Sadly, neither has caught on here.The Cuatro never arrived, and Orbit Cycles is selling its remaining stock of Twists at £145 apiece – a great bargain. Even when the discounted trailers have gone, we think the Twist is good value for the current retail price of around £250. Provided you can live with a non-folding trailer, this unusual example is tough, practical and supremely stylish. Even if Switzerland is out of your price bracket, you can at least afford the trailer.
Thanks to Julia and Joseph Rice for the loan of the Leggero Trailer
Specification
Leggero Twist £250 approximately
Weight 14kg (30.8lb)
Maximum Load 60kg (132lb)
Dimensions Overall Width 84cm Overall Height 95cm Seat Width 60cm Headroom 63cm
Tyres Li Hsin Mountain Tread 47-406mm
UK Importer Two Plus Two tel 01273 480479 web www.twoplustwo.co.uk
Manufacturer Brüggli web www.leggero.com mail leggero@leggero.com
