Women in business Trikidoo

Monday July 27, 2009

Striking triking: Clare Kemp-Welch demonstrates her Trikidoo with the help of her daughters Coco, Kitty and Isis.

A Brook Green mum is proving three wheels are better than two when it comes to safe cycling fun for all the family.

Clare Kemp-Welch launched her company, Trikidoo (opens new window), in June last year and has since sold about 70 adult-size tricycles - with plenty of space to carry three children as well as mum or dad.

The mother-of-three said she was inspired to design the popular trike for her own family after failing to find anything quite right on the market. "When I had my second child I looked at the options available but most just had a box in front, and I didn't like the idea of poking the kids out in front of traffic," she said.

"I found most of the options very, very expensive, or ugly, or both. I had a child seat put on the back of my bike but when you only have two wheels it's so wobbly and scary - and children are heavier than you think. So I designed something for myself. And then I began getting stopped in the street with people asking me, `where did you get that?' So I decided to do it as a business."

Clare, 39, who lives with her husband Pete and daughters Coco, six, Kitty, four, and Isis, two, in Brook Green, worked as a professional writer for Conde Nast before starting up Trikidoo.

She has also published two novels with Bloomsbury - I And Claudius, which documents her travels around America with her elderly chocolate-brown Burmese cat, and Of Cats and Kings, on her travels around Burma.

"I had no design or engineering experience whatsoever before Trikidoo, but I kept getting prototypes sent across from Taiwan and I worked closely with bike shops in Notting Hill and Fulham," she said.

Clare began the research and design for the Trikidoo in 2006 and now sells the finished model for £825, which she says is very competitive against similar child-carriers on the market which can range from £1,300 to £1,800 including add-ons.

"It's obviously still expensive, but it's reasonable for what you're getting and many bike shops are telling me it's under-priced," she said.

The Trikidoo can accommodate a total weight of about 170kg, including an adult, up to three children and luggage. A double child seat at the back of the trike can hold two children aged up to seven, and an add-on `Bobike' seat, which is fixed between the adult and the handlebars, can hold a child up to the age of three. The eye-catching three-wheeler, which comes in a choice of either navy blue or pink, has also attracted celebrity owners, including actress Helena Bonham-Carter and TV presenter Mariella Frostrup.

Clare said it was all part of a cycling renaissance around London. "Bikes are brilliant: you get exercise, fresh air and it's good for the environment, and that has to be a factor now," she said. "The Trikidoo is also fun and children love it. I cannot imagine that my six-year-old will want to get off it when she turns seven. And for the mother it's really good for losing that baby weight - I have thighs of steel now!"

For more, call Clare on 07795 436674 or visit www.trikidoo.co.uk (opens new window).