The Conker Safety Seat
What exactly is the Conker Safety Seat?
The Conker Safety Seat is a child bike seat designed to increase shielding coverage around the head, upper body and legs compared with conventional seats. It has a robust outer shell and 20mm of closed cell foam lining on the inside walls.
Who is it for?
Children from the age at which they can safely be placed in a child seat up to a maximum of 15kg.
Can I use a Conker Seat on a bicycle that does not have a rear rack?
Unfortunately not yet as the Conker Seat needs to mount to your existing rear rack.
In the future we are planning to introduce a Conker Seat that attaches to the bicycle’s frame (so that no rack is required), but this is not yet available. If you would like to be notified when the frame-mounted Conker Seat is available then please sign up to our newsletter using the signup sheet at the bottom of every page.
Currently we don't have a release date, but estimate that the frame-mount version will be released in 2027.
How does it attach to my bike?
The Conker Seat clamps securely to an existing sturdy rear rack using the (included) clamp. Full details and rack specs are included with the Conker Seat.
The Conker Seat is quite a bit more expensive than many other rear bicycle seats, why is this?
We are a small company and have been developing the Conker Seat and the OIS safety standard over several years and we need to fund this investment, the Conker Seat also has more components than other seats and is hand assembled in Cambridge England and is therefore relatively more expensive than other rear seats to manufacture. However it also offers far greater safety than any other rear seat that we know of as well as better weather protection. We sincerely hope that these unique benefits outweigh the inevitably higher price.
Is the seat tested?
Yes! The Conker Seat is tested to our unique OIS Standard that details safety requirements for extra protection for head, arms, legs, abrasions and other areas (see separate OIS page here) – as well as BS:EN14344 – the British and European Union bicycle rear-seat standard.
I already own a rear child seat, can I just order the yellow Conker Shell and add it to my existing seat?
No, unfortunately not as every seat is different so by adding the Shell to an existing seat we would need to re-test the entirety to confirm whether or not it met both the OIS standard and the BS:EN14344 standard, so simply adding a Conker Shell to an existing seat simply is not doable because of safety-testing requirements.
Can I use it in all weather?
Materials are selected for typical outdoor cycling conditions. Cleaning, care and a maintenance guidance will be provided in the user manual. But, in brief, the seat is designed to be easy to clean and will dry quickly in the event of rain. While the Conker Seat will protect your child from rain, wind and sun - we do not recommend using any child seat in exceptionally windy weather and parents must satisfy themselves that their child is safe.
Does it make the bike hard to cycle?
Not so much - the Conker seat is 4.1kg over and above the average weight of a regular, non-OIS compliant seat. Considering an adult, child, bicycle and regular child seat will, in total, weigh around 100kg the Conker Seat is adding around a 4% increase in total weight – not too much, we think, for the safety advantages Conker and OIS gives – plus the weather protection of course. And aerodynamically speaking, the Conker adds remarkably little extra drag.
Does the Conker Seat cause a lot of aerodynamic drag?
No! We have undertaken CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) modelling as well as real-world testing – on the Gog Magog hills outside Cambridge. These tests showed an increase in drag of 3.5% CdA leading to a decrease in top speed of under 2% at 35kph – a genuinely small amount, largely because the Conker seat is positioned behind and therefore in the wake of the adult rider
Is it available in colours other than yellow?
Not yet… We hope to add additional colours for the next version.