Mostly it's for protection against the sun. It does work against the rain a little as it comes straight down here. The orange flap at the front can be lowered when it rains.
She is a bit small for it - there are wooden blocks tied onto the pedals. lol
She's 3 1/2 now. She's been on a bike since 1 month old. At 3 months she had a seat (couldn't get one in town, so I had to go to a bigger city to find one)
This was her at 6 months when I made a roof for the seat as the hot season had started. There's a lot of string holding the piping together as I didn't know if it would work and so didn't want to glue everything together and maybe waste it. It worked, but in the 3 years since (to now) I never got round to gluing it.
And Zoot, your child's bike is a work of art in my opinion. Art is not all drawing and painting--some make collages, some mosaics. some sculptures, and then there is what I would classify your bike cover, as functional art. It serves two purposes, one, it's function and two, it's creative display of the one who makes it, which makes it unique to the other functional items like it, and which does nothing to add to the function but only the pleasing of the eye, which is why it is can be called "Art".
So you make call yourself an artist as well, or usually with funtional art you call yourself an "Artisan" I believe.
yeah, here is wiki's artisan (I use wiki as dictionary)
"An artisan (from Italian: artigiano) is a skilled manual worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative, including furniture, clothing, jewellery, household items, and tools."
New roof, made of fibre glass tent poles. The bamboo was great, but I couldn't dismantle it quickly to do things like put the bike on a bus. The trip to Cambodia was it's demise. The ping pong balls are to prevent eye injury. The poles are a mite too long but this will allow the roof to go up as Chrys goes up.
The panniers are made from large food containers with old fittings from some knacked panniers to attach them to the pannier rack.
That's great, Zoot! I love all the thought you put into it instead of just duct taping a piece of material to your kid's bike. It makes all the difference in the world. Looks good too