Talking about family biking (and why I want to share your stories)

Do you remember the first time you saw a family biking together?

For me, it was while visiting family in the Netherlands as a teenager. I knew then and there I would someday bike with my babies and the rest is history. A lot of people have had similar experiences — they saw family biking in action in a bike-friendly city like Amsterdam or Copenhagen and found a way to replicate it back home. Nowadays you don’t have to leave the country to see kids on parents’ bikes and kids on their own bikes at a young age, and a lot of people have their “a-ha moment” when they spy their first bike seat or cargo bike right here in Portland.

I’ve learned something from every family I’ve met or read about. I didn’t invent most of the DIY hacks I’ve used over the years, but I’ve memorized everything and love to pass that knowledge along (like Lindsay’s D.I.Y. Child’s Bike Seat Weather Protector and Stacy’s backwards jacket zipped up around the bike seat as cold-kid swaddler).

As I mentioned in last week’s post, On the exhaustion of motherhood and why I want to bike with other families on Mother’s Day, if there’s one thing more I love than riding my bike, it’s riding my bike with friends.

My Mother’s Day went pretty much as expected; it was fun, but exhausting. We didn’t get out the door as early as I’d hoped to and my coughing 11-year old woke up wanting to ride, whereas I’d figured he’d be content to be carted around on my bike all day (this isn’t the first time I’ve had to drag a sick kid on a Kidical Mass ride). I love that my kids ride everywhere on their own almost all the time now, but it’s certainly easier when I only have one loose kid to worry about.

We arrived to the park before the 10:00 am start time, but only by a few minutes. I’m so impressed when I see Kidical Mass families at the start of a ride early. Or even on time. Or even just a tad late. So arriving to Westmoreland Park Nature Playground into a throng of prepared participants made me feel a bit frazzled. I didn’t get a chance to properly meet everyone, didn’t think about talking about the origin of CycloFemme and Kidical Mass, or announce upcoming rides (May 27th in Southwest Portland). The ride was very long and very hot, but still awesome. A tiny new pedaler rode her bike over Tilikum Crossing for the first time — she normally experiences it as a passenger during her daily school commute. Meanwhile, my eight-year-old, proficient pedaler decided pretty early on he didn’t want to ride so I ended up carrying my healthy kid most of the way. Go figure!

It’s hard to have complete conversations in the course of a Kidical Mass ride — it almost feels like a wedding where you never get to speak to everyone as much as you want to — but even so, I had a bunch of rewarding mini-conversations about routes, bikes, kids, snacks, bike infrastructure (of course), and upcoming rides. It was exactly how I wanted to spend my day.

You may be scratching your head at the idea of kids as old as mine being carried on my bike rather than pedaling themselves. This is why this column needs more voices!

The ideal city has 8-80 bikeways, safe for anyone between the ages of eight and 80, but Portland isn’t quite there yet. Also, I admit I err on the side of caution and stop to carry my kids and their bikes on my bike at the first peep of complaint. Perhaps I’m overly wary of them turning into teenagers who hate bikes so I don’t want to push them too hard. Or maybe as a single mom without the ability to “tag out” I don’t want to incite a mutiny. Either way, maybe I don’t set the best example, so I’m very excited to read and share different perspectives. And hopefully, some similar ones too, so I can feel more secure in my own methods.

A lot of families are curious about family biking, but don’t know how to make it work for their particular situation. I hope that by profiling different people biking with their kids around the Portland area, more neighbors will be encouraged to give it a try.

Please let me know if you want to be profiled. Or if you want to nominate a friend you think will be receptive. I look forward to learning more about you and sharing your voice here on BikePortland!

Thanks for reading. Feel free ask questions in the comments below or email me your story ideas and insights at madidotcom [at] gmail [dot] com.

— Madi Carlson, @familyride on Instagram and Twitter

Browse past Family Biking posts here.

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