Hi Family Bikers!

[Forrest Baum]

Hey all, I’ll kick off Family Biking!

I’ve family biked for almost two decades now, starting by making do with a trailer and trail-a-bike with my older son. Then we moved to a Yepp seat, unassisted Bike Friday Haul-a-Day longtail, built up a Metrofiets front box bike with e-assist. Now we have three cargo bikes as we mainly ride an Xtracycle RFA midtail, and everyone insists on riding on their own. We’re now usually all riding our own standard bikes (with racks for hauling) unless taking a cargo bike shopping or bike camping!

How do you bike with your family?

Any questions or ideas you’d like to try?

 

[Nacho Bikes]

We started this whole car free cargo bike family journey through mountain biking.

before our son could ride on his own we purchased a Kidsrideshotgun seat which allowed us to take him on some of the trails. We also started using it off the trails and started doing grocery trips with it too.

Now we are car free with 2 cargo bikes and use them for everything.
We got my long tail bike because our son is a few good meals away from reaching its weight limit.

 

[whoalansi]

We started riding with six when she was 9 or 10 months old using a thule ridealong on the back of my 90s mountain bike (1999 Kona Hahanna ). That bike had been my commuter for years to that point. In 2020, my grandma gave me part of my inheritance early so I used it to buy a new Norco Search gravel bike. We added a second kiddo to the family in 2021 and transferred the ridealong to the back of my husband's bike when three was old enough to start riding. We added a Thule Yepp Mini to the front of my gravel bike so we could go for rides as a family.

The front seat opened my eyes to how much fun it is to ride with your kids up front - the joy & ease of conversation were such a game changer from the ridealong. In early 2023, a friend got his first e-bike and commuting to work primarily by bike. We were talking a ton & he figured he'd use it in the spring, summer, and fall, and then park it for the winter. I asked him why not get studded tires and bike through the winter if your commute has improved so much. He didn't really have an answer and we both started looking at winter bike commuting. I'd been watching Not Just Bikes for a while at this point, & stumbled upon his bakfiets video again during that time & started thinking about the idea of getting one (or moving to the Netherlands....you know...nothing too extreme).

The more I looked into it, the more I loved the idea of replacing one of our two cars with a bakfiets. We're super fortunate to have an awesome bike shop here that does weekend demos of their cargo bikes, so we booked one for a lovely June weekend. My oldest rode home with me after we picked it up and I knew within the first few blocks that I was going to be convincing my husband that we get one. One short essay, a summer of detailing drama getting the car ready to sell, & a well-timed UA sale later, we were the proud owners of an Urban Arrow Family. We rode over 3,000 kms in 2024 & I now almost always choose the bike over the car (or end up wishing I'd biked). It brings us so much joy.

Six also went from being a very nervous rider to doing her first 10km ride with me in November, the day before our first (very heavy) snowfall of the season. We made it through our first winter in a moderately snowy, cold Canadian city & have mostly come to enjoy winter biking. I'm even looking at getting some studded tires on my old Kona so that we can do some winter rides as a family.