7 ways to enjoy cycling with children in the school holidays and beyond
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The school holidays are a great time to get out on bikes with friends and family. For newer riders, it’s a chance to spend a bit more time on the bike and develop skills. For more experienced kids, there’s opportunity to take on bigger challenges and gain more confidence.
Our family has been preparing a list of goals to achieve by bike over the coming weeks – ranging from embarking on a bikepacking trip, to learning to ride no handed, and ticking off our longest family ride. And, with UK charitable organisation, Bikeability Trust, having developed a load of different activities and challenges aimed at getting families riding this summer, we’ve got more activities to add to the list.
Here are some of the adventures we’ve got planned, plus a few more ideas for good measure…
Explore!
(Image credit: Rachel Sokal)
It’s simple, but effective!
Even the most dedicated of riders can struggle with motivating themselves to go for a ride with no particular purpose. Make life more interesting by heading to a park for a scavenger hunt or ride to landmark. We’ve found diding to a café or an ice cream van to be a reliable motivator.
Like many small boys, our youngest loves all things construction and infrastructure so we planned our bikepacking trip around a reservoir and old quarry to keep it exciting.
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Ride to a playdate
(Image credit: Rachel Sokal)
With a little planning it’s often possible to combine a playdate with a ride there and back. I’m a big fan of this approach as it nicely lengthens the time you’re all out the house and adds to wearing out the kids for later in the day when you need a bit of peace and quiet to cram in all the other jobs.
Incorporate games
Bike games are brilliant for lots of reasons: you can play in the street or a small area in the park so not everyone has to be on bikes, they’re great for skill development and they’re not reliant on lots of continual pedalling, which makes things easier for little legs.
Grab some chalk or string, some cones, stones or jumpers, or just use lines painted on the tarmac. Here are a few ideas (and Frog have even more):
Follow the leader – stand up, sit down, arm waving, turning (the current family favourite)
Slow race – who can get to the finish line in the most time
Ever decreasing circle – stay within the markers when the space gradually shrinksEmpty list
Bike cleaning and mechanical know-how
It doesn’t all have to be about riding (especially if the weather is bad). Take the opportunity to show the kids how bikes work, do some of that overdue maintenance or get them to wash their bike. It doesn’t have to be difficult or oily either; Frog have some great activity sheets including names of bike parts, drawing and colouring. On more than one occasion I’ve taken a trip to a bike shop for (largely my) entertainment.
Practice your new commute
Cycling to school can be a great way to start the day but if you’ve not done it before it could well be a challenge too far, or a stressful weekday morning. Use the holiday times to practice and recce the route before doing it for real in September.
Practice road skills
(Image credit: Rachel Sokal)
Teaching children how to ride with confidence on our roads is key to making cycling journeys an easy option. Signalling and looking around before you start and stop are key skills for road riding. With fewer cars around, the holidays are a great time to practise on the road as well as in the park. For less experienced riders, just starting to lift a hand off the bars is a great start.
Play at a bike track
(Image credit: Rachel Sokal)
Whether it’s a pump track or a mini-road layout, bike tracks are great fun and brilliant for building confidence for newer riders (and scooter riders and runners too!). They’re often in parks so there’s a chance for more games on the playground, too.
Top tips for making it fun for all
Wouldn’t it be nice if all the family could have fun, at the same time? Nice but unless you’re all of a similar ability, probably not hugely likely. It may seem a bit of a negative way of looking at things but just aiming for the kids to not have a bad time is a pretty good outcome. By avoiding a negative experience, then they’re likely to get out again and again and again.
Plan your trip and some contingencies. Have some long and short detours in mind, make sure your route travels through or to somewhere your kids will be interested in, and do your best to check it’s ridable (getting a trailer through a chicane gate can be a real challenge).
Your kit bag is make or break! Take enough snacks to motivate and refuel. You will likely find that metaphorical sugar-ladder carrots are more effective than the real vegetable version. Carry enough clothes to deal with the all the too hot / too cold / it’s raining scenarios.
Take a puncture repair kit and practice using it before you go.
And, take a lock. If the worst comes to the worst, and you decide to abandon, a ride then it’s much harder to get home on public transport or even grab a lift from a friend if you’ve got several bikes in tow. Lock them up, get home and then go back and get them later when calm has been restored.
