I just wanted to mention that I interviewed with a free lance writer, Arlene Miles, for a magazine article on biking with your family a few months back and the article was published in the June edition of Family Time Magazine (a local Chicago suburban  magazine).

They have a website and it shows the June edition and the table of contents but not the article so I can’t link to it and I don’t have the copyright permission to publish it here but I did want to mention it and touch on the theme a little.

The magazine article is called “Bicycling, Just You and Your Family” and the writer did an excellent job. She researched family biking and local bike trails and there was a full page of the article based on the information that I supplied.

Here we are in the heart of summer (the forth of July weekend) and I thought that it is a great time to mention family bicycling.

A lot of the information that I supplied for the magazine article had to do with local bike trails and choosing local bike trails and local rides. Bike trails can be great especially if you can find trails in your area with low traffic and very few streets to cross. That helps with your own peace of mind and I know it makes the rides more enjoyable for me when I rode with my younger kids.

After that, if you can find local trails or rides that have a fun place to stop, like a playground, park, a lake, beach, etc. then you really have some great options.

Another thing that I mentioned in the article was taking a fairly long ride with a destination. Quite a few years ago, I rode with my whole family (me, my wife and 2 kids) from Dundee, Illinois to Genoa City Wisconsin on the Fox River Trail! This was a 32 mile ride with my kids which were around 7 and 10 at the time.

It’s important to have the right frame of mind, bring supplies (some snacks and plenty of water and liquids), take breaks and to take your kids lead on the time and distance too so that everyone is involved (and happy). In our case, for the Wisconsin trip, my kids made signs (on duct tape) that said “Wisconsin or Bust” and taped them to their shirts! I guess that explains where their heads were at on that day!

I wasn’t sure if the kids could handle riding that far at first, but they both made it and we had some major quality time with the family and fun stories for years to come.

I have an article on the FRT trips somewhere in the archives of this website but I would have a hard time finding it myself (and I know the pages on this site fairly well) so maybe I’ll post a current update on that story here soon.

Anyway, my real point here and a key point in the magazine article is that bike riding can be an excellent family activity with kids of all ages. When your kids are very young, there are bike seats, bike trailers, trailer bikes, etc. and when they get older you can take them with you on their own bike for distances and locations that are appropriate for their ages.

I actually would like to write more on this subject, but as I mentioned, it’s the 4th of July weekend and it’s a beautiful day and guess where I am going?!?!?

(riding, of course!)