My son and his cherry-red bike loops around the park, over and over again. There’s not really anything exciting about the park, just following a narrow path along some grass, ducking behind the building with the bathrooms, twisting through the playground, and cruising by the pavilion. But he’s riding it as if it’s the Tour de France, pedaling his heart out with the joy of biking.

While we haven’t quite graduated to the road, I love how clearly he is in love with biking. As a kid who loved biking with my parents and a mom who finds freedom on the bike, few things could make me happier.

But I haven’t built his love of biking by myself. I’ve definitely had some help from the family biking community, a world-wide group of parents who love to bike and want to pass it on to their kids. Whether you want to know the best way to carry your kid on your bike or the best bike to purchase for your kid, here are some great places to get started:

Websites, Blogs, and Magazines

Blogs are incredibly helpful for reading about other people’s experiences. I wrote about my own experiences about biking while pregnant on my old blog and have a number of posts about family biking. Other people’s websites and blogs focus strictly on family biking:

• Two-Wheeling Tots: As far as I know, this is the most comprehensive site for all things family biking. While they focus mainly on rating and reviewing kids’ bikes and helmets, they also have great information on bike seats and trailers.
• Rascal Rides: Run by one of the interviewees for my family biking series, Rascal Rides reviews a broad array of bikes and biking gear for parents and kids. They have some great commentary on the best ways to carry kids on bikes in particular.
• Momentum Magazine: Momentum doesn’t focus strictly on family biking, but as a lifestyle biking magazine, addresses it much more than the ones focused on racing. They’ve covered biking while pregnant and bike touring with kids.
• Hum of the City: Covers the challenges and joys of riding in San Francisco with two older kids.
• Of all places, Red Tricycle has a great article covering the different types of cargo bikes to carry kids and A Cup of Jo has a lovely piece where she interviews families who bike around Brooklyn.
• Ding Ding, Let’s Ride: This blog covers not only riding with kids, but particularly focuses on riding with kids with physical disabilities. It has an entire section on adaptive bikes, which can provide independence and freedom. It doesn’t seem like she updates much anymore, but it has a ton of great resources in the archives.

Safe Routes to School

Biking your kid to school or accompanying them as they take their own bike is a great first foray into family biking for transportation. Safe Routes to School started as a federal program to make walking and biking to school safer for kids. It included grants for infrastructure, like crossing signals, as well as training for teachers.

Now, it’s expanded to become an entire network that shares best practices and organizes “bike trains” of kids led by an adult or two. They also help organize Bike to School Day, the kid version of Bike to Work Day.

Kidical Mass Rides

Kidical Mass rides are the cutest bike rides around! These rides focus on encouraging families to ride together, especially for transportation. Rides welcome kids on their own bikes as well as adults carrying kids on their bikes (via bike seats, cargo bikes, trailers and tag-a-longs). They are typically 1-4 miles, go to somewhere fun (like a park or ice cream), and ridiculously slow. There are almost 50 cities in North America with Kidical Mass rides, with more being added regularly.

Handbooks

Several biking advocacy groups and city governments have put together handbooks on family biking, such as ever bike-friendly Portland and San Francisco. These publications describe the options for riding with kids before they are even born (pregnancy) to them being on their own two wheels.

Workshops and Demonstrations

Many local bike groups, including the Washington Area Bicyclist Association in D.C., put on family biking workshops and demonstration events. They allow newbies to talk to, hear stories from, and ask questions to parents who currently bike with their children.

Demonstration events are particularly nice because parents can see and try out different types of bikes. Often, these aren’t available in traditional bike shops! One example of a demonstration event is D.C.’s The ABCs of Family Biking, which also includes balance bike races, obstacle courses, and more.

Social Media

In my interview with Kathleen Youell, she mentions following fellow biking parents on Twitter as a major part of her family biking education. Personally, I follow Dena Driscoll, Lana Stewart, Natasha Bryce, and Papa Andy, among others. In addition, some cities have Facebook groups focused on family biking, including D.C. and Seattle. Members can ask questions to each other, arrange rides, share tips and sell gear. I’m in the DC Family Biking Group and it’s a great resource.

For more on family biking, check out How to Teach Your Kids to Love Biking and Walking. If you want to join a group of parents who want to be more environmentally sustainable, join our Green and Sustainable Parenting Facebook group!