Having ridden the bus a lot as a child, I was surprised to see that, at least in the Bay Area, many schools don’t have school bus service. When I visited our elementary school for a tour, I was surprised to see how many children were dropped off via car. I was also impressed at how streamlined the process was. There was a long line of 8-10 vehicles, and volunteers helped shuttle children onto school grounds and to where they needed to go. Parents or other caretakers didn’t even need to leave their vehicles nor open the door for their children. I was impressed and also a little concerned. We don’t own a car, and I was hoping that, given how mature and streamlined the car drop off process was, that there would be at least evidence of accommodations for […]
Continue reading
Photo: An Islabike at Mount Diablo (and the kids bike ride that wasn’t)
We went camping at the Live Oak campground on the lower parts of Mount Diablo. It was a pretty campsite, with lovely light that filtered through the Live Oak trees. It was right next to plenty of hiking trails and Rock City, and the hills were golden and dry, typical of a Northern Californian summer. (There was a lot of less-lovely Poison Oak too, which thankfully we avoided). We lugged the kids’ bikes so they could romp around the campsite. But the kids were much happier scaling rocks and trees rather than riding their bikes. I’m not sure if they rode their bikes at all. We listened to them play while appreciating the beauty of our surroundings. It turns out that 3 kids (that I know of) had some version of the Islabikes CNOC16. It was a remarkable, […]
Continue reading
On Oakland potentially removing our first-ever protected bike lane on Telegraph Ave
I was really disappointed to read that OakDOT is planning to remove Oakland’s first-ever protected bike lane presumably after pressure from a lot of pressure from the KONO (Koreatown Northgate) business improvement district. Initially, I heard a lot of mixed reviews from cyclists about the protected lanes in the KONO district, mostly because of parking confusion. Drivers would park their car in the middle of the bike lane, despite markings, because they expected parallel parking to be at the curb rather than offset from the curb. This would then cause a big problem for a bike rider when the lane would be fully blocked by a parked car. After everyone got used to this, I felt that it worked a lot better. I feel that it’s a lot safer because there are physical barriers (parked cars, bollards) between someone on […]
Continue reading
How do you carry a child on a bike? What we know about bike attachments for kids
We didn’t own a car when our child was born. That made the idea of running errands as a family much more complicated. There are well-meaning laws in California and other states that require you to use a car seat to take your child home after they are born (assuming they are not born at home!). Though apparently, the hospital is not allowed to deny discharge if you don’t take your child home in a car seat. A friend generously loaned us a car for a month. Since we don’t drive much, we only used it for the trip to and from the hospital, and to meet up for a friend’s birthday at a cafe. We live in a fairly urban area, so we were able to walk most other places we needed to go and transport our child via […]
Continue reading
How do I teach my kid to ride a bike? What others say and our own experiences
Our child took to riding a bike pretty well and we ride around a lot to get from place to place, so we’re frequently asked about how to get kids started on a bike, and how to make a child feel comfortable riding a bike. Back in the day: Training wheels I have memories of when I was a child, watching my dad adjust the training wheels of my old yellow bike. I remember him adjusting the training wheels as I started to get more comfortable on the bike, and how sometimes I’d be riding only on one training wheel or none at all, depending on the terrain and how much I was leaning over. I remember the slightly loud sound of the wheels as they rolled on the ground. All of us neighborhood kids got scared when the biggest […]
Continue reading
Bicycle infrastructure and riding with children
If you’ve been riding your bike for a while, you’ve probably heard some variant of “Get off the road!” coming from an irate driver more than a few times. (There are a lot of links out there that try to answer the question, “Why do people shout at cyclists?”) Though it can be at best unpleasant to hear, I do wish that it was easier to ride on a dedicated path that’s not shared by automobiles. Reducing the idea of bicycling to solely a recreational activity has made it harder for people to safely ride as a mode of transportation. And without a network of routes to reach areas where people can ride bikes for recreation, people often need to put their bikes in or on their cars, and drive to a destination. I think that many people want to […]
Continue reading
Are cars and trucks too tall? A quick note on rider visibility
It’s often hard to ride a bike safely as an adult when roads must be shared with automobiles. According to the NHTSA, the 2nd leading related factor for fatalities in bike/car crashes (in the USA) is “Not visible”. It makes sense that visibility is a leading factor. I don’t think I view the data as a whole as completely reliable, since I’d assume that in most of these cases the victim wasn’t around to tell their side of the story. Kids are less visible on bikes than adults and cars are getting bigger As a kid, it’s even more difficult to be visible. Children can ride erratically. They are shorter, their bikes are shorter, and thus they are less visible to drivers. The opposite is true for automobiles. Vehicles are getting larger, which creates a bigger “blind zone” in front […]
Continue reading
Riding bikes with children: Talking about cars
In the USA, at least, I found that talking to kids about bike safety meant talking a lot about cars. Dedicated bike paths (in the USA) don’t always take you where you need to go When our child started riding with us on their own bike, I realized that 90% of our communication was about riding safely with cars on the road. It wasn’t about kids bike safety gear, helmets, proper clothing or anything else like that. Dedicated bike paths to the library, the playground, to school or wherever else for running errands usually don’t exist in the States. So, we had to ride in the street, and this meant sharing the road with cars. This is a little scary when riding with a young child. Though there are bike lanes near me, a layer of paint doesn’t feel like […]
Continue reading