We’re relatively new to family biking. We sort of jumped straight in without reading anything or going to classes or any of the other options around town to encourage people to try it. Of course, we had a great model to follow in our friends Katie and Dave. They are two of my best friends and housemates from college, and they’ve been family biking clear since pregnancy. They even came home from the delivery in a bike cab! I’ve spent time biking with them and their kids and it helped give me the confidence to dive in.
To be fair, that confidence was a long time coming. I had some fears about biking alone, and they were amplified a bit when thinking about biking with R. I’m not really sure what got me over that. I went from biking occasionally in the summer (to and from work part time, the occasional fun ride) for the last five years to biking nearly everywhere pretty much overnight. Part of it was getting the e-assist on the cargo bike. We live on a steep hill and I always balked at having to climb back up it, even more so with a loaded bike. I think the other part of it was a growing dissatisfaction with driving.
When I was in high school and just starting to drive I loved it. I drove pretty much everywhere, even going for fun drives out on the gravel roads in the valley I grew up in. I grew up in a small rural town and the only time I went over 45 was when I went on the Interstate to go on trips.There were plentiful random pretty drives to go on, whether just cruising through the valley or driving up the mountains for a great view. I’m not sure I biked at all in high school.
College was a bit of a change. I didn’t have a car my freshman year, mostly because of the expense of parking it. I walked, bussed, or got rides everywhere. It really changed my habits. Even once I brought my car with me after I moved into a house with a driveway I still walked. Occasionally Katie and I would drive to the grocery store, if we wanted fancy food or organic produce. Otherwise we walked to the Safeway a block away. Even when I moved to the other side of campus there was a grocery store pretty much across the street. I still drove to go across the river to see friends, or out in the countryside for fun, or to go hiking and such, but it was greatly reduced. Same thing when I moved to Portland and then to Seattle for grad school. I bussed or walked most everywhere, even when living an hour away from school by bus.
When I met Lurline I slowly started biking again. My confidence was low because the drivers here are unpredictable and dangerous and I always felt like if I was to be hit I’d rather have a ton or more of steel protecting me. However, I slowly started to see that biking might actually be safer. Seattle is the 2nd safest city in the country for pedestrians and cyclists, with the second lowest overall for pedestrians and the eighth lowest overall for cyclists. By contrast, Seattle ranks 173 out of 200 when it comes to driving safety (PDF). This comes from a report published by the insurance company Allstate, which has enough customers to qualify as a reliable source of data.
As I began learning these things the combination of the awful traffic, the prospect of a million more people moving here by 2020, therefore increasing the traffic, and the relative danger of driving to biking I was sold on trading the car for the bike. It took us about a year to make the full transition, but now Lurline bikes to work 4 days a week and I run errands and take R to our activities by bike almost exclusively. It feels really good and I honestly do feel safer most days.
I thought that to end this post I’d include a few websites I found with resources for family biking. I’ll also create a page and begin adding to it as I find more. So, here you are:
7 Ways to Become a Biking Family This Spring from Seattle’s well known parenting resource site ParentMap.
G&O Family Cyclery, local bike shop that specializes in family biking, with loads of great advice at the ready, a rental fleet, and plenty of options when you are ready to make the plunge and pick a bike.
Kidical Mass! Tips for Family Biking, Seattle Style from Seattle’s Child
Familybike Seattle, non-profit that puts on a family bike expo and offers rentals of family bike setups to test (They are also normally found at www.familybike.org, but it seems to be down today.
Family Ride, a blog kept by one of the fixtures of the family biking scene here, Madi Carlson
