lifestyle design

Best Places to Teach Your Child How to Ride a Bike: Parks, Trails, and More

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Best Places to Teach Your Child How to Ride a Bike

Teaching your child to ride a bike is one of those unforgettable moments that brings a rush of pride and joy to both parents and children. For me, it’s up there with seeing your child walk for the first time or say their first word. 

Recently we successfully taught our four-year-old how to ride his bike with pedals for the first time. He’s always been strong on his balance bike and we followed this up with getting him used to a normal bike without pedals (we took them off). Following this and with some pushback from Barney we moved him onto pedals and he could cycle freely with us assisting his start.

He’s by no means the finished article now and we have many days ahead which I why I wanted to pen this article to help you choose the best places to teach your child how to ride a bike.

Our goal with this post is to help other families identify the best places for teaching their young ones how to ride, focusing on traffic-free, family-friendly areas, and encouraging a love of biking. 

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The benefits of Resistance Training & Trail Cycling

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Resistance Training & Cycling

For anyone who enjoys staying active and maintaining a strong, balanced fitness routine, combining resistance training and trail cycling can be an ideal approach to achieving peak performance. As a dad, fitness enthusiast, and lover of the great outdoors, I’ve come to appreciate the unique benefits of this combination—improving strength and endurance and promoting mental well-being.

From my perspective, longevity is the key to all fitness: finding a sustainable, enjoyable way to stay healthy while setting a great example for your children. A combination of resistance training and trail cycling is the key to this.

This article explores why I believe integrating resistance training with trail cycling can elevate your fitness routine to the next level while also bringing enjoyment and calm to your life. Combined with outdoor family adventures, I am confident you will feel and look much better, and this will be channelled to your children.

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Why School Drop-offs by Bike Are a Great Way to Start Your Day

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As parents, we all know the morning routine can be a rush—a whirlwind of getting the kids ready, making sure lunches are packed, and trying to beat the clock. 

There is however one part of our morning routine we have stuck to for the 5 years our daughter has been going to school. That is cycling the ‘school run’. 

I believe that in the vast majority of cases for those who live within a short distance of a local school, it’s the perfect way to start the day. Fresh air, movement and quality time together. I often see children driven to school with air pods lodged in their ears and mobile phones occupying their time. This feels like a sad way to start the day for both parent and child. 

Here’s why cycling to school is more than just a practical choice for us—it’s become one of the highlights of our day.

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Off-road cycling and mental health

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Off Road Cycling

I’m no professional cyclist and neither am I a doctor. I do however know a thing or two about health and happiness. I think the two are very much interlinked. 

My workouts tend to be 7 out of 10. I train to stay lean both in body and mind. My consistency tends to be 9 out of 10 though. I very rarely miss a day I don’t do ‘something’. There are several reasons why I do. All are important. Perhaps the most important is for my mind. Without it life is like climbing Mount Ventoux on one of my mountain bikes. It can be done but it’s going to be a bit of a challenge.

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Cycling Indoors vs Outdoors: A Balanced Perspective

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As a dad who loves spending time outdoors with my family, the decision to invest in an indoor spin bike was a shift in mindset. Being out in the fresh air, exploring parks, National Trust sites and local Yorkshire gems with my kids has always been a huge part of our weekends. But there’s also much to be said for indoor cycling, especially when life gets busy, the weather isn’t cooperating or a combination of both means you can’t reach your fitness goals.

At heart, I’ll always be a trail cyclist. There’s nothing that compares to cycling outdoors on traffic-free trails, the varying terrain, switching off your mind, and the feeling of time standing still. 

In January 2024 I bought a spin bike. I know what you are thinking. It’s another one of those January purchases gathering dust! That couldn’t be further from the truth!

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How we use our bikes as a family

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Making the transition to riding your bike as a family can be daunting to some. It’s easy to jump in the car and drive to your destination irrespective of how close it is. As a country, we have become heavily dependent upon cars with over 40 million in circulation. Even journeys under 1 mile are now done by car. It’s a frightening statistic.

Biking as a family doesn’t have to be scary though. To start with we have a car and use our car. We only have one but it’s something we couldn’t live without as aspects of our lifestyle are made better by having a car. Visiting family, National Trust sites, driving to the South of France on holiday are all parts of our life we wouldn’t change.

We love our car and arguably the car is actually one of the greatest inventions (behind the bicycle of course) ever created. It’s unfortunately become overused and inefficient as a mode of transport.

Monday – Friday we rarely use our car and opt for walking or cycling as our choice of transportation. We are a family with a 3 and 7 year old and here are some of the ways we use our bikes as a family both as a mode of transport and for fun. 

We hope these will inspire more people to do the same.

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Cycling for Families: UK vs. The Netherlands

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Am i too old to ride my bike?
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As a family, we spent the summer camping in France. We love the great outdoors and the French seem to deliver this in a way which is unrivalled by any other country. As part of our journey home, we wanted to tick off a key bucket list item. Cycling in The Netherlands.

As a family, we love cycling and enjoy this from both a recreation and active travel perspective. The latter in the UK requires careful planning and parental safety guidance at all times. 

The Netherlands is lauded for its cycling infrastructure and Twitter (X) is rife with videos of those from all walks of life and ability levels cycling. These videos tend to however be city orientated where cycling is the primary mode of transport. On our visit we wanted to see other sides of the Netherlands; particularly the suburbs and how cycling was in these locations. 

We spent 5 days in the Netherlands; two of which were spent camping on the fringes of the city of  Valkenburg and two days in the village of Zevenhuizen. We also visited Rotterdam and the city of Delft which has long been on my list of places to visit. I believe this gave us a good grasp of cycling with children in the Netherlands vs. the UK. It’s hard not to be downbeat about what we have in the UK vs. the Netherlands but I also want to be objective. 

If you are in the UK I will say that cycling is a fantastic way to spend time together as a family, enjoy the outdoors, and stay active.

However, the experience is vastly different to the Netherlands and other mainland European countries. Let’s dive into the differences, challenges, and what families can expect when pedalling through these nations.

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