Joyful family biking
Have you ever seen a parent on an ebike with multiple kids and thought, "what a lunatic"? Well, that's us – we're cyclists! Hear us out.
How many hours a week do you spend commuting with your children from place to place? Ten? Fifteen? And how often do you decide not to do something with the kids because you just know that traffic or parking at that hour is going to be hell? Or maybe you decided to go anyway and now you're driving in circles looking for parking while the kids are screaming, and after parking a few blocks away you still have to lug them to your actual destination?
We're not cycling nerds. We love biking because, well, driving in a densely populated city can be really stressful! We love public transit and being able to spend quality time with our kids during commutes, but if you are trying to get from one neighborhood to another and not just to and from downtown, public transit can take a long time. On a bike, you get the best of both worlds - you can park right in front of your destination every time, and you’re not affected by transit delays or wait-times. And, when the car traffic is bumper to bumper, you just glide right on by! Kids love it, it’s good for your health, it's good for the planet, it's cheaper than a car, and it's plain old fun.
We both cycle 250 miles a month, minimum, on our family bikes. San Francisco has a solid and improving network of bike lanes (shout out to Kid Safe SF and Bicycle Coalition who are doing great work to make it happen). We’ve moved house with our cargo bikes. We’ve transported everything from knitting machines to the Christmas tree, to four kids for the school run. We credit them for being able to do as much as we do with our kiddos, keeping us in shape, and keeping ourselves sane: nothing like a bike commute to reset from the work day.
There are a bunch of practical issues to tackle before getting there though - and this is what this post was going to be about. We compiled all the questions we’ve received about how we make it work, what kind of bicycle to choose, what maintenance looks like, and how to keep it safe. This post got too long, so we decided to share our family bike stories and post a longer FAQ on the website.
E: We got our Urban Arrow about one month after birth. We had hesitated getting one for the previous year, thinking we could use transit for 6 months until using a bike seat. We took Muni 36 times in that first month, and it was fun, and also way harder than cycling.
We had a Craigslist-alert and got a hit within a week or so for $3000 with accessories. Popped in the car seat and we were on our way. We also got a long tail cargo (a Rad Wagon, for $600) about 15 months later, for the preschool commute, as the Urban Arrow was an older model with a weaker motor. We ended up replacing that motor, now using the Urban Arrow most, with the Rad Wagon being useful as a back-up solution during bike maintenance or if I forgot to charge the battery.
We also have a regular bike with initially a front child seat, and now a shotgun saddle, used mostly for short and fun Sunday rides. I had to drive for the school commute recently and can now say with certainty: that is far, far more stressful than cycling. And rain or shine, rush hour or not, the beach is a 30 minutes ride from the Mission.
R: We got our Urban Arrow a couple months before our 3rd child was born. Our 3 kids are just over 2 years apart, ages 5.5, 3.5, and 1.5 now. The bike was $6000 on Craigslist, just a few years old, with the extra strong motor and barely used. At first when I reached out to the seller, we weren't sure about such a big purchase, but then I borrowed Emeline's bike for a day and took the boys to Costco (6 months pregnant) and knew that I needed a bike like this.
We have never had a car (we rent one if we are going on a trip; our garage is too small for a minivan) and the bike was immediately a life changer, expanding our radius of what playgrounds we could easily visit and what friends we could see. Getting groceries was way easier with an e-bike than lugging kids and produce home on our wagon. And the bike made it much easier for me (getting more pregnant by the day) to transport and take care of the boys by myself.
This allowed us to maintain our regular schedule of me and my husband being able to have lots of time to ourselves while the other parent took care of all the kids. We've since purchased an additional Tern GSD (also barely used on Craigslist! For $3500) and hacked it to fit 3 kids, so that we have the option of either parent doing pick up and drop off.
Have a family bike story to share?
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Community events
Bike related
Freedom from training wheels, Sunday, March 23 @ 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm, is a place for children to try out and learn how to use bikes, scooters etc. Free, organized by the Bicycle coalition
SF Critical Mass, March 28 @ 5.30pm (and every last Friday) is an organized bicycle tour of the city
SF Bike Party, April 4 @ 7.30pm (and every first Friday) is a party on bike
If you are in Noe Valley or surrounding neighborhood, ask to join the Noe Valley Dads group, which organizes regular dads bike rides
Regular Joyful Parenting programming
Roller skating is every Monday 3-6pm in the Hayes Valley Playground rainbow basketball court. Local parents bring all sizes of used roller skates for people to borrow for free, starting from toddler size 8!
Parent Circle is every Saturday from 10:30am-12:30pm at The Commons in Hayes Valley. Local high school students play with the kids while parents reflect on our week in community.