How do you ride bikes with kids

[Sprogonthetyne]

Sounds ridiculous I know but my 5yo wants to ride her bike to school. She rides too fast for me to keep up on foot, so if she rides, I need to ride too. Obviously at 5, she's not ready to safely ride on the road, but as an adult I shouldn't be on the path, so how does it work.

(So far we've only been on bike rides in countryside parks, where there's been no road traffic)

Good question!

Could you get yourself a kick scooter?

My two older kids used to ride their bikes to primary school. They cycled on the pavement so I always told them not to go too fast (so they didn't crash into any pedestrians leaving their houses etc) and to stop and wait for me at every road crossing. I walked behind.

She rides on the pavement, you ride next to her on the road or walk behind and she has to stop at any junctions.

In theory yes, but I'm not 100% sure I trust her to stop every time. She's just turned 5, is in reception and usually no more then a few meters away from me when out. Perhaps I need to work on building up independence first and keep bike riding for next term?

I think if there are doubts about safety and you can’t even be sure she’ll stop at a road if she’s on a pavement then you don’t do it until she’s a bit older and better practiced.

We couldn’t make it work with her cycling on the pavement and us on the road, because then you have to stop where you wouldn’t normally stop because you have priority over the side road, to then check if she can cross her bit, except there’s now a confused bus going round you… maybe depends on your route though. But we did lots of park cycling at the weekend, building up to road cycling where she’d go in between us, and then she could do the route to school on the road by year 2 with just 1 adult.

The only other option I can think of is to stick your running gear on and treat it as your workout!

Last year when she was at the school nursery she biked in with stabilisers, but they slowed her down enough that I could keep up. Over summer she learnt to ride without, but she's doing a bit too well and I'm not sure I could keep up even running.

For most of the way it's quite roads where I'd be able to be next to her and prompt to stop but there's a bit where I'd mess up the flow of traffic if I tried to supervise from the road. On the footpath its about 200m along one side of a busy road, cross at a pelican crossing, then another 50m along the other side before we turn off back to side streets. Maybe we could both get off and push for that bit?

My son was very fast on his balance bike from the age of 2. From 2 and a half he rode it to nursery on the pavements. I bought a Swifty kick scooter as it's the only way I can keep up with him. He has learnt to stop at roads but he's still young and I can keep up with him to make sure he definitely never shoots out onto a road. It's good practice for road safety.

I see parents here with children as young as 4 and 5 cycling with them on bikes on the road, but we live in a small town.

I'd say if you're not confident going on roads with her yet, you either get a kick scooter to keep up with her on the pavement, or you get a bike seat or trailer for her and she rides on your bike.