I know the toys thing has been done to death, but...

[ninjasquirrel]

From a toy website I just looked at.

"For the little girl in your life we have doll houses and for the boy pirate ships and castles."

Aargh.

Sorry, just had to vent.

Oh I know.

We bought DD a bicycle for her third birthday this week, and I could just about cope with the friendly salesman saying "for boys we have the blue and the white, and for girls there is a pink or a purple model". I could even cope with the fact that in the cheaper/smaller (for younger, I mean) range, the pink bikes all had princesses and things on.

What made me actually seethingly angry was that the majority of bikes we looked at in that age group, in 'girls colours', had either tassels hanging off the handlebars, a basket on the front, or both. Boys bikes were just bikes.

These are bikes aimed at small children just learning to ride - they have training wheels. There is no way that the basket and tassels don't make it more difficult to handle, and it certainly sends the message that the bike is not for sheer physical fun, but for show/carrying stuff in.

Grrr.

I let DD choose one and she chose the blue shiny one. But still. GRRRRRRR.

Bikes aren't just for sheer physical fun though, are they? Bikes are mostly for getting from A to B. Often people carry things from A to B so have a basket or paniers or both. Okay, you probably aren't going to need it if you are under 7, but does it matter if younger children's bikes mimic the functional carrying element of bigger bikes?

And I thought the point of tassels was that they helped younger children (who are poor judges of speed and distance) see that they must be riding at some speed if the tassels are flying back.

The lack of any kind of basket on DS's bike annoys me. He has to use a backpack to go and get the shopping, which is far more of a hassle than a basket. I'm not even sure how paniers could be attached to his bike (although perhaps I should look into it more), but I wonder why men's bikes have no parcel shelf anymore.

but I wonder why men's bikes have no parcel shelf anymore.

Because women are still expected to do all the shopping?