cbike

I haven't seen much discussion about commuting with children that ride their own bikes. I've been doing this for a while, although not every day, and found that this brings some unique issues with it. Especially when the children are a bit younger. Mine are Kindergarten and Third grade and we commute whenever possible (i.e. we don't have after school activities that require us to hurry across town).

This photo reflects the attitude of my kids quite well. For my son it's an inconvenience and chore to ride the 1.5 miles to school. My daughter though is very excited about it. It started in preschool where she was the only one to ride her bike to it. The others begged their mother to ride bikes to preschool as well , without much luck though.

Riding with two kids became exponentially more difficult especially when crossing streets. You can't just simply ride beside then as with one kid. It's more of a herding. I found out that it helps a lot to stick with one and the same route at all times instead of opportunistically pick the crossing whose walk sign is on.

I also found out that mounting their backpack with a bungee to the side of my rack works pretty well. I'll just keep the back sides on the outside so that the shoulder straps don't get caught in the spokes.

Some issues I'm still wondering about are:

1. "No right turn on red while children are present" signs
   Over 50% of driver do a right turn on red even though there is a sign stating that this is illegal. I'm not quite sure what the point of these signs are.
2. Helmet usage with changing temperatures
   Now that it's fall, the mornings are getting colder. That means gloves and hats for the kids. Of course wearing hats under the helmet means having to adjust the helmet for every ride, especially since in the evening it's to warm for a hat.
3. Lighting
   Right now I'm trying to add some lights on my kids' bikes that increase visibility, won't break if the bike falls, and won't disappear when their bikes are parked at school.

HardyWeinberg

I've never heard of those.

I guess it's not cold enough here to need to put a hat under the helmet; counting ourselves lucky on that score.

The local grade school bike rack is massively theft-prone; a Two-fish lockblock plus flashlight on the helmet at least gets the 'headlight' off the bike rack and into the building. Taillights are slightly less theft-prone than headlights so they just leave them on their bikes. Still had several stolen over the years.

My oldest is going to a new school this year (middle-school) and we are going to take another stab at a bike-mounted headlight, I went this bike-geek route. There are a couple reasons to hope that the middle school bike rack would be safer than the grade school bike rack so hopefully that should last until daylight savings time returns.

cbike

Apparently it's quite common that these signs don't get enforced. But what's the point then, it just gives a false sense of security and might cause more harm than it's good.

Photo from https://sfcitizen.com/blog/2010/04/27...with-no-teeth/

noglider 

There's not much point to any signs, because generally, people don't read signs. I can't emphasize this enough, so I'll repeat it: people don't read signs.

HardyWeinberg

I stopped by my son's middle school on an errand today and the racks are still overflowing, there are bikes locked up to trees and benches and whatever else is attached to the ground. Bikes are way down at my daughter's grade school by this time of the year.

bergerandfries

I ride everywhere with my Sophomore, 6th grader, 2nd grader, kindergartener, and 2 year old. The 2 year old is on the trailer-a-bike, the kindergartener is hardest to direct, but she rides on the sidewalk and I ride in the street next to her. I make myself visible to cars, so that while she is invisible on the sidewalk, at least motorists see something. And she is VERY good about stopping at intersections to look front/back/side/side before she rolls out. My 2nd grader and 6th grader are excellent cyclists, if my 6th grader is a little too aggressive at gaps he thinks he can make it safely. Still working on that point.

My sophomore is too f'n cool for bicycles. It's OK, I don't push it. I hope some day that he comes back to them on his own, so I don't make a big deal of it, and he skateboards along side the family. He's really fast on his board, and my k-gartener is really slow on her bike, so we actually stay together pretty well!

cbike

Commuting has been more sporadic lately with music lessons one night a week and some very cold mornings. Wind chill is a big blocker. But whenever I can I try to sneak in a commute. Besides the crossing guard on one intersection won't have anything to do in the mornings if we don't pass. Apparently we are the only ones to cross there.

BTW, I ride with my kids on the sidewalk. I believe if I were to ride on the street, the cars backing out of the driveway would pay attention to me while running over my kids. One morning we rode on the sidewalk of our street and approached a two car wide driveway with a large SUV backing out at the far side. My daughter stopped to let the car out. The driver noticed my daughter stopped and waved us through. It takes a little for my daughter to realize that she'll wait and to start up riding her bike. By the time she was riding into her driveway the driver got impatient and was backing out again, looking out the window shocked and saying how sorry she was.

Lighting

The light issue is solved. We are probably the brightest group of cyclist in town. But it's good since it's quite dark when we ride home from school.

My bicycle still has the old style incandescent lighting as seen in Germany powered with a home made 4 D battery pack. Even though it's dim it's nice to have a constant light on your bike so others can judge your exact location better. In addition to them I have a Planet Bike Blaze 2W in flash mode at the front, some unknown 4 LED flasher on the rear and a Planet Bike Super Flash on the rear of my helmet that's otherwise not used.

My son claimed the other Planet Bike Blaze 2W. He likes to run it in continues mode though. My daughter has two blue two LED blinkers on her handle bar. Probably the one point that could be improved. Both kids have a Blackburn Mars 3 on the rear. I like that light better than the Super Flash, as it's more visible from the sides. These lights are in blink mode. On each wheel of my kids I installed a red SpokeLit that is run in continuous mode. In daylight they don't make a difference but at night they improve side visibility quite a bit.

I found reflectors to be of lesser usefulness. We ride on sidewalks so not much vehicle light hits us but yet we need to cross traffic and driveways quite often on our way.

Luggage

I carry my kids backpacks by bungee them to the sides. Looks a little hobo style but that allows me to carry my backpack with the work computer on my back. Simple and cheap. (BTW, the plastic container is my lunch.)



Helmets

Helmets are still a pain. Kids are complaining that it's uncomfortable to wear the helmet over the hats. I was close to say forget it about the helmets this morning and let kids just wear their hats. Mom helped my daughter to put on an ear band that half blinds her and my son wore a thin jacked with a hoody under his coat.

Leebo

What about a thin poly pro type hat ?

acidfast7

i though you meant with kids on the same bike like I see everyday

JPprivate

Amen!! It's about 99% here. They should just get rid of these signs and make it a "No right turn on red."
Point is that you might not see any pedestrians or children and if you see them you presumably wouldn't run into them anyways.

Congratulations though to your accomplishment. I tried to take my 4th grader along to her school, but the distance is just too far. It's quite challenging when they are too big for a Burly but too young to safely ride on the street. I saw an adjustable tandem (the second rider could be between 4 and 6 foot tall), but that seemed like too big of an investment for me.