Commuting - Non Cyclist Family Members

Man! Here we go again!!
I have two sons. One just turned 16. The other is 12. Last year I bought each of them their first new bikes. Before that, most of what they rode was 'scrap' together bikes.

So last year I forked out quite a bit of money for new MTB bikes. One for each. My 15 year old rode his about 1/2 mile and parked it. He liked his 'scrap together' BMX bike better. It was cooler.

My 12 year old followed his older brother's footsteps and chose to ride his beater, hand-me-down BMX bike, too. Although the younger did ride his MTB bike quite a bit more.

So here we are, Christmas time. The beater bikes are broken down and useless. The MTB bikes are in great shape but no one wants to ride them.

I had this really good conversation with the kid at the LBS and we agreed a new BMX bike for the younges would be awesome. Of course, I liked the idea.

Then my wife showed up. Man! She didn't like the idea at all!! I was crushed!! (I think I talked her into it in the end).

Do you have non-cycling members in your family? We are two and two. My youngest and I are cyclists. My wife and older son are not. Kind of wierd.

I know what you mean. I'm just about the only cyclist amoung my family and my wifes family. My sister does ride so she can compete in triathlons. Noone else would consider riding more than a few miles on a bike path. I'm working on my daughter and I think she likes riding in her trailer but shes just 2.
Craig

Yup, my wife and I. I ride everywhere and she rides on traffic free paths. I've been hinting at fixing her bike up w/ a rear rack and panniers for grocery shopping tho...

I ride, my son races BMX. He wants a road bike to ride with me, but I think that will be short lived. I'm trying to put together a bike for him, but the frame takes 650c wheels and I can't find any cheap.

My wife refuses to contemplate sitting on a bike, even though I have one for her. :)

I am the cyclist in my family. My Father and Brother came to me for helping them pick out a bike for recreational usage. I am the cyclist in my wife's family as well. My brother in law has a MTB bike, but hadn't ridden it in years... til this year. We had gone to his place during the Rita fiasco. I had brought my bikes. I was riding with some his wife's nephews. Next thing I know, he inflated the tires and was riding with us.

Every so often my wife and I get into it about my riding at night. Only thing we don't see eye to eye about. With here graduated now, maybe I can get her to go on a night ride. Of course she now wants a bike with gears.

Yup, my wife and I. I ride everywhere and she rides on traffic free paths. I've been hinting at fixing her bike up w/ a rear rack and panniers for grocery shopping tho...

Hooking-up a rack to my wife's Trek hybrid and also taking her on the 5BBT created a monster. She now routinely rides from Washington Heights to Union Square to fill the panniers (my old shopping/commuting panniers from 8-9 years ago, heh) at the Green Market. The other day we did the "Lights in the Heights" ride in the freezing cold at night and rode home to boot (35 miles total in the cold night air). She even rode the TA NYC Century with me in September. Also, she's taken up the "bike the strike" mantra, riding to work in the chilly mornings now that the bus is not an option.

So to the OP, do whatever it takes to encourage the fam, it can be done!

I am also the cyclist in my family and my wife's family. Almost everyone owns a bike and does not use it. Too cold...too lazy...better things to do....etc.
The exception being my 6 year old nephew Vincent. Vince just taught himself how to ride and takes his bike anywhere my sister in law will let him. He wants to take a ride with me. My problem is slowing down so Vincent can keep up. My low cruising speed is way too fast for him. Plus, his intelligent mother won't purchase a helmet. I refuse to take anyone riding without a helmet. That may be his next bday present. However, forcing him to wear it is not my responsibility and won't happen without me around.

I am grooming my 2 year old son to bike with me. Right now he loves riding in the trailer. Eventually, I will add a child tandem attachment when he gets older.

I tend to ride to my mother in-law's trailer from our house. Apparently 8 miles is a long distance for them. "You rode? That's far" and the usual "You rode? Isn't it too cold to ride out?" --always asked during 40 degree weather. Anything north of 20 is warm nowdays.

Your thinking is way too limitted. There is so much cool selection between a beater BMX and an MTB. You are in Kansas City. Take the boys here (http://acmebicyclecompany.com/) and get a refurbished/beater/singlespeed/fixie/mtb/whatever they want. Whatever they like about the old beaters, they can find at Acme in excellent working order.

I meant to say, "Your thinking is way too limitted." Me speak good most times.
There should be a little [Edit] link below your message, where normally the [SPAM!] button appears for everybody else's messages.

Between bmx and mtb there is Urban freeride and Trials bikes, running 24 inch wheels.

A modded mtb can be used as a Trials bike, often rigid fork. seems to me the wheel size is personal.
More Urban with 26 wheel, more Trials 24.
http://caravan.hobby.ru/materiel/caravanbike/zero.jpg
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.spiffie.com/trials/pics/ross-166.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.spiffie.com/trials/&h=400&w=634&sz=42&tbnid=CEAXsQtUriMJ:&tbnh=85&tbnw=135&hl=en&start=4&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtrials%2Bbicycle%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG
http://vancouver.craigslist.org/bik/116090704.html Not cheap.

I'm the obsessive one in the family, everyone else just dabbles in whatever my passion is at the time. :o

As for as the bikes go...my wife took a little convincing but not too much. She already had a mtn. bike that got little use originally. I dug it out and put street tires on it as a starter. She did fine and actually enjoyed it more than she thought..I was very patient and got her whatever I could to make her comfortable. I then moved her up to a used road bike that was too small (intentionally) to introduce her to it without her being intimidated by it and then figured I'd give it to my son. It took a little convincing but I finally got her on it and again she was surprised how much she liked it. Then it was time to move her to a bike that fit her, again a little resistance but she came around and I don't think she'd have it any other way now.

As for the son, well, my wife's first road bike was given to him with him saying "this is going to be easy". Oh contrare :D as he found out. He never really cared for it much since his mother was faster than him and got discouraged. I then let him ride my moutain bike (a little big for him) and he seemed to like it. Later approached him with the idea of getting rid of his heavy a$$ed bmxer and getting a mtn. bike. I was really surprised when he told me they were "dorky looking" and he was having no part of giving up his BMXer. So, I've let him keep that and have gotten him an full suspension all black mtn. bike for Christmas hoping that'll help encourage him. If not, his mom will get it and I'll convert her rigid to single speed for me :D

Long story short, I've had some succeses and some failures. A lot of patience and experimenting a little has paid off some though.

My wife and I now ride together regularly and I'm trying to introduce her to group rides, but again..PATIENCE seems to be the key.

I'm lucky that I come from a family of bike riders. Not competative by any means, but both my parents had nice sporty bikes when I was growing up and both still ride frequently. My brother occaisionally commutes on his C-dale MTB and my sister has an old Schwinn cruiser for trips around town. And my ultra cycling-nut uncle is driving through town this weekend so I can finally discuss the finer points of my switch to m-bars and friction shifters.

Seeing all these posts about S.O.'s, cyclist is absolutely on my wish list but probably not the deciding factor.

My wife, brother in law and his wife are the only somewhat cyclists in my family. I am the 200 mile a week commuter, recreational, fixed nut.

My mom rides but not as often due geographical and safety limitations. She will visit me again so I can take her to the 50 mile ride on the bikepath to Philly.

I am also the cyclist in my family and my wife's family. Almost everyone owns a bike and does not use it. Too cold...too lazy...better things to do....etc.
The exception being my 6 year old nephew Vincent. Vince just taught himself how to ride and takes his bike anywhere my sister in law will let him. He wants to take a ride with me. My problem is slowing down so Vincent can keep up. My low cruising speed is way too fast for him. Plus, his intelligent mother won't purchase a helmet. I refuse to take anyone riding without a helmet. That may be his next bday present. However, forcing him to wear it is not my responsibility and won't happen without me around.
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If you wait until he can keep up with your low cruising speed he may well have lost interest. We've recently had our annual, and now traditional, club Christmas Family ride - 7 miles to a very expensive cafe/restaurant at a well-known Yorkshire tourist spot and back. Average speed? About 8mph. Slow? Yes. Boring? No. Youngest rider? 7. Take him riding, make it fun, find an open area where you can set him little skill competitions, such as setting out a slalom course (straight and zigzag) with stones, ride down a bank, ride over small tree roots, find an off-road track and check which trees/shrubs grow along it, get him to collect the leaves, etc. and press them and learn what they are. Get him to mark out your rides on a local map.

If you want to get some ideas on what is possible, log on to www.bsca.org.uk (British Schools Cyclng Association) and look at their (Trix) awards scheme. If he is keen to come out with his uncle (whom he obviously thinks is the bees' knees) encourage him because it's about him. Print off little certificates of achievement for every skill he masters - good for "show and tell".

How else are you going to get more members of your family riding? You never know, he might get his mum into it. Which is how many of our parents started riding.

I have a wife and five daughters and encouraged them to bicycle (I'm a 4000-6000 mile a year rider) for the last 25 years and all I got out of the deal was my wife got into riding a tandem with me (which is very nice). We are going on our first tour together this coming summer. My daughters won't even hardly look at a bicycle, although four out of the five own one.

I have difficulty even calling myself a cyclist, though I ride 3 days a week, 1 of those days on the weekend with the local cycling club. I consider myself a runner, who rides for cross training. But, I have come to love riding so much that I've gone from riding my mountain bike on the streets, to buying a lower end women's specific road bike (Specialized Dolce), then buying a folding bike (Downtube) to ride on errands around town. (I work at home, so don't have a "commute.")

My husband is a runner, who owns a mountain bike and will ride it when he has to, but refuses to wear bicycling clothing, preferring to wear his jeans, and also refuses to raise his seat, preferring to ride bowlegged. He rode to work for awhile after his car was totaled, but managed to finagle my car out of me, and now drives to work. He does support me riding, which I appreciate.

My son, who is grown and lives in San Diego County, is a mountain bicyclist, and thinks anyone who rides on the roads is crazy. He did admire the Dolce, though, last time he came to visit. He has a fancy-schmancy Specialized $1500+ mountain bike, which he rides every chance he gets. I think he is pleased that after years of not understanding why anyone would bicycle instead of run, I've started to enjoy bicycling almost as much.

I'm pretty much the only person in my family who routinely rides and truly enjoys cycling. Most think I'm weird and a psycho to ride in all kinds of weather, which might as well be true :p Unfortunately most of my friends don't ride either :(

It's become sort of a communication problem with my sister. She has a motorcycle so every single time one of us says "bike" we mean different things.

We all have our different levels, although I'm by far the most hard-core. The kids are just limited by their ages, 5 and 7. They love to have me take them places on their bikes, but at this point we are still keeping to low speeds on the sidewalks. My wife enjoys going out for leisurely rides with the kids and me, or even just with me when we get the rare hour or two alone in the daytime (and aren't doing anything else ;)), but that's as much as she does.

Gosh, now that I think about it, I don't know if I've ever seen my mother ride a bike. :eek: And my brother and sister and their spouses, I have no idea how much they ride, if at all, although I'm sure their kids have bikes.

I'm more into it than my two sons. But the three of us are all fun cyclists, not into competition so far. Unfortunately, my wife can not ride a bicycle since she has MS. (That's why we appreciate the Roadies who compete in the MS bike rides). Before she contracted MS she rode a Royce Union 3 speed hybrid.
I've been lucky, every dime I've spent on cycling, my kids have used sufficiently for me to say yes, it was justified.

The wife and I ride only on our Counterpoint tandem, and rarely at that. She knows that she is holding me back when we ride together. My other relatives all have MTBs' which they rarely ride. They are hikers not bikers. The only vertical exercise the wife and I get is Argentine Tango which is really just a vertical expression of a horizontal act.

Our two oldest kids, (boy 12yrs & girl 9yrs) have some physical issues, so we are going to outfit them with trikes. Our 7 yr old daughter has a BMX bike, rides as fast as she can so she can skid to a stop and says she can't wait to ride to work with me. I told her she could come with me one day this summer.

My wife has only recently started showing any interest in cycling. She says she likes the idea of going out on the MUP around White Rock Lake with the kids, so I hope we'll all be hitting the road together before too long.

My entire NYC family rides now. Gave my wife my old MTN beater & she rides it everywhere. Our 2 kids either ride their own bikes in the park or take turns pedaling on the trailer bike.

The 'you're crazy' comments died down this week when the MTA went on strike....

Well, I did it. I bought a BMX Freestyle for my youngest. I only had to listen to the hollering for a little while. It was worth it! :)

Heck, who knows, I may even try to find a used one this spring for myself! Wouldn't that be a hoot! A 46 yr old riding a BMX Freestyle!!

BTW, Acme Bicycle Company in Kansas City is one of my favorite shops. Sara and Christy ROCK!

My brother and I grew up racing BMX. My parents used to ride occassionally with us around the neighborhood. My brother quit riding when he got a car and girlfriend. My parents don't ride often but have comfort bikes still. I still ride my BMX all the time and it is my true love. I bought my wife a descent MTB a few years ago to cruise around with me on my 20inch (term for BMX bike if anyone didn't know). She got into group rides so I bought her street tires and borrowed an old trek roadbike from a friend for me to go along with her. Bought her a descent roadbike after one groupride on the MTB. In my old age, almost 25, my body doesn't handle the 20inch like it used to and with a lack of time lately, I've begun riding the same borrowed road bike to school and work now for almost 4 months. The roadbike is really kind of fun. Never thought I would like one much, however I still go ride my 20inch whenever I get the time. Wife also rides her roadbike to work now in nice weather (read over 50 degrees and sunny) and we ride on the weekends when I can convince her it's not that cold outside.

If a borrowed roadbike has been borrowed for over 3 years, is it mine yet? Haha.

My youngest boys ride with me the most and will do grocery runs and whatnot. Oldest son rides to rent movies and to volunteer on Fridays. Hubby will ride with me so long as the pace is leisurely and the destination includes either a picnic or cocktail. Me, I get cranky if I don't ride most every day so commute and sometimes ride with friends on the weekend. Have full support of spouse, but he'd rather play his guitar than see how fast he can get two wheels to hum down the road. Works for us.

We've got 5 in our family and 6 or 7 bikes, yet mine is the only one used except in the summertime. I'm the only one that uses it for excersize.

My 10 yo daughter likes to ride with me sometimes. I bought her a used '80s Schwinn Caliente road style bike. She's pretty good at it too. She only wants to ride occasionally though.

When I was a kid you didn't have the option of being a cyclist or not. You were a cyclist or else you didn't go anywhere. None of this minivan business back then!

everyone in my family pretty much does their own thing in their own way. i'm actually the last in my own family to get on a bike, but my doing it doesn't have much to do directly with what my brother and sister have done in the past or do now. my 15-year-old doesn't ride, but i don't particularly repine about it or feel like he should just because i do. there's stuff he does that i don't do, after all.

i'm not much of a proselytiser, i guess. it wouldn't surprise me if at some point way down the line in his own life, he did take it up, but i'm ready to bet that he'd do it for his own reasons and in his own way and his own time.

I rebuilt pedals\bearings @ 10 yrs, Dad wouldn't let me use his tools.

@ 12 I built proto-pre bmx jump bikes. Ended badly.

Now I'm 40, wrench kids bmx bolts, friends 'classics'.
5 riders - 16 bikes =frames, corpses ...will make a new rider over Christmas.
I'm building over the holidays, better than mixing..

Dec 26, a bike will be ready..and we will be 6 riders.
Summer kids rides to the beach are RAD!

4130..for the ones we love.