4 kids (about 9 or so) on bikes riding to school!!
 

A couple of days ago, on an early morning ride, I saw 4 kids riding their bikes to school - not together, but a group of 2 and 2 singles, all headed the same direction!!

I almost cried. What is this world coming to? Don't their parents own cars? :)

Oh My God!!! Quick, someone must notify proper authorities, and the media! This must be stopped!!! ;)

For kicks, use googlemaps to check out the route that you used to ride to school. I found that my route to my elementary school was only 1.7 miles long.

My first bicycle commute to school was about .6 miles. 1/3 of it on the busiest road on that side of the state. My second bicycle commute to school was about 1 mile. In Jr. High School it bumped up to 2.0 miles. My second Jr. High was 2.9 miles but I took the bus. Third one was 3.5 miles and I did occasionally ride that. My commute to Prep School was first 12.6 miles and I was driven, then 0.7 miles so I biked, and finally high school was 1.7 miles.

Whats wrong with kids riding bikes to school? Especially in a group. Good for them!

Yes, my post was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek (see the smiley). I guess it did not succeed in being so. Thanks for the reaponse. Kids not riding bikes to school is something we have discussed previously, and we have all hoped that it might happen more often.

A while back when I worked for the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition we were working with several schools on the Safe Routes to School program. Several mornings and afternoons we rode with dozens of kids and parents. The parents' "riding skills" scared us more that the kids. The kids had an advantage over the parents. We taught bike safety classes during PE. :thumb:

Good to know .. lol

It's UNAMERICAN!
Communism!
It's all fine until they have to thread their way through the masses of SUVs and minivans idling at their school. That's just too dangerous to contemplate.

;) ;) ;)

It is great that they ride to school--but they are scary at least some of them because they have no idea of the danger:

Somehow I get back from my rides right when they come out of school and the nice bike path is full of them riding every which ways!

Most often I have to take that bike path on the way or on the way back even for a short 1/2 mile since I live right on the path!

There should be some bike education at school to at least teach them to stay to the right--but with budgets so strapped for money!

These kids must have received eduation of some sort as they were all riding appropriately. I was impressed.

Did they have Backpacks ? so they could tote high fat snack foods and sugery drinks. After all Breakfast is the most inportant meal of the day :p

Maybe two of those parents relocated to my neck of the woods. Yesterday morning my wife and I were cruising home at the end of a ride when we approached an intersection that had stop signs for cross traffic but none for our direction of travel. We slowed a bit when we saw a two bikes coming from our right (slight downhill) just in case... First the father, with a child on a trailer-bike, blew through the stop sign without even glancing for cross traffic. Then the mother, with a child in a trailer, did the same thing.

Lucky for them the cross traffic was two attentive people on a tandem and not a texting zombie in a motor vehicle.

I got your point Denver, well played, sir, well played. The parents will probably be turned in to Child Services for abuse and cruelty now. We always rode bikes to school, Baseball practice, the stores, swimming pool, etc. What a shame that kids cannot enjoy bikes anymore. Some schools ban them as being unsafe and causing risk to students, they claim it would be their liability it seems.

Bill

There was a thread in the terrifying A&S a few years back wherein a woman (I think in Indiana) was being harassed by a local sheriff for allowing her child to ride a bike to school. There have been other situations in which schools have forbidden children riding unattended to school and have even removed the bike racks.

On the bright side, Washington state recently made it policy to not provide bus service to any children who live within one mile of a school that has been found to be safe to walk or ride to. With baby steps we may yet undo some of the damage we have wrought.

Maybe nothing but, before you get too excited, you should observe what happens outside of your local middle school at morning bell time.

holy catfish! (throw hands wildly in air)

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkkkkkkkk!!!!!!!!!(emote like mad)


howl! (stomp feet repeatedly)

The elementary school I used to deliver mail to a couple of years ago didn't even have a bike rack! And it had sidewalks connecting it to the two subdivisions on either side. I never, in the 16 years that I delivered to that school, saw a kid riding a bike to/from school. Kids either walked or were driven (and if you lived in an area without sidewalks, you were bussed).

Growing up myself, once I reached third grade or so, rarely took the bus to school - even in Cleveland Winters. In junior high there was no rack so I chained my bike to the fire escape of the Board of Education building next door. High school - mine ('73 Fuji Special Tourer) was the first bike stolen from that school bike rack in it's 25 year history.

I rode my bike everywhere! There was no "mom's car-pool". Mom didn't have a car. Summer swim lessons? - I rode my bike 3.5 miles with no sidewalks. Mom asking me to go to the store to get milk? - 1.5 miles and no sidewalks. Fresh veggies (mainly corn) from the roadside stands - 2 miles by bike. That's just how we did things back in the '60s! It wasn't until the '70s that our family got a 'second car', and even then I rode my bike everywhere! High school swim practice? - we had to be in the water at 6am. Swimming is a 'winter' high school sport - and I rode my bike to the local YMCA for practice, in the dark, in the dead of Winter. Then on to the school for my 8:20 first class, then home at the end of the day.

Funny thing - I was talking to my 50-yr-old 'kid sister' today who lives out in Newport Beach, CA. She rode her bike to work the other day - and there was only one other bike on the ferry across Newport harbor. All summer it was clogged with kids on bikes going to Junior Lifeguard training. So I guess bike riding is still OK in parts of CaCaFornia...

When I was in 5th and 6th grade I used to ride my bike rather than take the bus, we lived on a farm then. It was 3.5 miles and I could beat the bus by running the gravel road. Then when I started middle school I still took the bike and beat the bus but not by much, it was 6 miles all gravel except for the last 1/2 mile. Now a days, I see kids that live about a mile catch the bus and a few kids walk back about 3-4 blocks to catch the bus rather than walk the 6-7 blocks the other way. Granted 45 years ago things were different, but really?

With all the people talking and texting while driving. Now the Feds will allow states to make marijuana legal... Do you know how many will light up before heading to work? Too many high on prescriptions meds already...now we are going to add to that.

Not a prayers chance in hell I would let my kids ride to school, at least where I live.

Kids these days riding bikes to school?! Ha! We used to ride 10 miles through snow, sleet, hail and thunderstorms and once a F5 tornado, on Huffys over 3 HC climbs!!!! Fer Gawdsakes!

I live in a surf/beach community and bikes are popular. The high school has a huge locked gated bike lot as does the middle school. About 20 minutes before the elementary school about a mile away from my house starts, a parade of kids, and adults riding with the kids, goes by my house. I pick up my granddaughter from school on my new cargo bike.

After school it is a parade of kids, all ages, riding to the beach with their surf boards.......very cool.

Elementary school-.4 mi
Junior high(7th grade)1.8
Junior high(8th grade new town)1.3 mi
High School 1.3 mi
College-4 mi

Let's see

That makes a total of 8.8 miles that you rode over about 20 years? :lol:

Yeah. And I got the waistline to prove it. (BTW-its almost forty years, youngster)